I shoot only B&W, 35 mm film and wish to make only purchase for an enlarger, lens, and light type. I'm not looking for the basic unit but rather a unit which will provide growth and produce excellent quality prints and ease of use. Please state your recommendations and reasons.

-- Don M (maldos@home.com), November 25, 2001

Answers

Don:

Some would say the best you can do is get a second hand Leica/Leitz Focomat/Valoy enlarger with the original Leitz lens, or a newer Nikon, Schneider or Rodenstock multi coated lens.

My own personal bias is to get an enlarger that will take 6x6 negatives and get a cold light head as the light source. The cold light source overcomes the "Callier Effect" which causes irregularities in the highlight details. Condenser or diffuser sources do not overcome this.

If you use silver based film, this is a real consideration, although some will claim it is not: I beleive Ansel Adams and MY eyes.If you use C-41 type film, the callier effect disappers.

The larger neg size will allow the use of an 80 or 105 mm lens which will give you more even illumination of the field on the paper, at the expense of some degree of enlargement, so if you do not want to go above 11 x 14 this should not be a problem.

NOW, the biggest Question: How much do you want to spend? Sound familiar? You can get a used "Amateur grade" enlarger used for less then 100 from e-bay, (or a used Leitz Valoy II with an excellent Russian Vega lens (:-)from me for 300)or a used Beseler or Omega for about 3-500, or go for a professional grade (not amateur grade) Durst or DeVerre for nearer 1000 -1500, usually with lenses. These are usually for 4x5 but will be superb for 35mm, as they are heavy and easy to use. The last thing you need in the dark is an enlarger that shakes or does roll up/down or focus smoothly.

Another factor is whether you want to use grade paper or Mulitgrade. If multigrade, you will need some means of applying filters that regulate contrast.

I hope that helps.

Cheers

-- RICHARD ILOMAKI (richardjx@hotmail.com), November 25, 2001.

What you choose has to match your skills and personality type. If a loose screw or junk baseboard is the end of the world, buy new. If you don't mind a bit of tuning up, there are lots of good used machines. Quality-wise, I'm more and more reaching the conclusion that a 4x5 machine is best, even for 35mm. The longer distance between the mechanical parts insures better alignment and stability (once it's aligned), and the heavier parts reduce any tendency to vibrate. Even illumination seems easier to achieve than on smaller machines. Heads will be interchangable so you can use cold light of various types, or condenser. There have been some tests that show, with proper negative development, the type of head doesn't make any difference. That may be, but in the real world people seem to have a strong preference and get better results with a particular type. Some very popular enlargers have rather uneven illumination. IMHO, evenness of illumination and lens focal length are related in a more complicated way than is usually assumed. There is more going on than the simple loss of light at the edges attributed to the difference in path length. A 50mm lens is optimized for 35mm work, and will give you the maximum possible print quality- if the illumination system is up to the task. A longer lens can be very close in quality, and if it works better with the enlarger in question, so much the better. Many people routinely burn in the edges, but I prefer as flawless illumination as I can get. So what would I buy? If size is an issue, probably a used Omega B-22 or a Leitz unit if I could find one at a reasonable price. If not, one of the D series 4x5 machines. If new, Kaiser or LPL, though I don't have experience with those, reports are very good.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), November 25, 2001.

If I were to suggest the most important feature to look for in an enlarger, I would say the ability to easily adjust the film stage so it is parallel to the baseboard both front-to-back and side-to-side. While most enlargers are adjustable, the two I have the most experience with adjust in only one direction, for all practical purposes (the Omega C700 and Beseler 67). In fact, if anyone could tell me an enlarger that adjusts both ways with a reasonable degree of precision, I would really appreciate it. I understand Beseler may have finally gotten it right with the "III" series of the 23C models. I think this is the dirty little secret of a lot of manufacturers, that it is incredibly difficult to adjust their machines to achieve sharpness at both ends of the baseboard with the lens wide open.

Regarding size, I think the best buy is a medium format enlarger. Being designed to cover an area 3 to 5 times the size of 35mm, most do an adequate job of illuminating the smaller negative evenly.

Condenser enlargers emphasize grain and negative defects compared to diffusion or cold light. Some cold light models have problems with variable contrast paper and needing to warm up. My pick for use with VC is a diffusion color head with dichro filters.

Lens-wise, a 50mm El Nikkor, non-APO Schneider Componon S or Rodenstock Rodagon fill the best buy slot. The APO Rodagon is about half-a-notch better, but at a tremendous increase in cost.

Good luck in your quest.

-- Brian Hinther (brianh@onewest.net), November 25, 2001.

Adding to what Brian said, the reason I like the Omega Automega D-3 is that both the neg and lens stage are adjustable in both planes, and are large enough to do it with decent precision. Don't know about alignment, but Beseler did get it right with the 23CIII- the two step lamp house and larger bulb should solve some illumination problems had by the 23CII.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), November 25, 2001.

I'll add another vote for the 23CIII. Alignment is fully adjustable and the dichro head has very even illumination.

-- tim brown (brownt@flash.net), November 26, 2001.

Buy an enlarger that will at least handle medium format, (or even better 4x5). As you experiment with larger prints, you will probably become dissatisfied with the limitations of 35 mm. A diffussion head is also nice. You might be surprised how much more enlarger you can get for a little more money.

-- Jim Rock (jameswrock@aol.com), November 26, 2001.

I know this response may be inappropriate for this forum, but here goes: If this is really your first step into printing your own negs, you should also consider the film scanner/Photoshop/inkjet route for your printing. Home darkroom and inkjet prints are now comparable in cost, and for 35mm are comparable in quality. I don't want to start a flame war--I like both methods--but this is 2001, and you owe it to yourself to consider what's available to you. I still love my Focomat after 30 years of use, but the control I have over an image in Photoshop is well beyond anything I can do with selective burning and dodging with VC filters, and I don't have to repeat the performance for each individual print of the same neg. Think about that before you commit to setting up a darkroom....We're on this forum because we enjoy the craft of darkroom work, but if I were starting out today, I'd definitely be comparing scanners instead of enlargers.

-- Tim Nelson (timothy.nelson@yale.edu), November 26, 2001.

I'm sorry Tim but I will NEVER enjoy fiddleing around with a computer as much as I enjoy working in a darkroom. BTW I have more trouble working photoshop than I do manipulating a print in the dark. So to each his own I guess. To Don, you can most likely get a really good 4X5 Dichrohic Head Omega or Bessler enlarger for a song on the used market because many people believe like Tim that the wet darkroom is passe'. I for one, will work in my darkroom until the last silver halide crystal is extinct. I'm not trying to offend anyone but I believe that new ain't always better :-).

-- Robert Orofino (minotaur1949@iopener.net), November 26, 2001.

Robert, I don't believe that the wet darkroom is passe--I still enjoy using my darkroom--but one can't ignore that there are now viable alternatives to conventional darkroom work, if the aim is to make excellent B&W prints on paper. It's worth comparing the options with an open mind when making the initial investment in hardware, either enlargers/trays/ washers/driers or scanner/computer memory/printer.

-- Tim Nelson (timothy.nelson@yale.edu), November 27, 2001.

The digital route for color is definitely the way to go. But for B&W work I find that the output is not up to the quality I can get with conventional darkroom. Right now I own a Minolta Scanspeed film scanner which is great for chrome but not that good for negatives( too much fiddling). My printer is an Epson 870 and the prints are very good for color but not for B&W, there is always an color cast and you always have to play with Photoshop to get it right and it can be costly with papers.

Like you I am going back to shoot mostly B&W and want to get a good enlarger. Since I do mostly 35mm and may go to medium format in the far future, I am looking for something that will grow with me. I used Beseler 23CII, 45MXT, Saunders LPL 7700 and a small Vivitar. Right now I am looking for Durst enlarger, either the M70 or the pro M805 and maybe an old Laborator 900. I find that the gears of Beseler 23C are too fragiles, the 45MXT was great but illumination was just OK, with the Saunders it is hard to ajust the height with precision because the movement of the head was not very smooth. Ctein rated enlarger lenses in his book and you cannot go wrong with these 3 popular 50mm lenses available on ebay: EL Nikkor, Schneider Componon- S and Rodenstock Rodagon-N APO.

For the light, it depends I guess about if you believe or not into the myth of the Callier effect which refer to the difference in contrast between prints made with a condenser and diffusion enlargers. Lets just say that an enlarger with a condenser will produce grainier-looking B&W prints than the diffusion head, but not sharper image details. Hope this help you...

-- Toan Nguyen (toan.nguyen@videotron.ca), November 27, 2001.

Toan, For high quality B&W inkjet prints, you need to dedicate your printer to an inkset for B&W. The color ink sets are often problematic for B&W. Many users praise the Piezography archival pigment ink systems for Epson printers (see piezography.com), along with the printer drivers and paper profiles from that company (Cone). There are other systems for B&W, too, but this one is a simple plug-and-play ink/software package and is beautiful. I've seen large exhibition prints from 35mm negs using this system that are as inspiring--both technically and esthetically--as any silver print I've seen. The prints look different from silver, depending on the paper used (many archival paper options), but are beautiful in their own right. The prints look slightly warm- toned to me on most papers, but the company is also about to release materials for more selenium-toned appearance. Prints from this system are what finally convinced me that inkjet prints are now a serious alternative to silver prints, at least for me. People may prefer one process over the other, but the quality of prints from 35mm can be similarly high using either process

-- Tim Nelson (timothy.nelson@yale.edu), November 29, 2001.

Tim you have a point there. I heard about dedicated B&W inks but did not get the chance to see prints made with them. I guess that in the near future I'll move to digital completely but for now, I will wait and see. Leica will have to make a digital body so that I can use my lenses with it, until that day I will be patient and enjoy B&W prints the old way...

-- Toan Nguyen (toan.nguyen@videotron.ca), November 29, 2001.