Does anyone know about the Durst Filmetta 230 Processor?

[andrewmoodie]

I've seen a couple of them on ebay and on Durst's italian site www.durst.it but nowhere else.

It looks like a nice, compact unit. There's a picture of it and a bit of info here:

http://www.jebsen.com/English/piod/durst.asp#filmetta

If anyone out there has one I'd love to hear their thoughts on it.

Thanks.

Andrew

 

[edz]

I've seen a couple of them on ebay and on Durst's italian site www.durst.it but nowhere else.

It looks like a nice, compact unit. There's a picture of it and a bit of info here:

http://www.jebsen.com/English/piod/durst.asp#filmetta

Its an automatic rotation processor that can support good timings but, unfortunately only 3 very small baths (max 320ml) and an effective maximum of 2 rollfilms per run. Because of the small chemical volume and small diamter of the tank (on the scale of the Jobo 1500 series) its probably better to even keep to either chromogenic films or to 35mm. Because of these reasons its real strength is doing 3-bath E-6--- unfortunately also, IMO, somewhat inferior to the 6 bath. What's nice about the unit is that its automatic and even uses the water from the heating bath to wash film so the idea was pretty cool but they just made it a bit too small... If the tanks were at least 500ml and... then again there is such a unit.. available from Meteor-Siegen... And I think Durst too sold a larger brother.. These babies never really caught on since the most work in processing is getting the film onto the reels (the 3'15" of developer is the fast and easy bit to get right)... and here some of the roller-processor machines make life very simple... and don't have the capacity limitation.. and and and... Throw in the balance the lack of replentishment.. the limit to 3 baths.. so no separate bleach and fix for C-41 and no real NP (No-plumbing) process support (no room for a super-stabilization baths) and you a a great unit that is very very limited in its use. For B&W I'd keep to an inversion tank or do with a Jobo 2500 series drum if you want to do rotation.. but colour.. doing some fast diapositive transparencies (although these days that's widely obsolete)... While nice I think using a dip-dunk style processor like the Nova FPs is probably almost as comfortable (for all but perhaps single film processing) and much more flexible.. Oh.. well probably explains why Durst, Tetenal and others are dumping them..

 

[cybister]

Durst Filmetta aka Tetenal Filmlab 1

It looks like a nice, compact unit. There's a picture of it and a bit of info here:
http://www.jebsen.com/English/piod/durst.asp#filmetta
If anyone out there has one I'd love to hear their thoughts on it.
Thanks.
Andrew

Hi Andrew,
last year some friends of mine (and myself, too ;-)) bought some of these small wonders because they are quite cheap nowadays.
Our primary target was the E6-process, here: TT-3-bath Kit. Works flawlessly, also C41 (TT, 2-bath). One of the nicest features of the Filmetta is speed: due to the small-volumed waterbath, the machine is ready within 30 min to process the first E6/C41-films. It needs no plumbing, just plug it in, put the tubes into some containers for waste-chemistry (it separates the chemistry) and you are ready.
B&W-processing works also without any problems, but here you will notice the limitation to a maximum of 320 ml chemistry. For example: D76 and XTOL need 100ml of stock per film. Undiluted: no problems. Diluted: 1 Film...
Thats the only reason I added a ATL2+ to my arsenal.
But for E6/C41 I will keep the Filmetta. Additional drums are quite expensive, AFAIR 180,- EUR, the sheet film holder 120,- EUR. The standard spools are really cheap, they are AP/Paterson style and work absolutely smooth. No fiddling in the darkness...
Ahh, one thing I want to add: it *is* possible to put more than 2 120-films into the drum. Just tape the two films together.

HTH,
Michael