Yoda and ET caught on film

[P C Headland]

Some time ago I snagged an almost mint Minox III with and equally mint separate meter, both in cases, for a pretty good price. I didn't buy it so much as to shoot with, more of a curiosity. I previously had a Minox EC when living in Europe, shooting some colour and B&W with it. Film and processing was readily available back then. Nowadays, not so much, and the cost of landing Minox film here isn't worth it.

Of course, not shooting it became less and less of a reality, seeing it sitting there.... So, time for a bit of self-loading.

I got a couple of 3D printed cassettes & had a slitter 3D printed to slit my own B&W. I sacrificed a short roll or two of 35mm film to practice slitting and loading. The slitter required a bit of fettling so as not to scratch the film. It's still not perfect, but I seem to have reduced the scratches. I also had a 8x11 reel 3D printed at the local library that fits my Jobo tank.

I wasn't really expecting I'd get any usable images from this test roll, but there must have been some alignment in the force. There were still some horizontal scratches, but I managed to clone them out semi-successfully. Given I had some success here, that now means I'll have to try a little more seriously next time.

I meet these two chaps on my lunchtime walks, the work of a local artist who makes some interesting sculptures out of bits of scrap metal.

The film was Ilford Pan F+ developed in HR-DEV 1+49 (IIRC, I forgot to make a note). Scanned using my Panasonic G9 with 45mm macro and a home-made black card mask in a Kaiser FilmCopy camera scanning kit I picked up for a good price not so long ago. It came with a full set of masks from 35mm up to 6x9. A beautifully made bit of kit, just like the little Minox.

[Julio1fer]

Well done, getting your Minox to work again, they are mechanical jewels and the lenses are excellent. Hats off to your dedication! Probably with practice the slitting and scanning will become easier. I have looked at some Minoxes locally but decided not to get into a new process.

Grain is very fine in these shots, that film and developer combo seems more than adequate.

Funny sculptures!

[PFMcFarland]

Many years ago, I messed around a bit with a Minolta 16 with thoughts of getting a Minox further down the road. I didn't really care for what the 16 produced, and for the price that Minoxes were going for back then I didn't feel like it was worth the trouble, seeing as I would have it in an industrial environment that could be detrimental to the longevity of the camera. But as your photos prove, Paul, it would have been a definite improvement over the Minolta. I might have done okay with one of the Q series Minolta's, but that's all water under the bridge now.

PF