DIY Instax Mini Back for 4x5

Hi All,

I finished a fun project a while back that I posted over on LFPF, but thought I'd share here too in case folks were interested. While browsing through a local thrift store I ran across a KiiPix Instax Mini optical phone printer made by TOMY. It's a really flimsy and imprecise contraption. You basically lay your phone on top displaying an image, and press a shutter button on the KiiPix to take an Instax Mini photo of your phone screen. That is, if it doesn't collapse and the shutter actually opens.




But, at its core is a manual-wind Instax Mini film developing transport.



It turns out that by removing the lens/shutter and phone frame, and lopping off a couple of lobes on the bottom, the KiiPix will sit flush on a Graflex film pack adapter. The KiiPix will need a bit of tape and foam to seal it up. The Graflex adapter needs one of the rails filed out a bit to make clearance for the wind knob.



The film plane sits slightly off center, and is set back by about .726".



I used some Velcro to hold the KiiPix to the Graflex adapter.



The unit works reasonably well. The only issue is that you have to remove it from the camera to easily grab the wind knob to eject and develop the film. I may also find a different way to keep the whole thing together instead of the Velcro straps. The whole project took maybe 60-90 minutes to complete.

I'm shooting the Instax Mini at an EI of 800-1200.

Well, that's intersting. Certainly better centered than the LomoGraflok.

You could make an extension crank to fit that hex ejection knob and be able to crank the print out without having to dismount the back. A hole drilled through the knob and crank socket would accept a spring pin to hold the crank in place.

Thanks for sharing this.
I wish there was something like this in 2X3 for my Century Graphic and Graflex XL.
Love Instax film...

Donald-That's a good idea. There's not a lot of clearance between the knob and the sliding locks on the Graflok back frame, but a 17mm or 11/16" socket does fit (albeit not straight on), and does give a better grip to wind it on while on the camera. I think drilling through the wind knob would shorten it's life as there's not a lot of plastic there.

choiliefan-Yeah, I thought about getting a 2x3 for using Instax Mini, since I've seen some posts that the Mini film will fit in a 2x3 film holder with minor modifications to the holder. You still have to reload the film back into an Instax cartridge and run it through another camera to develop it, which is a step I'm trying to avoid.

Here's another picture from yesterday.

If you detach the film rollers and drive from a Mini camera, I don't know any reason you couldn't manually feed a print into the rollers in your dark bag. With care to remove any LEDs, you could keep much of the back intact (the shutter release to start the cycle and the microswitch that stops the rollers when the print has fully passed through). You could even make a feed ramp of sorts to ensure you get the print in the correct position and angle. That would be MUCH easier (IMO) than putting the prints back into a pack and then loading the pack into a camera to process them.

I've been using a Kodak Kodamatic Pleaser II to process the Instax Mini films run through my modified Graflex film holders. It's manually-fed through two rollers easily accessed through the open back. Unfortunately, the rollers aren't quite wide enough to accommodate Instax Wide films.

I think a set of rollers from an otherwise dead Spectra format camera would probably accommodate Instax Wide (or maybe be a quarter inch too narrow like a Kodak). I have two of the cameras, one with a bellows pinhole and the other missing some minor bits (sliders for some of the function switches at the back) -- and neither one is ever likely to have film available again (new Polaroid dropped it). Unfortunately, I can't readily check, as they're in a storage bin somewhere around here...

rjbuzzclick said:

Donald-That's a good idea. There's not a lot of clearance between the knob and the sliding locks on the Graflok back frame, but a 17mm or 11/16" socket does fit (albeit not straight on), and does give a better grip to wind it on while on the camera. I think drilling through the wind knob would shorten it's life as there's not a lot of plastic there.

choiliefan-Yeah, I thought about getting a 2x3 for using Instax Mini, since I've seen some posts that the Mini film will fit in a 2x3 film holder with minor modifications to the holder. You still have to reload the film back into an Instax cartridge and run it through another camera to develop it, which is a step I'm trying to avoid.

Here's another picture from yesterday.

View attachment 305508

Click to expand...

The modified holders never worked for me...

The packs aren't too hard to reload if you peel off the little light seal flap where the film comes out. You just have to keep the pack and 'developing' camera inside the changing bag when running the film through the rollers as I'm not sure if the top slot of the camera is light tight. My intention with this project I was to find a solution where I could eject and develop the film right after I shoot it without any intermediary steps.

What about mounting the back to a meniscus-lensed Kodak Autographic (or at least an old brownie)? Although I imagine the stock shutter would be awfully slow for an EI 800 film.