[Leica] Recommendations for an enlarger

[nickbroberts at yahoo.co.uk (Nick Roberts)]

Thank you, Alastair. I'm in the process of setting up
a darkroom again after many years of purely digital
printing - not because I'm not happy with the digital
process - I am - but just because I want to (I'll
probably expand on that elsewhere). I can't really
spare the space for more than one enlarger (although
they're so cheap s/h these days it's not fincancially
out of the question), so it's just a case of deciding
if I want to limit myself to printing from 120 and
35mm, both of which I'm reasonably familiar with and
which cover 90% of my requirements between them, or if
I want to go the whole hog and get the De Vere. You've
given me plenty of food for thought!

Nick

--- Alastair Firkin <firkin@ncable.net.au> wrote:

> Well, compared with the V35 it is cumbersome. No
> Autofocus, the 
> negative holder is OK, but if the neg has a curl at
> all, its very hard 
> to put it in position (6x6 negs especially). I don't
> mind the focus 
> mechanism and the height adjustments are fine, the
> light boxes I have 
> seem good, though the light to illuminate the colour
> dials is caput. I 
> have an Ilford 500 head for b/w and changing it for
> the colour is a bit 
> of a fiddle, quite apart from it being soooo heavy.
> The transformers 
> are large, the colour head has its own timer, but
> I'd prefer to be able 
> to use my Jobo 7000 to set it off. The Ilford head
> produces enough heat 
> to melt the poles (not Devere's fault I realize).
> Changing neg size 
> involves changing the carrier plates, and if you are
> not careful, you 
> "lose" the top plate when pulling it out (mine is
> now glass, so I've 
> taped the hole to stop me doing this again) Changing
> neg sizes requires 
> using differing light boxes - no big deal, but you
> have to have 
> somewhere to store them.
> 
> In reality, I enjoy using it and the results are
> fine, but its not a 
> fast easy solution, and I would not use it for 35mm
> often.
> 
> My only comparison was a Durst  6x6 enlarger, which
> was less "fussy".
> 



                
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