hi, i am going to have a chance to buy a Beseler 810 V-XL soon. this kit will come with a 240mm from Beseler too.

what is the reasonable price to get it? what should i check before i make decision?

any adventage or disventage with this enlarger?

is this 240mm lens from Beseler good enough for 40"x50" enlargemant? i mean the image quality.

thanks

-- Jeff Liao (jliao66@aol.com), March 06, 2002

Answers

I got an 8x10 enlarger a little while ago, and did a lot of research into enlarging lenses. You can check with Beseler, but I suspect that the Beseler lens is an Apo Gerogon from Rodenstock. I remember Bob Soloman mentioning to me that Beseler was using these lenses, but that he thought it was a poor choice. He said that it would be good only at f22, and that a lot of benchmark tests had shown the lens to be inferior in performance to that of other enlarging lenses.

With that said, others on this forum have reported success with theses lenses. But, at that enlargement? (???) I purchased a 270mm Apo Gerogon. But sometime after, I ran across an older (70's?) Componon enlarging lens, and I purchased that for $169. The Apo is a four-element lens intended for closeup work, whereas the Componon is a 6 element lens intended for enlarging. The 270mm Apo Gerogon will go up for sale.

-- neil poulsen (neil.fg@att.net), March 06, 2002.

First of all, because of the negative carrier design, the 240mm lens you mentioned above is the only option you can use with this enlarger. I have also heard that the lens is adequate, but needs to be stopped down for optimal performance where other enlarging lenses are at their optimal at near their largest f-stop. I would further strongly recommend calling Beseler and getting the specifications for negative to lens distance and lens to easel requirements to make such a print. You may be needing to wall mount this unit to get to that print size. Some fact gathering now will assist you make an intelligent decision as there is nothing more disturbing than hearing about an expectation for a piece of equipment that is met with disappointment. Good Luck.

-- Michael Kadillak (m.kadillak@attbi.net), March 06, 2002.

Hmm.....just had a little chat with my professor.....about 8x10 BW will be replaced by Injet soon? so do you guys think is there a future for 8x10 BW? a 8x10 enlarger worth to buy?

-- Jeff liao (jliao66@aol.com), March 06, 2002.

You can bet that 8x10 enlargers will be around a while if only for economic reasons. You can acquire them for a song right now and since it appears that sheet film will be here for many years in the future it is clearly the more economical and effective methodology of producing high quality B&W prints.

Look closely at the cost for higher end state of the art digital and you will find that only large commercial shops that can make the significant investment on this technology. Yes, the academics will tell us about all of the significant changes that will change our world, but take it with a grain of salt. I listened intently to to industry experts that predicted (a while back) that in a few years neighborhood banks will close, houses will be controlled by computers, telecommunication innovations will provide everyone a cellular phone and the dot.com revolution will completely revolutionize how consumers shop. Well guess what. The dot.coms took a direct torpedo and telecommunications spend their forward expected earnings developing infrastructure and are all about broke and I still go to the neighborhood bank for that good old "personalized" service that was supposed to go away.

My point is that when all of the hype fades away we are left with the most fundamental rule of economics - Profitability Rules ! Photographers will find the same premise true for them after it is all said and done.

-- Michael Kadillak (m.kadillak@attbi.net), March 06, 2002.

thanks everyone...

does anyone know how much money is reasonable to pay this enlarger? ?

-- jeff Liao (jliao66@aol.com), March 06, 2002.