enlarger alignment

[chris_jordan]

Hi folks,

 

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Just wondering if someone has a good procedure for enlarger alignment, without the use of that special tool sometimes used for aligning Omega enlargers. Thanks!

 

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Chris

[doug_paramore]

Chris: Here is the method I have used for years and it works with no

problems whatsoever: First, get a small level and level the enlarger

baseboard on the table, side to side and front to back. Use wood or

cardboard shims to get the baseboard level. Second, insert an 8x10

sheet of glass into the negative stage and lower the head to hold the

glass tightly. You may want to tape the edges of the glass to protect

yourself. Lay the level on the glass and level the negative stage

side to side and front to back. Then place the level across the lens

flange and level the lens stage. Recheck all, and the enlarger should

be in good alignment. Now take a fine tip felt tip black pen and draw

lines either on the piece of glass or a clear negative from side to

side, front to back and corner to corner. Now place the glass or

negative in the enlarger and check the focus with the lens wide open.

It should now be sharp overall. You may need to stop down to bring

the corners into sharp focus, depending on the lens. If the corners

are slightly soft with the lens wide open, they should be equally

soft at all four corners. This should do the trick for you.

 

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Regards,

[david_willis]

I haven't set up my 4x5 enlarger yet--still cleaning the basement,

but when I had a Beseler 23C II, I put a piece of graph paper in a

negative carrier and projected that on to the baseboard and measured

the distance between the lines. If the top and bottom distances were

the same and the left and right side distances were the same, I

considered it aligned. I put a negative in to check and found all

four corners and the middle in focus.

 

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Dave

[matthieu_levi_strauss]

The Peak focuser (model 2000, which allows to check the focus in the

corners) is, in my opinion, a simple and efficient way of aligning

enlargers.

The enlarger is properly aligned if the grain of the emulsion is

simultaneously sharp in the four corners. The advantage of this

method is that it relies directly on the most important criteria of

alignment: sharpness throughout the entire surface of the negative.

Moreover, it also gives information on the quality of the enlarging

lens at the chosen working aperture; field curvature is, for

instance, evident if the four corners, on the one hand, and the

center, on the other hand, are not simultaneously sharp. I have, for

instance, two samples of the same enlarging lens (105 mm rodagon) and

I discovered, using the Peak focuser, that they were quite different,

wide open, in term of field curvature.

Another advantage of this solution is that it does not involve an

additional gadget since a grain focuser is anyhow essential. One

should lastly note that the Peak (all metal) is a much nicer object

than the usual all plastic grain focusers.

 

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regards, Matthieu

[duane_kucheran]

Another contributor to these pages describes a procedure using two

mirrors in this document:

 

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http://members.rpa.net/~choffman/darkmeasure.htm

 

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I haven't made the mirror with the hole in it yet but it looks like

the method should work quite well.

 

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Cheers,

 

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Duane

[dick_bennett]

Hi, I have had good luck with the laser method. The real surprise

was finding large differences between easels. Some of these were

greater than any enlarger alignment problems. Don't forget to check

these rascals Dick