Abstract The photon interaction parameters such as mass attenuation coefficient, effective atomic number, effective electron density, buildup factor have been measured for Fe(NO3)3, V4O2, NaCO3·H2O, C6H5FeO7·H2O and CuCI compounds using 137Ba, 157Gd and 241Am γ-rays sources in stable geometry. The mass attenuation coefficients have been determined experimentally via Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (EDXRF) system and theoretically by using WinXCom computer program. Then, effective atomic numbers, Zeff, and electron densities, Neff, have been calculated by using the mass attenuation coefficients. The obtained values of effective atomic numbers have been compared with the ones calculated according to a different approach proposed by Hine and the calculated ones from theory. Also, photon buildup factors were obtained by changing collimator diameters in the different photon energies. We observed that the buildup factor increased as the collimator diameter increased for all sources used.