Digital camera troubles due to airport X rays?

[american_mama]

Has anyone had a problem with x rays at airport security damaging a digital camera or memory card? Can anyone explain to me what happened to me? If you have little knowledge of digital photography, stop here as the rest of this post is boring, but if you do know how on earth this mystery of digital photography works, please clue me in.

My digital camera was fine on the outbound flight, but my three most recent photos were damaged in some way (all different) after the return flight. It was in my checked luggage, so the only thing I can guess is that airport security xrayed my luggage and caused some damage. Why didn't my camera get ruined the first time? Why didn't my sister's digital camera get ruined as well (she flew with me)? Why only three photos and not all?

At least, at first only three photos were ruined. A day after realizing three of my photos had problems, I foolishly took several more photos around the house, thinking it wouldn't matter. When I wanted to review the photos when I was done shooting, suddenly my whole memory card was unreadable. When I put it in the card reader, I got a message saying the card needed to be reformatted. I called Canon customer service, and the guy seemed to claim "100 out of 100 people" have this problem. Huh? Anyway, file recovery software that I learned about through these boards because of another sad experience let me view a lot of my photos, but some ahve been permanently scrambled.

I tell you, I often hate digital cameras. I've just gotten addicted to the easy delete and instant replay options; otherwise, I would go back to film.

[ellies mom]

X-rays shouldn't have caused your memory card to have gone bad. Sometimes it is just dumb luck. I've had two cards go bad and they both were the cards that actually came with the camera (Olympus in my case). I've never had that problem with any of my other memory cards. When mine went bad, I had the same thing you did. At first it scrambled just a few pictures but then it "spread" and ruined a lot more. Hopefully, you can crop away the scrambled bits on a few pictures. If you buy a new memory card, you shouldn't have the problem any more. Sorry about your pictures, I know that really sucks.

[dhano923]

I don't think the X-Ray did it. Memory cards need to be kept above/below certain temperatures and it's possible the cargo area was too cold. Or it could just be coincidence that the card got messed up after your trip.

[mariza]

I have to agree, I think it was just a coincidence. The idea about the cargo hold being too cold makes some sense though. I've also had a card go bad for no apparent reason. When we were in Hawaii, MIL took a picture of us snorkeling with DD, her first time in the ocean. It was the only picture that I *really* wanted, and of course the only one that came out with DH's face scrambled. Just bad luck :(
I hope you can salvage your pictures somehow.

[kellyotn]

I agree with PP's, too. Sometimes they just go wonky. All you can do is transfer them often to a computer, back up frequently and hope for the best. In the end, I still get TONS more "good" pix with digital than I ever did with film. And, its lots cheaper than developing roll after roll to only get a handful of pix I actually like.

My sister got the dreaded "Your card is empty" message on her 2nd day in the hospital after giving birth! She was able to recover some of the pictures by taking the card to a photo shop, but some were lost. She was crushed.

[Globetrotter]

Just to give you some perspective, before my digital days, I traveled with film. I mistakenly packed it in my luggage and then shot pictures with it. Well, two rolls of film were grainy (Christmas pictures, no less), and I had no idea until they were developed! I ended up throwing away a few new rolls of film,), since I didn't know which ones were affected!

Kris

[californiagirl]

X-rays, such as your carryon goes through: not a problem.
Big honking magnets, such as your checked luggage may be "randomly" selected to go through: not good for computer equipment.