Black and White enlarger for 120 film

Michael Batten

Michael Batten

Suspended / Banned
Messages
761
Name
Michael
Edit My Images
No
Good evening,

I asked a couple of weeks back about developing at home and got some great advice. My question now is where does one start for looking at enlargers? Is there an untapped source of information that I have missed?
 
@Michael Batten

Nope, there aren't that many people actively wet printing and posting about it, the questions about wet printing don't come up that often, everybody's a scanner.

I've jacked in scanning, I'm just printing B/W :).......whilst I'm not the most experienced wet printer, I'll give any question you ask a shot till one or any of the crusty man and boy printers comes along :D

Enlargers - what size negs will you want to print and how big do you want to print them, cut paper goes up to 20 x 16 I think, any bigger and it comes on a roll, not 100% certain on that I don't go bigger than 12 x 16 which is close to A3.
 
Last edited:
Well if you live near south Bucks, I have a Rollei enlarger RDE that goes up 6X7 and have neg mounts for 35mm, 6X6 and 6X7...it's for colour or B\W. My son's or grandchildren are not interested in film and I doubt I'll ever use it again.
 
When I first read the post, I wasn't sure if the question was

a) where do I go to buy an enlarger?
b) what do I need to look for/consider when buying an enlarger?
c) what do I need to know to actually use an enlarger?

I didn't reply because of my confusion; but if I had, I'd have gone for option c or b (in that order).

I scan and inkjet print now, but my enlargers are still set up in the darkroom and I have printed that way for a few decades. Until it me that decade in fact...
 
I wet print these days, got lucky on here and picked up a nice 5x4 LPL Enlarger for very little. Took me a while but I'm getting the hang of it after a few years. Best thing is to see if you have a collage or a commercial dark room you can rent, or be taught. Doing it from books and guess work, whilst fun will burn through paper very quickly.
I was lucky that my enlarger came with lots of outdated, but still useable paper to practice with.

Mart
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

@joxby At the moment I am shooting 120 film so 6x6 negs at the moment and I think that the sizes that you mention would be about the right size. I don't have the room to be printing off rolls.

@Andysnap thanks for the link, I had actually been looking at SDS this afternoon but there is no information with any of the enlargers just a picture and price.

@excalibur2 I'm in Dorset so not a million miles away, what price would you like for the enlarger?

@StephenM Sorry it was rather vague, I was hoping that someone would just say look here for everything you need to know. I think that it's information about what to look for when buying an enlarger then what do I need to know. Books to read or websites to visit. Youtube has a decent selection of videos to watch. Google is amazing for most things but when I try and look up enlargers I end up in discussion boards where everyone is arguing about what's wrong with said enlarger.
 
Well Michael how does this sound at a guess:- Enlarger + 3 boxed neg holders, two boxed lenses Nikkor 50mm, Durst Neonon 80mm + timer + developing tank + quite a bit of B\W paper but have no idea if it's still usable + probably have a safelight bulb or two...all for £70 + del tracking cost. If you want I'll throw in a boxed Minolta Hi-matic AF D camera for free to play with (can't remember if I've tested it as I found it at the back of the cupboard).
 
Last edited:
excalibur2 said:
Well Michael how does this sound at a guess:- Enlarger + 3 boxed neg holders, two boxed lenses Nikkor 35mm, Durst Neonon 80mm + timer + developing tank + quite a bit of B\W paper but have no idea if it's still usable + probably have a safelight bulb or two...all for £70 + del tracking cost. If you want I'll throw in a boxed Minolta Hi-matic AF D camera for free to play with (can't remember if I've tested it as I found it at the back of the cupboard).
Click to expand...

Thanks Brian, would you mind if I get back to you tomorrow on that. Sounds like a really good deal to me, have you tested the enlarger recently?
 
On enlargers: The maximum negative size is partly a design decision that can't be altered, and partly a configuration issue. I'll come back to that in a few moments.

An enlarger works like a projector. You shine a light through a negative, pass the image through a lens and focus it on the paper to make the print. Getting even illumination is the key; and enlargers come with 3 different types of light source. You probably won't find a cold cathode (colour changes as it warms up, matters if printing with colour sensitive paper) so I'll pass over them. The big choice is:

condenser - higher contrast, greater sharpness, better able to show dust and scratches.
diffuser - lower contrast, less sharpness, better at concealing defects.

If you have an enlarger with a colour head (can dial in different coloured filters for both colour printing and black and white with variable contrast papers) then it will be a diffuser (in the vast majority of cases).

A condenser enlarger may have a filter drawer to let you use gels as with a colour head, or may require you to mount filters below the lens (flare and sharpness issues).

In both cases, different negative sizes call for a matched diffuser or condenser system. I have a Philips enlarger that can take 6x7 negatives, but only have the condensers to print 35mm. I have Durst and LPL enlargers for which I have condensers and diffusion boxes to handle smaller and large size negatives.

Other features: tilting the lens board to correct converging verticals. This leads to depth of field issues, and if you can tilt the negative carrier as well, you can avoid the problem (that's more advanced theory etc., but you might as well know why some enlargers have this feature). The downside is making sure that everything is perfectly parallel when you need it to be so.

Ease of focusing when the enlarger is at the top of the column is useful. If you have to reach up to the lens height when making a large enlargement with your eye on a focusing magnifier, you'll realise how useful the design of De Vere enlargers is in practice, with a focusing wheel at the baseboard, or the Durst method of an attachment to turn the focusing wheel from a distance.

I think that that's the major point covered. If you can download Ctein's Post Exposure (free pdf when last I looked) you'll learn more than you need to know about some of the finer points. For black and white printing in general, I still recommend Carson Graves' Elements. Colour is a whole new world.
 
I've had two enlargers which I was given for free. The first was from a contact of a flickr contact;and the second was from another member at the local camera club. I also saw one,apparently working, going on the tip recently.

So there is quite a good chance you could get one for free, if you live in an urban area with enough old long-term photographers around who have converted to digital. You could try posting a wanted ad in your local freecycle.org group; you have nothing to lose.
 
excalibur2 said:
Well Michael how does this sound at a guess:- Enlarger + 3 boxed neg holders, two boxed lenses Nikkor 35mm, Durst Neonon 80mm + timer + developing tank + quite a bit of B\W paper but have no idea if it's still usable + probably have a safelight bulb or two...all for £70 + del tracking cost. If you want I'll throw in a boxed Minolta Hi-matic AF D camera for free to play with (can't remember if I've tested it as I found it at the back of the cupboard).
Click to expand...

Brian, perhaps better put that on a classifieds thread? Even if free, I believe!
 
Michael Batten said:
Thanks Brian, would you mind if I get back to you tomorrow on that. Sounds like a really good deal to me, have you tested the enlarger recently?
Click to expand...


Well there is nothing to go wrong, but will test to see if the projector bulb and timer is working.
 
Last edited:
Kevin Allan said:
I've had two enlargers which I was given for free. The first was from a contact of a flickr contact;and the second was from another member at the local camera club. I also saw one,apparently working, going on the tip recently.

So there is quite a good chance you could get one for free, if you live in an urban area with enough old long-term photographers around who have converted to digital. You could try posting a wanted ad in your local freecycle.org group; you have nothing to lose.
Click to expand...

...but two enlarging lenses plus dev tank plus camera plus timer should be worth £55 selling on ebay separately :rolleyes: the digital guys are playing with enlarging lenses for cheap closeups.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Brian, I have sent you a PM or started a conversation if that's the same thing.
 
excalibur2 said:
...but two enlarging lenses plus dev tank plus camera plus timer should be worth £55 selling on ebay separately :rolleyes: the digital guys are playing with enlarging lenses for cheap closeups.
Click to expand...

I should have said that the first enlarger came as part of a complete kit including film drying cabinet, RC paper drier, fibre paper dryer, developing tanks, dishes, blackout materials, two lenses, two timers, two exposure meters, and hundreds of sheets of paper, all for free. It all felt rather like winning the lottery :)
 
Kevin Allan said:
I should have said that the first enlarger came as part of a complete kit including film drying cabinet, RC paper drier, fibre paper dryer, developing tanks, dishes, blackout materials, two lenses, two timers, two exposure meters, and hundreds of sheets of paper, all for free. It all felt rather like winning the lottery :)
Click to expand...

.....that's my philosophy i.e. try and get something for nothing (or close) (y)

But I've never seen a decent enlarger at a boot sale yet, so they must be giving them away.
 
Last edited:
still waiting for a de-vere to come up for less than £300


*waits*



:tumbleweed:
 
joxby said:
still waiting for a de-vere to come up for less than £300


*waits*



:tumbleweed:
Click to expand...

IIRC enlargers that went above 6X6 went for silly prices and the Rollei was the best compromise at the time for up to 6X7.
 
Most of them are up to 6x7, which makes the 6x8/9's of the fuji RF's, quite a few old folders and even a Clack, a bit awkward to print, I'd like to think it was a sales ploy but I suspect it was a manufacturing/design limitation, I dunno.
The scanners didn't seem to stop at 6x6/6x7, most of them that scan 120 go to 6x9.
So if you wanna print 6x9 optically, its a 5x4 enlarger :(
I might try a 6x9 on my LPL, dunno if the lens will cover it, maybe it will with a pile of light fall off at the corners...
 
My Durst M805 goes up to 6x9, as did my first enlarger, the Photax Paragon.
 
Thanks @stevelmx5 but that's rather a long way from the south coast, thank you for posting though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top