Requin
Established
Tis lab box is w a y too expensive.
Bille
Well-known
Generation retard? Just get a devoping tank like millions of photographers before.
Freakscene
Obscure member
There is no need to be insulting.
If you don’t have a dark space, to load a tank with regular reels you also need a change bag or some other way of keeping things dark to load the reels before you put them into the tank. The Lab-Box, like a Rondinax, means you have a dark space when you buy your developing tank.
You can also reliably do manual constant rotational agitation in a Lab-Box, which if you try with a regular tank pretty much always creates surge marks unless you have a roller base, which brings the price pretty much to even with the Lab-Box. If you have very large areas of even tone, that is the best way to make sure they come out 100% even.
And if you don’t like it, don’t get one, but please don’t suggest that someone who does want one has something wrong with them.
Marty
Solinar
Analog Preferred
Back in the days before the internet, when I was living in an RV trailer. I had a Rondinax 35U. It worked well and took up less space than a light-proof, changing bag.
The key issues was the need to rejigger your ratios of developer to water a bit for the 200ml capacity of the Rondinax and reconfigure the published development times for continuous agitation. No biggie on either.
If I recall correctly used a 1:40 ratio of Rodinal to water at the time.
Is the new evolution of the Rondinax design overpriced? Well, I now have a Jobo 2400 daylight tank, which at the time I purchased it - the Jobo definitely seemed overpriced when compared to a conventional Paterson tank.
By the way, Bellamy Hunt has posted a review of the Lab-Box. It looks like the tank has sprouted a crank, since I last saw it. (See Below)
https://www.japancamerahunter.com/2019/06/photography-ars-imago-lab-box-monobath-review/
The key issues was the need to rejigger your ratios of developer to water a bit for the 200ml capacity of the Rondinax and reconfigure the published development times for continuous agitation. No biggie on either.
If I recall correctly used a 1:40 ratio of Rodinal to water at the time.
Is the new evolution of the Rondinax design overpriced? Well, I now have a Jobo 2400 daylight tank, which at the time I purchased it - the Jobo definitely seemed overpriced when compared to a conventional Paterson tank.
By the way, Bellamy Hunt has posted a review of the Lab-Box. It looks like the tank has sprouted a crank, since I last saw it. (See Below)
https://www.japancamerahunter.com/2019/06/photography-ars-imago-lab-box-monobath-review/
Steve M.
Veteran
That's a great article you linked us to in your post Solinar. Thanks! Lots of good photos, so we get an idea of what that monobath film is capable of. I especially liked the "spit" idea for retrieving film leaders that have been rewound into the can. In the past I've gotten surge marks using a Paterson tank and twisting the reels continuously, so I threw that little rod away years ago and haven't had surge marks since. This tank seems to have solved that problem.