JJC 35mm Film Retriever, 135 Leader Film Retriever Picker, 35mm Film Extractor Puller Tools for 35mm Cassettes Safe Films with Lanyard (No Film Included)

I just tried this newfangled thingy and I have to say that I am VERY impressed with it. I was kind of skeptical, but I have purchased other products by JJC and they were good quality, so I gave it a try, and to me, tearing apart a film canister in the pitch black and keeping the film from rolling all over the place is a pain in the butt.Using the Film Retriever is a slightly complex process - requiring the insertion of three leads into the canister and a few steps to get the lead out, but the instructions are well written and the the thing WORKED LIKE A CHARM. The second time you do it, it will take maybe 30 seconds., and I'd much rather spool the film out of the canister than let if flop all over the floor, or surfaces or whatever you have in your darkroom.GOOD PRODUCT!!!

Film leader extractors typically are a pain to use. This one works, every time, period. Great design, just follow the instructions.

I’m in a film photography class so this is really useful but kinda difficult to learn. Once you follow the instructions and try it a few times you’ll eventually get it. And for plastic material its quality isn’t bad. 9/10 for me.

Works perfectly IF the very clear instructions are followed EXACTLY. Excellent quality & a bit delicate as MOST photographic equipment IS. Totally satisfied with this item.

Perhaps I'm just incompetent, but this type of retriever does not work for me. This is the third brand I've bought and I don't have any luck with any of them. I've watched every video on the subject and they still don't work.I've found that I have much better success simply wetting an old piece of film, pulling it into the canister, and pulling it back out once it's clear the two films have surface tension. I have almost a 100% success rate without using any retriever at all.

Saved the day. Tricky at first but worked as intended.

Worked perfectly for the first two rolls I tried it on. When I attempted to use it on a roll of Lomography Turquoise, the vinyl buckled and is no longer usable

One of my cameras died and another I accidentially put non-DX coded ISO400 film in a camera that has no manual ISO control. Meaning it defaulted to ISO 100. So I rewound all the film and swapped it between cameras. Since they're not manual-wind cameras I had to fish the film back out of the canister. This worked like a charm to swap around three rolls of film. I had a little difficulty understanding the instructions initially, but then I played with the tool and it became obvious how it worked, and I was able to retrieve the end of the film every time after that. Super happy with this!