In-cartridge development

[nickandre]

I had the chance to try out a Brooks Pixmat Instant Load Developer. It is quite radical. You leave the leader out of the film cartridge and secure it, then submerge the whole cartridge in monobath chemistry. By rotating the inner spool, it flushes chemistry in between the layers of film, developing and fixing it. I was personally very surprised to see it work. Has anyone tried processing in canister?

 

[tkamiya]

I have seen a similar system in Japan about 30 years ago. I recall the results were quite uneven... That was too many years ago to remember details though. I remember special chemical coming in the kit, but I don't remember if that was single chemical or more than one.

There was also a system where I'd leave the leader out and insert the whole canister into a long and thin black plastic bag. By rolling fingers along the bag, the canister will be dragged down exposing the film, then pour in chemicals to develop and fix. This was not for 35mm but for a much smaller film (smaller than APS). I had much better luck with this one.

 

[Anscojohn]

Agfa, I believe, made a daylight loading 35mm tank which took the film and ran it through a fluid chamber into which one instroduced the chemistry in sequence.

 

[fschifano]

Yes. I have one of those Agfa Rodinax 35U tanks for 35 mm. film. It's kind of a nifty looking gadget, but I've yet to use it. You can find the instructions for it here. There was also a 120 film version of the tank. I've never seen one of those.

 

[railwayman3]

I have both versions of the Agfa Rondinax tank, 35mm and 120. I don't use them regularly, but they do work fine, The film is processed on a conventional reel with normal chemicals, the only difference being the mechanism to wind the film onto the reel in daylight.

The volume of chemicals is less than in a conventional tank (just comes helf-way up the spool, which is held horizontally), so you have to use continuous agitation and watch that the dev and fix are sufficient in their activity for one film. I've not checked, but I doubt that it would be suitable for color processing for those reasons.

I also used (many years ago) one of the mini-tanks where the 35mm film was processed within the cartridge/cassette using a special monobath. I remember that it worked, but not really good enough for regular use. You had to take the film out of its cassette for final washing and drying.

 

[cmacd123]

Japan Exposures site shows a small in cassette processing system on their web site. A local store had a similar device about 30 years ago but I have no idea what the brand was.
Bear in mind that these things want a 20-24 exposure roll to give enough room for the chemicals to get at the film, and obviously you will not be able to re-use the cassette.

 

[brianmquinn]

Kodak had a similar product. The Day-Load tank.
http://www.darkroompro.com/pdf/misc_equipment/kodak_dl.pdf

 

[bsdunek]

My Dad had one in the 60's. The film stayed in the cassette during the exposure, and you used a monobath system. After development & fix, you pulled the film out of the cassette and rinsed it and hung it up. He thought it would be handy when traveling to see what you were getting. He tried it a few times and chucked it. Uneven development was the problem, plus some 'cinch marks'.