8 X 10 Enlarger: Horizontal use

I have a space in my house which is about to become a darkroom. 75% of what I do is contact printing, but I would like to be able to enlarge 8 X 10 negs maybe 25% of the time. The space has only 7 foot ceilings, but at least 20 feet of straight shot uninterrupted space, so I assume I am looking at horizontal use. Questions:

 

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1. Any reasons that mounting an enlarger horizontally is not likely to give good results, or is such a headache that I should give up on this idea?

 

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2. Any companies/makes esp. suited for horizontal mounting?

 

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3. At the print/easel end, how does one generally guarantee flatness, esp for larger prints (I'd like to be able to go to 30 X 40)?

 

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4. How does one deal with the issue of alignment when working horizontally? I assume the table with the enlarger needs to be fixed. Is the easel usually somehow attached to the table with the enlarger, or do you just line things up really well with a zigaline or whatever at the outset?

 

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5. Any references you'd suggest that speak to this specific issue?

 

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6. Finally, any reasonable alternatives given space requirements and the fact that all I shoot is 8 X 10? (easel on the floor? Seems like you'd hate yourself after about a week of crawling around on your knees!)

 

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Thanks as always for the help!

 

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Nathan

Nathan:

 

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Ansel Adams used an enlarger exactly like the one you have

described. Take a look at his series of books: The Print, The

Negative, and The Camera.

Horizontal enlargers come up on EBay occassionally. A lot of labs are

getting rid of their 8x10's in favor of digital. For example, the

DeVere's horizontal 8x10's. (See http://www.Odyssey-Sales.com/)

 

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At the same time, don't assume that you can't find a vertical enlarger

that will serve, at least for B&W. For example, consider the Zone VI

8x10 w/the short 43" column and the Beseler conversion. (Don't know

about the quality of the latter.) While my Zone VI is at normal

height, I've constructed a free standing base for the enlarger that

allows me to remove a 1' partition and lower the easel table that

distance to 20" from the floor. At this 20" height, I could use a 10"

enlarging lens, achieve a 3x enlargement, and still have my Zone VI

head within 7' from the floor. What kind of enlargements do you want

to make?

 

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On the other hand, with the kind of horizontal space that you have

available, perhaps horizontal is the best way to go.

There are almost always Ansco Studio Cameras on ebay. I think these

could be modified to make an excellent enlarger. You just have to find

one at the right price. Some of the people selling those things have

the mistaken impression they are worth a lot of money. Be patient and

you'll find someone who just wants it hauled away. But be warned: I

might beat you to it.

Nathan, Omega makes/made a first-quality mirror which fits below the

enlarger lens and projects the image 90 degrees onto the wall. This

is by far the best technique short of having a dedicated horizontal

enlarger.

Nathan, my experience with this sort of thing has been limited to 4x5,

so I'm not sure how much of this is applicable to you...but do you

already have an enlarger, or are just shopping now? In our old

darkroom, we made murals with sort of a "poor man's horizontal

enlarger", an old Beseler MX tilted horizontally. We projected against

a 4x8 plywood sheet that ran along a garage door track overhead. There

was a sheet of gatorfoam attached to the plywood, and we would use

thumbtacks to hold the mural paper in place. This was for murals

though, a 30x40 really isn't that big. We now farm all the murals out,

but we still make prints up to 20x24 in house. We have one enlarger

set up on a drop table, if we need it. In a few extreme cases, we've

had to redo this mural setup in our new darkroom. It was originally

designed for murals, so it's really big. This has been a major pain to

do, but we've projected the image against this false wall we have, and

basically just measured it off & used levels to get it squared up. I

think a laser alignment thing would be a huge plus...again I'm talking

about big, big prints here. A 2 person job. Alot of enlargers will

offer extensions for the focus knobs, etc. So this makes it easier.

Another option (besides an old studio camera) might be to look for a

used horizontal stat camera to work with. I'm not sure what you'd have

to do to get a light source/carrier rigged up though.

Horizontal was a common configuration for large (8x10 and up) format

enlargers. Durst and Devere made (still make?) such machines. These

tend to be very high end and costly. With the increasing use of

digital, you make get lucky and get one of these used at a good price.

 

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I would guess that the negative carriers sandwich the negatives

between glass and that the print is held in position by a vacumn

easel. These enlargers usually have tracks to keep everything in

alignment.

 

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The equation for the separation between negative and print is d_tot =

f * (m+1)^2 / m. For f=300 mm and m=4, you will need 1875 mm = 6.15

feet. Allowing room for the enlarger head, it won't fit vertically in

7 feet. The other possibility would be to use a wide-angle enlarger

lens, e.g., if you could find a 240 mm lens that will cover 8x10, you

would only need 4.9 feet between negative and print.

I've played with Bill M's idea - it worked - but would recommend a

prism over a first surface mirror. When new a prism is no better

or worse than a mirror, but they're easier to keep optically perfect

over time. Some process cameras used just such a prism to

save space, so a little dumpster diving may get you what you

want for no or little cost. Otherwise, a simple 45° prism will

work, but you will have to invert the neg in the carrier to avoid a

mirror-image print.

how much money do you have?

 

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http://www.eseco-speedmaster.com/

Hey, that's not a bad idea...according to my ESECO catalog here, the

AF 1010 has a 20 ft. track.

now all you'll need is an "engineer Fred" cap...

 

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aren't they beautiful DK? The factory is about 40 miles north of

where I'm sitting...

additionally ... The HPU device mitch mentions is a first-surface

mirror so it's a fragile sucker. It comes with a leather sock to

protect it. It's adequate for poster prints with some fine-tuning.

It's no substitute for a horizontal enlarger. Stephen Shuart had a

gaggle of these NIB for cheap. Might check with him.

Trib, I've never seen the factory, where is that, Oklahoma?? But, I

have had some experience with their customer service, which was

top-notch. We've got a densitometer they made, and the thing's built

like a tank. We've got one of their revolving doors too, I'd love to

have one of their package enlargers, but man, we just can't afford

that stuff on state budgets....the funny thing about our new darkroom

is that it was designed like 15 years ago (before my time) as a mural

darkroom. The room is huge, bigger than our studio. But they only

budgeted $200 for a "horizontal" enlarger. Where on earth are you

going to find one for that? An overhead projector maybe, I don't know.

I'll bet the ESECO model costs at least 25K, geesh, don't get me

started here....ESECO makes great stuff though.

yeah DK, Eseco is in Cushing OK... which is just a few miles north of

OKC on I35. I've used their densitometers too... the old tube style

and man, it is a tank. Like you, I can only drool and dream about

chugging 'round the darkroom on rails on one in my engineer fred

hat... I think I'd paint it the new BNSF pumpkin scheme and pretend it

was a Dash-9. I can envisage a negative carrier tender coupled to

it's butt.... choo choo!

 

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probably costs as much as a dash too....

Nathan,

I use an old (really old) Elwood 8x10 enlarger for both floor use and

horizontal use. It is a huge beast, but it is fairly easy to flip it.

Yeah, I crawl around on the floor for the smaller prints, but a piece

of foam padding or a short stool helps. Believe it or not my back

hurts less from this kind of work than from normal counter-height

printing. (Less repetitive.) For horizontal work, I project panoramic

negs that are 6x12cm on up to 11 inches long, using a 240 G-Claron

lens for all of them. Images are 14x42 or 18x36. The homemade wall

easel hangs from the ceiling and is moveable on wooden tracks, so I do

my size adjustments by moving that, not the enlarger. Alignment is not

at all critical. It seems less critical the larger you go. I just

measured the four corners of the easel with a tape measure from the

lens. I test for grain focusing by doing small test prints in 6

different parts of the projection (too dim to really see it, even with

my excellent grain focuser). I highly recommend Agfa Classic MG fiber

paper in rolls --- I cut 25x50" pieces and tape them to the easel with

black photographic tape - it holds it fine and does not tear the paper

when removing it. This warm-tone paper lies flat, even hanging on the

easel.

If anyone has an old Elwood they will probably pay you to take it

away!

Nathan,

Keep it simple use a 210mm Componon S enlarging lens on a vertical

enlarger covers 8X10 for my use, even a 8x10 converted 45MXR or Durst

with a color head or cold light head needs little head room.

Besides a horizontal solution can become very complex.

Andy

210 seems to me a little short, but already a 240 works fine. I

measured the distance between film and easel with the 240 lens for a

24x30 inch print from 8x10 to be just 4 feet.

my glass plates negatives are 10x16 inches and it was easier for me to take 2x4s and make a bracket in one of my windows i removered to hold the glass plates -did that work first then on the inside i attached a huge bellows from and old graphic arts copy camera--tied it up on the wall then took my wooden table and pushed it under the bellows and attached it to the wall then from the center of the bellows -found the center of the table -and drew a line from the front of the table to the wall-on that line i drilled 1/2 holes every 3 inches -oh yes when attaching the table to the wall used a level to level the table and nailed it into place but i used screws not nails.The line was drawn because the bellows had to move to and fro so i got a 5 foot long 2x12 centered it on that line and added sides to help it track back and forth -in the 5 foot long 2x12 at the center or 2 1/2 feet spot i drilled a 1/2 hole in the center of the 2x12 i could lock it in place after focus using a 5 inch nut and bolt-just in front of this point on tyhe 2x12 i attached a 12 inch wide 2x6 with screws and this serves as the base that i attached the front lens standard that i robbed from the graphic arts copy machine-i used wood as it allowed me to use my level when i had to at the oppsite wall 15 feet from this table i set up a tripod and with attached lazor i centered on the front of the table up to the center of lens by moving the red dot up and down -when i was satisfied i was directly in front of the lens -i adlusted the lazor down to the floor and marked the spots and made a .straight line The line was necessary becuase it will help you lay down straight 2x4s at the base and build up so you can make a longer track to attach to your table -this track of 2x4's may be 10 feet but you build up from an unlevel floor to a straight level track to match the height of your table attached to the wall.Limbetr is cheap -the level is from harbor fright -after you build this track you can add a focusing table made from a 4x8 sheet of plywood cut down to 30 by 40 inches or what evrsize you want -i amke photographic emulsions and prefer to print on canves covered masonite -at no time do you have to use fancy rollers -design your focus board to slide and lock it in place - if you use peg board that has holes painted white to focus on add 1x1's around the border on the rear of the pegboard and then seal with cheap 1/4 plywood then attach a vacumm hose and it will suck your paper or film onto the board and hold it while you expose it-if you need more ideas email me at takermaker@aol.com my web site is takermaker.com