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B&W Darkroom Advice


svsjr

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Greeting Photogs! I'm not sure where to post this but I've read some good info in this forum so here goes:

 

I have strong intentions on getting back into B&W darkroom work as a project with my kids. So much so that I've gotten my hands on what appears to be an unopened, still in the box Durst M605 Enlarger. I have many questions but I'll start with: 1) It doesn't have a lens - recommendations for an affordable quality lens that won't be too hard to find? 2) Where to look for good prices on supplies like a timer, chemicals, paper, etc? Just go to Amazon or B&H for this stuff? Any and all advice will be welcomed and thanks in advance!

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Look around the auction site for things like lenses and lens boards, negative carriers, safe lights, chemical trays. Or ask here in the classifieds. I just got a great deal on enlarger bulbs and will soon be getting a good supply of paper. You'll also be needing a developing tank and reels for film. Recommendations for lens, I always say Nikon enlarger lenses are superb. So are Schneider. Get a 50mm enlarging lens for 35mm film, an 80 for 120 film and a 135 for 4x5 sheet film. I'm not sure if the Durst will do 4x5. Nice find on that by the way. Also look around for auctions for a timer and get a one hour timer too for film developing, Gra Lab I think it is called. Those things last forever and can be used on your enlarger. A simpler way but more expensive is to go to B&H or Adorama or whoever for film, chemistry, paper and anything mentioned above. Well stocked and reputable. I know where you are coming from, I'm rebuilding my darkroom and use film now at least as much as digital.

 

Rick H.

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If you are in a hurry, and don't mind the prices, the usual stores have plenty of supplies.

 

You can get many useful items for low prices on eBay or shopgoodwill.com.

In the latter case, you can find a nearby store, pick up the items, and save shipping costs.

 

There is also your local freecycle, where you might find some for free.

 

There are plenty of EL Nikkor lenses for reasonable prices, with or without a lens board.

 

Yes, it is usual for enlargers to come without a lens if you buy them new.

Hopefully with a lens board to hold the lens, though.

 

I often see enlargers at Goodwill, though maybe without all the pieces needed.

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-- glen

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+1 for Nikon enlarging lenses. Durst lens boards are different from most other brands and for a 50 mm lens for 35 mm negatives you may need a recessed lens board. If you don't have one, you will find that you won't be able to make very big prints. Nikon enlarging lenses are almost always 39 mm thread. Some older Schneider enlarging lenses may be 25 mm thread, so bear this in mind when you search for lenses/lens boards for your Durst.
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The 605 is a 6x6 enlarger.

 

So the lenses you need are

  • 135/35mm film = 50mm lens
  • 120 film = 80mm lens

It may or may not have the lens boards/panels in the box.

The lens boards you need are:

  • SIRIOTUB, recessed lens board for the 50mm lens and
     
  • SIRIOPLA, flat lens board the 80mm lens.

On the lens board, you need to make sure the lens hole is the proper diameter. I recommend 39mm, rather than the smaller 25mm size, as you have a greater assortment of GOOD lenses with 39mm mount. Lens boards will show up on eBay.

 

 

As for lens

I would do with any of the major brands. Follows are the brands and model:

  • Nikon - El Nikkor,
     
  • Schnieder - Componon-S,
     
  • Rodenstock - Rodagon.

There are other good lenses out there, but these are the majors that I would look for.

For the 50mm lens, look for the 6 element 50mm/f2.8 lens, not the 4 element 50mm/f4 lens. The price difference is not that big. If you print less than 8x10, you may not notice the difference between the f/2.8 and f/4 lenses, but the faster f/2.8 lens is easier to focus.

 

I recommend being patient and watching eBay or Craig's List or the for sale on some of the forms.

First check the completed sales on eBay to see what the lens you are considering actually sold for. Then just watch and be patient. Some are terribly overpriced, ignore them. Good deals will come, but you need to be patient to wait for them. And if any have 'Buy it Now,' and the price is good, BUY IT. If you wait, someone else may buy it first.

BUT, you NEED to look very carefully at the pix, and read the description. If any say fungus, or you see cobweb patterns on the lens (fungus), reject that lens. Fungus does not get any better (likely get worse), and it CANNOT be economically fixed.

 

 

For the darkroom stuff, watch Craig's List. I've seen entire darkrooms (enlarger, trays, timer, chemicals, safelights, etc. etc.) for cheap or even free (just pick it up). Again be patient, and you should be able to find stuff.

 

gud luk in your new project.

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To save money, you can use an 80mm enlarging lens for both 35mm and medium-format negatives. With 35mm, you'll have to raise the enlarger head a little higher, that's all. Depending on the maximum height of your enlarger, you can probably make prints up to 11x14 inches with an 80mm lens and 35mm negative.

 

I actually prefer an 80mm lens for 35mm enlarging. Prints are sharp because I'm using only the center portion of the lens' image circle. The extra height of the enlarger head above the baseboard gives me more working room for burning and dodging, especially when making 8x10-inch or smaller prints. The extra height increases the exposure time, which I also find useful for burning and dodging. It's easier to burn and dodge consistently with a longer exposure. I aim for exposures in the 30- to 45-second range.

 

I use my 50mm enlarging lens only when making very large prints or when enlarging a small section of the 35mm negative (drastic cropping). Occasionally I have used it when printing a very dense (overexposed or overdeveloped) negative, but that doesn't happen often.

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I'd just like to say a big thank you to all of you guys for the EXCELLENT advice! I've thoroughly read each one of your replies and really appreciate your sharing. It's great to know you are all out there for help.

 

As for a status update: I did find and buy a very nice used El Nikkor 50mm lens on Ebay. It's the 6 element 50mm/f2.8 lens. My son and I just finished assembling the M605 and everything appears to be functioning. Even the bulb from 1977 works!. Gary, special thanks on the Siropla vs. the Sirotub lensboard thing because it's not mentioned in the directions.

 

I've done well on Ebay and Craigslist getting used equipment so far, so I'm down to the final chemical purchases. Some final touches on the area I'll be using for the darkroom are needed too.

 

Again, thanks so much!

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The Omega B22 enlarger I now use, I got free from someone who had been given it earlier.

 

First thing I found was the condenser lenses were missing, but there is someone on eBay selling parts to Omega enlargers. Not so hard to fix.

 

The bulb was fine for all my tests, but as soon as I was ready to use it, it burned out.

 

In any case, I got a fine enlarger for a very reasonable price of just the condenser lenses (about $12) and bulb, EL Nikkor 50/4.0 included.

 

The Durst might use a more expensive lamp, but it is still a fine enlarger.

 

Craigslist and freecycle are good places to get darkroom supplies for low prices. Things like trays and tanks, which are often pretty expensive new, but much cheaper used, and mostly don't wear out.

 

There is also a lot of used paper out there, which usually works fine, but you need to test it. I even have some from Goodwill.

-- glen

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OK, used paper doesn't sound right. I think NOS, new old stock, is what it is usually called. Not used, but been around for a while.

 

Some works just fine after 50 years, others die in five. You have to test it to find out.

-- glen

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Some tips for you.

 

Tip1

I think the bulb for your 605 is a PH212, 150 watt bulb. Get a PH211, 75 watt bulb. You may find (as I did) that the 150 watt bulb results in an exposure that is too short (less than 5 seconds) to allow you to manipulate the image with burning and dodging, even at minimum aperture. Going down to a lower wattage lamp would increase the exposure time, to give you more time to manipulate the image. If the 75 watt lamp is still to bright, screw a ND filter onto the lens to reduce the light level even more. I do not think they make a lower wattage bulb the same size as the PH211. I do not see a downside to simply replacing the 150w bulb with the 75w bulb, I did.

 

Tip2

Get a spare bulb for the enlarger, NOW.

Few things are as upsetting as getting ready to print, you turn on the enlarger to focus, and the bulb burns out.

It is 9pm on Sat, and the local camera shop is closed on Sun. So you can't get a new bulb till Mon.

Or you have to order in the bulb online, and wait a week for it to be delivered.

Been there, done that, was not happy.

 

Tip3

You might consider putting a lens hood on the enlarging lens. The hood will block your fingers from touching the front element of the enlarging lens, and putting your finger print on the lens element, as you go to adjust the aperture. I did, and I was amazed at how many times my hand hit the hood rather than the aperture ring. So the hood did it's job of keeping my fingers off the lens element.

 

Tom said something that reminded me of an issue that I had.

When printing small, say a 3x5 print, you have to lower the enlarger head down so low that it may get in the way of opening the easel.

Switching from the 50mm lens to the 80mm lens lets you raise the enlarger, to give you more room between the easel and enlarger head.

This is something to keep in mind, if you ever run into that situation.

So even if you do not shoot 6x6, it might be worth getting an 80mm lens, I did. Besides the 80mm lens are relatively inexpensive today.

 

gud luk and N-joy the toy

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The PH211 and PH212 are the lower priced of the enlarger lamps. They look much like ordinary light bulbs, but have better white coating, and don't have the wattage on the end, where it could affect the image.

 

The Omega B22 uses the PH111, which is somewhat smaller and with a different base. Not so expensive, but usually a little more than the PH211.

 

Some color heads use halogen lamps, which are more expensive.

 

It seems that there is a color head and B&W head for the M605. The color head uses and 85V halogen lamp.

 

I am not sure which bulb the B&W head uses.

 

(Even more, they might have changed over the years.)

-- glen

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Tom said something that reminded me of an issue that I had.

When printing small, say a 3x5 print, you have to lower the enlarger head down so low that it may get in the way of opening the easel.

Switching from the 50mm lens to the 80mm lens lets you raise the enlarger, to give you more room between the easel and enlarger head.

This is something to keep in mind, if you ever run into that situation.

So even if you do not shoot 6x6, it might be worth getting an 80mm lens, I did. Besides the 80mm lens are relatively inexpensive today.

... probably not the case here with the Durst (no problem with mine) but add that some "multi-format" enlargers ask for recessed boards to reduce bellows compression with shortest lenses,-making aperture control a real pain-, or directly have too much compression on the bellows (=unexpected movement during exposure) when making small enlargements...

The good thing on 50mm lenses is that they are f2.8, 80s are f4 at best...

Edited by jose_angel
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The Durst might use a more expensive lamp, but it is still a fine enlarger...

Wrong... at least in Europe, people use Philips Photocrescenta 75watts, which is easily available and the cheapest. (I assume the condenser version).

Edited by jose_angel
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As well as I can tell, there have been different versions of the M605, using different lamps, over the years.

 

The color head, or at least one model of it, uses a halogen lamp, and run by a voltage regulating power supply.

 

I didn't see any reference for the bulb for the black and white head. And it might be different between US and Europe.

-- glen

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... probably not the case here with the Durst (no problem with mine) but add that some "multi-format" enlargers ask for recessed boards to reduce bellows compression with shortest lenses,-making aperture control a real pain-, or directly have too much compression on the bellows (=unexpected movement during exposure) when making small enlargements...

The good thing on 50mm lenses is that they are f2.8, 80s are f4 at best...

 

Jose

I used the Durst M600 with a 50mm lens in a recessed lens board, and I do recall printing small and having the easel hit the head when opening the easel. What I do not remember is specifically how low the head was.

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One thing that will help is to get a few prints from excellent printers as reference images. You will have them for your walls but best of all you will have a direct reference as to what Quality looks like. If your efforts don't approach and eventually match the quality of these fine prints you will have to learn how to do it.

 

As far as gear goes we have seen top quality work from photographers using film/developer/paper/enlarger/lens combinations many say just can't do it. You learn to work with what you have. Some technical limitations may arise but you can work with them. Using the gear as an excuse for poor quality just does not wash.

 

Once you get the workflow so it is comfortable you will be able to produce fine work that will show well, will last and will give your years/decades of satisfaction. Best of all you won't be one computer glitch away from losing it all. A print lasts if you give it basic care. Good luck.

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