I recieved my first 4x5 camera a few days ago as a gift. A coulple days later I found a rusted out omega DII enlarger on the ground in a green house at an estate sale for $4.00. I took it home and after several hours of cleaning and scraping it now looks very ugly but possibly usable. I thought I would have to live with just making contact prints so if I can get it to work it will be a bonus. The enlarger came with no lens, lens board, negative carrier or base. I just want to print 4x5 and need to know what specific type of accesories I will need. I already have darkroom set up for 35mm and 120. Thanks for and advice you can offer.

-- James Grinaker (jimgrinaker@mailcity.com), April 16, 2000

Answers

James , heres a start, www.classic-enlargers.com . You can email Harry when you get to the site and he can help you with just about any thing there is to know about the D-2 ect.. line, good luck, Dan

-- Dan Kowalsky (dan0judy@bellsouth.net), April 16, 2000.

Just a few ideas...

I don't think that the negative carriers should be too hard to find on the used market and shouldn't cost too much.

I got my D2 through a similar arrangement and have since made a couple lensboards out of sheet aluminum spraypainted black. Making them was a rather simple operation and I'll be happy to email you the proper dimensions.

No base? A stable base or wall mount probably wouldn't be too terribly hard to rig up, granted you make it sturdy enough. If you lack the proper facilities to make it yourself, your local machine shop could most likely do the job for a reasonable cost.

In addition to cleaning up the rust and replacing a few broken parts, I made a few custom modifications and the enlarger now works perfectly. Good luck with yours!

-- Dave Munson (orthoptera@juno.com), April 16, 2000.

The DII is a fine introductory LF enlarger. The DII has no crank for raising the head, while the D2 does (Ive heard there are exceptions). You should be able to get everything you need to start printing from ebay and/or Midwest Photo Exchange for a reasonable price. Depending on what focal length enlarging lens you get (you should get at least a 135mm) you may need a lens cone in order to focus a 4x5. I dont know if you need one for 135-I used to use a 162 mm and I did need a lens cone. I fabricated one with a plastic aerosol can cap, tape and glue.

-- Wayne (wsteffen@mr.net), April 16, 2000.

Harry at Classic Enlargers is extremely helpful, but his parts tend to be pricy. Another source is Terry Seaman, the "Darkroom Guy" at photomall.com. I have bought several components from him, and he makes new lens boards if you can't find them elsewhere.

I got my somewhat similar D3 and most of my components on eBay at a huge savings from what I'd have to pay a dealer.

For 4x5, you'll want a lens in the 135-150mm range and the correct lens cone for the lens, which is probably in the 4" to 5" long range. I don't know how critical the lens cone length is to the D2 - someone else will have to answer. (Since my D3 is autofocus, they have to be pretty well matched.) Of course, you'll need a 4x5 negative carrier. And you need to make sure that you have the 6-1/2" diameter condensor set to cover the 4x5 negative. Look at the bottom on the condensor set and see that the bottom condensor is almost to the entire diameter of the housing.

I wish I had a found a $4 D2. It should be a very servicable enlarger. It certainly is the most popular used 4x5 enlarger, and getting parts is probably easier for it than any other.

When looking for lens boards/cones (the flat board is for 50mm lenses), there will be some with a precut hole, most often 39mm, and some that require a lens disc. You get a lens disc with an inner hole that matches your lens, and the disc screws onto the board/cone.

-- John H. Henderson (jhende03@harris.com), April 18, 2000.