Medium format enlarger - Balck & White

[paul_bien]

Can someone suggest their preferences for a medium format enlarger

that will be used solely for black and white? I'd like the future

prospect of 6X9 but would settle for 6X7. Looking specifically for

ease of use dialing in filters for variable contrast as well as high

quality build..

 

Many thanks

 

Paul

[nikos peri]

Durst M670 VC

[keithdunlop]

I love my Saunders LPL (now by Omega). Rock solid, very smooth rail and focus, and built-in Ilford and Kodak filter sets. It also came out of the box in perfect alignment and has stayed that way for the last 3 years I've owned it.

[gene m]

Beseler 23C with a Dual Dichro head. Cheap, excellent and plentiful.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Paul,<br><br>The Durst M805 is the best 6x9 enlarger i know.<br>For black and white, dial-in filters are not so good. The system of illumination needs to change from condenser to diffusor, which takes away edge sharpness (Callier effect). So for B&W, a condenser head works best, even if that means putting large filters in a filter box.

[jmf]

Interesting. St. Ansel had little good to say about condenser heads and seemed to prefer cold cathode heads (but he wasn't a big fan of PC/VC papers either) I couldn't afford one and was stuck with a Besseler 23c with the standard focusing condenser. I'd try and find the 23C-XL for the longer frame.

[mona_chrome]

Bessler 23c is great and if you can get one, the zone vi VC cold light head is great. One

reason Ansel didn't print on VC paper was that VC paper totally sucked in silver content

back

then and just couldn't perform very well in general. At that time, nothing was better than

Oriental Seagull, which he had been using for some time up until his death. VC papers got

much better by the mid-90's, but I haven't used any for awhile to know how things are

fairing

in the digital age.

 

By the way, don't get a short enlarging lens. An 80mm might cover 6x9, but you should

use at least a 105mm to get better coverage and less likely to vignette. The shorter lenses

look at the negative edges at a greater angle than longer ones. As your negative gets

bigger, and to the limits of the enlarger, this can cause vignettes. With digital so big and

darkroom equipment being unloaded, I wonder if you wouldn't be happier with the bessler

4x5 which you may be able to get pretty cheap.

[q.g._de_bakker]

St. Ansel even didn't like cold cathode heads. He liked a head with a multitude of lamps, so he could dodge and burn using the enlarger head, instead of using masks below the lens. Gave him, St. Control Freak, more control. ;-)<br>Cold cathode heads are pretty useless (difficult at best) to use with VC-papers, since their spectrum is rather biased and uneven.

[mona_chrome]

Generally speaking, cold light is difficult for VC paper, but not the VC cold light heads! Some

of these are better than others. The Zone VI one is the best I have used.

 

Actually, St Ansel was using cold light heads for most of his printing at the end. The enlarger

QG is referring to is the infamous lateral enlarger Ansel designed and built for large size

prints from his 8x10 negs. He did use if from time to time, but was pretty much retired at

least by the late 70's. At that point he showed it to visitors as a bit of an amusement, as it

was quite an interesting device.

[phillip_carpenter1]

There is only one enlarge to my mind thats the devere 504, all you ever want up to 5 x4. Try

and get one with the ilford MG head and control panel, twin 300w bulbs and easy to use. Big

and strong, the very best of British

 

Phil

[don_satalic2]

The Saunders 4550 (4x5) with a color head is outstanding, especially with VC papers. I print b&w almost exclusively and find this to be the best compromise. They show up on eBay all the time, and now because of the rush to digital, they are reasonablly priced. You will eventually want to work with 6x9, and this enlarger can take you all the way to 4x5 for the about same price (on eBay) as the 6x9 enlargers.

[chris_waller]

After using many types of enlargers over the last fourteen years I settled a Meopta Magnifax 4a with Meograde VC head.

[ron_mckinney]

I disagree about the DeVere 504. I have one and, just like the Omega 4x5 machines, it

needs constant realignment. It seems that enlargers that have a hevy head resting on the

negative carrier cannot stay in alignment. For ordinary purposes they may be okay but

when you are printing large (and the lens is close to the negative) and want sharp grain

corner to corner, you will be realigning almost every time you change negatives. I have

the Leitz IC and have had the V35. These are always in perfect alignment. The Focomat

IIC is also always aligned but you have to use the lenses that were made for it. These are

quite out of date now. The corner to corner sharpness of the 60mm Focotar-2 is no

match for that of the 50mm Rodagon-G in a 15x or larger print. I am going to look at

Beseler and Durst machines because the negative carriers snap into position and have little

weight on them so I'm hoping the lens stage and negative stage can stay in perfect

alignment for at least a day or two.

[richard jepsen]

Ron, the last poster, mentioned you must use the Leitz lenses in the 11C. Kienzle Phototechnik's Primos Autofocus 69S is still manufactured and I believe is the same as the Leitz IIC. I understand the firm can retrofit new 50 and 105 optics in your old 11C. You can find them with a google search.