demothballing the minox... Petrified Film

[richard_oleson]

it struck me the other day that my minoxes (minoces?) had been

sitting on the shelf unused for a while and, good as this might be

for longevity, it was not producing many of those cute tiny negatives

(though, to be honest, there ARE those 3 rolls of undeveloped film i

haven't gotten around to yet...)... so, anyway, i grabbed the IIIS

and went down to the Filmofridge and grabbed a roll of Minopan 400.

After waiting a half hour or so for the film to warm up, I opened the

box, loaded the camera and... nothing. The slide wouldn't operate, I

couldn't even close the camera.

 

"Great", i thought, "another microscope-and-tweezers shutter job."

But the shutter didn't LOOK broken, and i couldn't quite visualize

how a broken shutter was keeping the slide from closing... normally,

it just closes and crushes the shutter blades in the process. So i

opened it back up and removed the film, and the camera worked fine!

 

The film, on the other hand, had welded itself into a solid block in

the cassette. I'm guessing that the little plastic box is not

sufficiently tight to prevent moisture from entering and the

cold/warm cycle (or more likely repeated cycles while the film was in

the fridge) had resulted in condensation on the film, bringing out

the best of the emulsion's natural adhesive potential.

 

After about 10 minutes with an Xacto knife and a pair of pliers

(PLEASE don't ask for any more details than that) I managed to get

the film to begin moving. I don't know if it's any good, I expect

there will at least be a number of bad negatives where the emulsion

was damaged... but I don't base my livelihood on my Minox negatives,

so I'm going to go ahead and run it through the camera.

 

The moral, though, is to keep your Minox film in a sealed ZipLock bag

when it's in the fridge, and don't open it until it's warmed up......

 

:)=

[MTC Photography]

This is the first time I hear that Minox film can get stuck due to

moisture buildup inside the casette. <p>

I use to

put my camera, lenses, film inside plastic bags with silica gel pak

when I was in Singapore. The climate over here in Toronto is generally rather dry, I don't do this anymore.<p>

 

I am always behind in processing my Minox film-- I still have about

thirty rolls of Minox film shot in China in September yet to be

developed.

[richard_oleson]

thirty in september! it doesn't sound like your film sits in the fridge as long as mine does

 

:)=