I recently purchased an old enlarger (a Sun Ray Mastermate 23) that is in good condition although I want to add some new items to it. I have several questions I was hoping someone answer.

1. The lensboard appears to take 25mm threaded lenses. Who makes (or made) lenses in this mount and which brands have good reputations?

2. The enlarger currently has a No. 1 Photoflood as the light source which is very hot. I would like to change to something else. Is a regular incandescent bulb acceptable and if so in what wattage? Are there better choices for bulbs? This appears to be a diffusion enlarger since there is a frosted glass sheet below the bulb and no condensor lenses.

3. The negative carrier consists of two sheets of glass (3-5/8 by 4-5/8 inches) hinged with tape that I would like to replace since it has encrusted adhesive on it. While I will probably cut some new glass I was wondering if there are glassless carriers available in this size. Any suggestions appreciated.

4. The enlarger was supplied with an Ilex "C" 6.3 Anastigmat lens of which I know nothing. Any information on this lens such as the focal length and quality would be appreciated.

Thanks. I will not even bother asking whether there is a dichroic head available for this enlarger.

-- Bert Krages (krages@teleport.com), May 26, 2000

Answers

Response to Questions about equiping old enlarger

I know Schneider made (makes?) Componon and Comparon lenses in 25mm mounts. Can you make a new lensboard for Leica thread? If it's a diffusion enlarger, you need a reasonable amount of wattage, but a photoflood might be overkill. Try a 150 or 250 Watt enlarger lamp from the photo store. An ordinary bulb will work in a pinch, and with a diffusion system the label on the end won't matter. With condensers you need the better white coating and no label. I'm not aware of any generic negative carriers, and the taped glass solution can work pretty well- that's what I use for odd formats, or if negative pop gets out of hand. As for the Ilex lens, not a clue. Try it and see. The combination of a slow lens and diffusion illumination might make focusing difficult, probably the reason someone installed the big lamp!

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), May 27, 2000.

Response to Questions about equiping old enlarger

The Schneider enlarging lenses certainly used to come in 25mm thread, but only up to 80mm focal length, I believe. This enlarger would need a 105mm lens at least to cover quarter-plate, which is what the size you've described is (plus a margin). So it's likely that the lensboard isn't original anyway. This could also explain the lack of condensers. If someone was trying to use it for sizes smaller than it was designed for, the condensers wouldn't suit the shorter focal length lens, so they could've ditched them and stuck some frosted glass in.

The bad news is, that even if you fit a proper enlarger bulb with an opal finish, it's doubtful that the light will be uniform enough over the full format size. My first enlarger was an Agilux using an opal glass diffuser, and even looking back with fond affection, I can't say that results were even mediocre.

Try it with the existing lens and see, but prepare to be disappointed. Buying a top quality lens might be like trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), May 31, 2000.