... And time for something a little different. Again. Minox submini...

Godfrey

somewhat colored
Local time
5:00 PM
Joined
Dec 15, 2011
Messages
12,066
It's been an eon, I felt like I was losing some of my photographic roots. So this morning I pulled out my evergreen Minox C, checked the battery and shutter, and loaded it up with a roll of ISO 100 film. Also pulled out a Minox Tripod, made sure I remembered how it all worked, and dropped them into my satchel.

Now to make some Photographs. :D


Minox B and Minox Tripod - Waukegan, Illinois 2021

I'll have to get a similar photo with the C on the same tripod... ;)
 
I've had a weird desire to get into Minox for a long time, and these shots aren't helping, @qqphotos. They're beautiful. It just feels like there's too many hurdles, though...

1) film slitting. Realistically, can you do it in a flat dark bag, or do you need a tent or a proper darkroom?
2) development. Where the hell do you get Minox development gear? Is there a Minox reel that fits in a Paterson tank, or do you need to get a dedicated tank/reel combo?
3) how are you scanning Minox film? What about printing?
 
Film slitting is doable in a changing bag but easier in a dark room. You aren't just slitting you also need to load the cartridges. I tended to slit the film and put it in a paper box. Then dealt with loading the cartridges one at a time.

The minox daylight processing tank is awesome. You literally load the film cartridge into it in daylight. Very easy to do and uses very little chemistry.

I've seen reels for other tanks (including 3D printed options) but with the size of the film they are probably more tricky to load.
 
I've had a weird desire to get into Minox for a long time, and these shots aren't helping, @qqphotos. They're beautiful. It just feels like there's too many hurdles, though...

1) film slitting. Realistically, can you do it in a flat dark bag, or do you need a tent or a proper darkroom?
2) development. Where the hell do you get Minox development gear? Is there a Minox reel that fits in a Paterson tank, or do you need to get a dedicated tank/reel combo?
3) how are you scanning Minox film? What about printing?
I've been doing Minox submini since 1984 or so. I only shoot B&W film, in any format, since about 1998, and never did color in Minox submini at all. For about 20 years or so, I never went anywhere without a Minox in my pocket... and I have a library of about 200 processed rolls of Minox film, many photos from which I have yet to render to finish...

1 - It depends on your slitter. I have several, accreted over the years ... two of them I can manage the whole slit and cassette reload process in a smallish changing bag, the others I need a darkroom or more substantial light tent. (I haven't slitted film in years ... I still have a stock of 20-30 fresh rolls of APX 25 and APX 100 to burn through before I need to slit and reload again...! I used to do a lot more Minox shooting than I have in the past decade.)

2 - The most convenient way to develop Minox B&W film is with a Minox Daylight Developing Tank. It's a daylight loading tank that takes 2 oz of chemistry and can handle 50, 36, or 15 exposure loads easily. It's also very easy to wash/rinse/dry in ten minutes, so practically as soon as you're done with processing a roll, you can be ready to use it again. They're not cheap these days (once upon a time, they were about $100 new, but a quick search on Ebay shows good ones cost more than that now...)

3 - I have not printed Minox film wet-lab style in forty years. I used a custom film holder and a film scanner to scan it starting in the early 1990s, nowadays, I scan Minox submini using a light box and a copy stand/macro setup with one of my Leica cameras. I do the image inversion and rendering in Lightroom, print to an inkjet printer.

Here are a few more Minox submini albums on my Flickr site:


If you're seriously interested in acquiring a Minox submini to use, send me a personal note. I have more Minox submini cameras than I can use, and I think I have at least one spare Minox Daylight Developing Tank, as well as a number of empty cassettes and coffins. I'll hunt up what I have if one or two people have sufficient interest. :)

G
 
Thanks for sharing, @Godfrey. There's some lovely stuff in there. I'll have to have a real and serious think about your offer... do I need more projects and flights of fancy? Not really. But is it tempting? Very much so.
 
They are beautifully made and feel great in the hand. I borrowed one once and was very happy with the results but maybe that was because I took more care!
 
I've had a weird desire to get into Minox for a long time, and these shots aren't helping, @qqphotos. They're beautiful. It just feels like there's too many hurdles, though...

1) film slitting. Realistically, can you do it in a flat dark bag, or do you need a tent or a proper darkroom?
2) development. Where the hell do you get Minox development gear? Is there a Minox reel that fits in a Paterson tank, or do you need to get a dedicated tank/reel combo?
3) how are you scanning Minox film? What about printing?

Thank you!

Slitting with xkaes's slitter from a 35mm roll is easy. I think it would be easy in a bag, too, though you may end up with more dust. I used to load 8x10 (inch!) holders in a bag, though, so maybe my tolerance is higher.

Development is a pain in the ass, imo. There are reels that fit in a paterson tank, they're nicely made and very easy to load, but I've been absolutely unable to get even development with them - they're 3D printed and the film channels are square, not triangular, so some portion of the film is mostly in contact with the channel edge through developing, and the resulting underdeveloped area intrudes far into the image area since the film is so narrow. Others apparently have success with these, so it may just be me.

The original Minox tank actually works very well as far as uniform and consistent development. Loading them the "official" way is only practical if you're using commercially loaded cassettes and don't care about saving them for reuse, I think. I reload my own because it's almost free instead of very expensive, but as a result end up having to tape the film ends into the helical channel when winding it emulsion out on the tank's drum. It's less convenient but works ok. To use the tank the proper way your film needs to be of just the right length and has to be punched correctly at the end, and the cassette gets wet with solutions during processing.

I have not tried analog printing minox film though the tiny enlargers are cute and tempting. I wet-mount the film on glass and photograph it on a light box with a sony mirrorless camera and macro lens. It's not as much of a hassle as it sounds, and it a) gets the film perfectly flat, and b) uses only the dead center of the macro lens's field of view so you get near perfect optical reproduction of the negative. You can wet mount a whole roll in strips at once and just chug through them with a mask in a few minutes. With my 70mm Sigma macro on the sony a7r5 the minox negative gives a 2200 x 3000 pixel file, which is probably sufficient. It would be interesting to try one of the newer Laowa 2x macros though. There seem to be 3rd party minox film carriers for some scanners, too, though, and that would be even less hassle.

I do touch up and editing in lighroom mostly to make exposure and contrast consistent across a set, and print by inkjet when I print at all. It's actually amazing using one for document copying - a letter or A4 sheet full frame (using the measurement chain to get the distance exact) photographed with the minox on high-resolving film like RPX25 and then printed looks like a xerox copy.

I mostly started playing with minox submini cameras on a lark, but there's something about the tiny negative and the rendering that is at least a little bit compelling. The optics are fantastically sharp and you end up "seeing" the characteristics of the film and development in the image much more than with larger formats, and it's a bit like looking through a tiny window at the world.
 
Last edited:
...Development is a pain in the ass, imo. There are reels that fit in a paterson tank, they're nicely made and very easy to load, but I've been absolutely unable to get even development with them - they're 3D printed and the film channels are square, not triangular, so some portion of the film is mostly in contact with the channel edge through developing, and the resulting underdeveloped area intrudes far into the image area since the film is so narrow. Others apparently have success with these, so it may just be me.

The original Minox tank actually works very well as far as uniform and consistent development. Loading them the "official" way is only practical if you're using commercially loaded cassettes and don't care about saving them for reuse, I think. I reload my own because it's almost free instead of very expensive, but as a result end up having to tape the film ends into the helical channel when winding it emulsion out on the tank's drum. It's less convenient but works ok. To use the tank the proper way your film needs to be of just the right length and has to be punched correctly at the end, and the cassette gets wet with solutions during processing.
All of my cassettes were bought as factory film loads. When I slit film and reload them, I simply cut the strips to the original length for the respective number of exposures, and use a nail scissors, small hole punch to shape the ends and put the hole in place so that they fit in the Minox Daylight Developing Tank the way the factory film load did. The fussiest part is getting the free end taped to the take up spool correctly, with thin tape, so that it all fits in the cassette properly. It's really not difficult, just takes a little practice. :)

I have not tried analog printing minox film though the tiny enlargers are cute and tempting. I wet-mount the film on glass and photograph it on a light box with a sony mirrorless camera and macro lens. It's not as much of a hassle as it sounds, and it a) gets the film perfectly flat, and b) uses only the dead center of the macro lens's field of view so you get near perfect optical reproduction of the negative. You can wet mount a whole roll in strips at once and just chug through them with a mask in a few minutes. With my 70mm Sigma macro on the sony a7r5 the minox negative gives a 2200 x 3000 pixel file, which is probably sufficient. It would be interesting to try one of the newer Laowa 2x macros though. There seem to be 3rd party minox film carriers for some scanners, too, though, and that would be even less hassle.
You don't see it in the photos of the camera-scanning on my site, but in actual use I scan the film prior to cutting it into strips (to store in the Minox envelope sleeves). What I do is first polish clean the light box upper glass surface. Then, I make a channel on my light box with two pieces of a 300gsm paper, taping them down with a polished piece of heavy glass on top. This provides a 1.1mm thick channel that the .8mm thick film can pass through, flattening it nicely for copying and avoiding wetting it and getting dust and dirt embedded into the emulsion. To pull it through the channel at first, a thin thread is taped to the end of the film so I can pilot the thread through the channel sandwich and use it to pull the film through without moving the camera or channel position.

I've found the best lens I have for this work is my ancient, 1963 Summicron-R 50mm f/2 (bought for $40 or so). I mount it on the Leitz Focusing Bellows-R and fill a 24x36mm frame as best possible at near full bellows extension (approximately 2.7:1 magnification). This lens has outperformed my Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5, Macro-Elmarit-R 60/2.8, and Macro-Elmar-R 100/4 lenses for copying in the greater than 1:1 magnification range...! With a 24 Mpixel sensor (from my last scanning run in 2021), I get about 21 Mpixels negative image area (5620x3790 pixels); with the M10-M/M10-R 40 Mpixel sensor, that will go up to about 37 Mpixels image area. I do all the inversion and rendering in Lightroom Classic.

...I mostly started playing with minox submini cameras on a lark, but there's something about the tiny negative and the rendering that is at least a little bit compelling. The optics are fantastically sharp and you end up "seeing" the characteristics of the film and development in the image much more than with larger formats, and it's a bit like looking through a tiny window at the world.
Yes...! :D


Selfie GDG - Waukegan, Ill 2021
Minox B, APX100


That one was a touch underexposed and on ISO 100 film ... Normally, I'd use ISO 25 and give it another stop of exposure. But it was a moment's lark and my friend at the table snapped the shutter for me.

enjoy! G
 
Another Minox B photo from my trip to Chicago area in 2021 ...


Bà'hài House of Worship - Willmette 2021
Minox B - APX100


All the exposures from this trip made with the Minox were a bit thin and grainy, it seems, and this was a gray day ... but I like the feel they have. :)

I'm making progress making some new Minox exposures using the Minox C and more APX100, about 12 exposures into the roll so far.

Enjoy! G
 
Love this, Godfrey.🙂

Two things I have been meaning to do, but now that I am alone, left behind, and utterly broken, and working my way through complicated grief, I am looking for something to re-energize my passion for photography. Perhaps one or both of those almost abandoned ambitions (shooting Polaroids/a Minox experience) may be the way I need to go and stop procrastinating.🤷🏼‍♂️

IIRC, ‘Roid week is right around the corner!

Or, maybe there is something else, I haven’t even picked up my M2 in months.☹️
I love these inspirational posts on RFF.

It only takes a spark to light a fire… right?
 
Dave sorry to hear of your loss. I know it can be tough, as I'm facing loss as well. Alzheimers is taking her away from me. I too have not picked up a camera for several months. We will work through it though, won't we. Best wishes....
 
"The price for Life is Death, the price for Love is Loss."

It has been a hard time, these past five months, for me ... and I see I have not been enduring this time of pain alone. Dave, Doug: my heart goes out to you both. I wear the shirt every day... "United We Win!"

Yesterday was a significant day. It was the first day since October 14, 2023 that I went for a walk with my camera again. It felt good.
We will get there together.

G
 
Back
Top