All, Photography

X-Ray of a Hasselblad 500

Emi ((kondens.at)) and I took an X-ray of his Hasselblad 500.

Xray of a Hasselblad 500

From the left to the right:

  • The film back with all the gears and stuff. There is a film in the back, but I was not able to recognize it.
  • The dark area seems to be the shutter and the dark slide
  • The camera body with the crank gear and the collapsed  hood of the viewfinder
  • The lens is on the right but only one glass element can be seen. The others are obscured by the aperture and the shutter.

The most interesting part for me is how much the X-ray exposure darkened the film. In this case a Kodak Tri-X 400. I always thought that X-Ray film is darkened by the light emitting intensifier layer inside of an X-ray cassette and that film alone is not much affected by X-rays it self. Particularly because the film was exposed lateral  from the side and therefore should only have got a “low” X-ray dose.

Xray exposure on Tri-X 400You can see the shadows of the gears on and between the frames. Since this is a negative film the areas where the film was exposed to X-rays the most are the brightest.

Another interesting fact is that security baggage scanners like the ones used on airports are said to be safe for films up to 1000 ISO. So they seem to use a pretty low dose compared to the picture we took.