250w Cromega or 500w Devere or 600w Ilford

I am curious if anyone has any experience. I am trying to figure something out.

How does a 250w chromega compare to an Ilford multigrade 600w head in regards to speed (printing times). I am looking for real world comparisons, not theoretical stuff.

Or if someone has a comparison to a 500w devere that would be wonderful too.

Thanks In Advance

Corey

Corey, in another life I worked in a B&W darkroom with a Beseler with an Ilford Multigrade head (500 I think) and a DE VERE tabletop with a B&W head alongside with a plywood divider between them

I'm not really sure about the power of the DE VERE, both were 4x5 enlargers. Unless you are putting a lot of work through, actual printing time doesn't mean much. The speed is in the ease of use in the head.

The ability to change the grade of the paper as the timer is counting down, by just pushing a button, is incredible. That to us, was a feature which speeded up printing in a manner we didn't envisage, when the first Ilford head was installed.

We used to put about 250 prints of various sizes from 5x7" our smallest paper, through to 20 x 24" (drop table on the Beseler) in a normal shift. This was almost assembly line stuff, you had to get the work out, follow printing instructions, retain quality, not waste materials and most importantly, please the client.

It didn't matter what job you were doing, everyone all wanted to work with the Ilford head, it was dream land, in comparison to anything else.

I realise that things have changed in the last 20 years, but I can vividly remember the ease that multigrade head slid print after print through the system.

Why is print timing so important to you?

Mick.

Just remembered that the other really god thing about the Beseler.

The neg carrier can swivel around like a merry go-round, this is brilliant for speeding up work when you have the incorrect orientation and wish to do portrait instead of landscape. It also means you don't have to stand on the side of the enlarger to carefully crop a portrait, you just swivel it round, frame the print, hit the button.

We used to call the Beseler with the Ilford head, our Ferrari enlarger, it was built for pure speed!

Mick.

I have the Chromega and the Ilford 500 (600 watts) heads. Unfortunately they are not both setup at the same time, or I would just go measure the brightness for you. My recollection is that the Ilford head is about 2 stops faster than the Chromega at a normal grade 2 or 3. The Ilford head is almost too bright for 11x14 prints from 4x5. I think a bit of aluminum foil over each hole in the mixing box will fix this, but I have not tried this.

Thanks for the input.

FWIW, when you are talking about 10-25 minutes of exposure, speed is esential...

Corey

What type of paper are you using with a 10 to 25 minute exposure? If it isn't VC then you could remove the dichroic filters from the Ilford head and get even more light output.

It is generally Ilford MG Warmtone FB... But with large prints, and dense negs a times, and many burns a 250w chromega sucks... it just gets out of hand and more light becomes important.

With Ilfochrome, I've spent more than 40 minutes making a single print or should I say :-( you get tired holding your hands above your head (burning or dodging)....