Advice wanted: Philips PSC130 Darkroom Color Enlarger

[srs5694]

Hi,

I've currently got a low-end enlarger -- a Durst C35. To make a long story short, I'm starting to outgrow this enlarger and am considering buying a more capable replacement. There's a big photo show in the Boston area in a couple of weeks that I plan on attending in hopes of finding something, but I've also been perusing eBay looking for bargains or otherwise appealing enlargers, and ran across this auction for a Philips PSC130. This enlarger looks odd, with its additive color system, but at least potentially interesting. Unfortunately, information on this model on the Web seems a bit sparse. I've found several posts on Web forums and Usenet praising the enlarger, but they tend to be low on details. Several reference a Web page that seems to no longer exist. So I've decided to post here asking for information and advice. Can bulbs still be found for this model? What are peoples' experiences with it? What would you pay for one, if you were in the market? Is that control unit with the dials just a way to set the color exposures, or does it also do something else, like color analysis? Is the additive color system too weird to use? (I'm currently doing B&W, but plan to start doing color Real Soon Now.)

Thanks for any information or advice you can give.

 

[Lee L]

The PCS 130 color head and controller on the enlarger is a three bulb system. MR11 sized 14V 35 watt lamps are run through three dichroic R-G-B filters and into a mixing chamber. The controller box has a power supply and potentiometers for each of the three lamps. You don't move filters in and out of the light path, you simply change the brightness of each lamp independently, and each lamp is 100% filtered. Each channel/lamp can also be turned on or off independently at the controller, and there's a timer built into the controller as well. It's a very intuitive system, and I've had excellent results printing from both color negs and from slides to Cibachrome using this color head in an adapter for the Omega D5, although times for Ciba were slow with this setup. The chassis for the Philips enlarger is nicely made, and IIRC, it has a tilting lens board and head for perspective correction.

I've made a print showing the "color separation" capacity of this light source by printing a third of a frame on each of the three separate layers of color negative paper, an image with a yellow, a magenta, and a cyan band.

Not sure about the availability of original lamps, but a 35W 14V MR-11 sized lamp should work. Superbrightleds.com has narrow beamwidth LED MR-11 12V lamps in red, blue, and green that I've been thinking about trying. Haven't printed color for quite a while. The power applied to the lamps appears to be derived from AC, not DC, but I'd have to check that further.

This light source is obviously workable for VC B&W papers as well, and gets a very broad range of contrast grades. Settings for constant density and least density B&W VC paper settings are in the instructions, for several brands of paper. The potentiometers are not stepped, but continuously variable from full-on to switched off.

The design is not odd at all. It's very logical and simple to use. It makes other color enlargers with moving filters seem funky and ill-conceived.

Oh, yeah, the enlarger dates from the early to mid 80's. Not sure how long it was in production.

Lee

 

[Lee L]

Did a google search and came up with the original lamp spec'd for this enlarger. You'd need three for a full replacement set, one each for the red, blue, green channels. Looks like it's still used in dental equipment for lighting up your mouth, bright, but not overly hot. It's the same Philips stock number as on the original PCS-130 lamps.

http://www.bulbconnection.com/ViewItem/bcrw/itmid/732/oc/13165/item.html

Lee

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Yes, you can still get the lamp. When these came out they were considered to be very fancy and innovative, and they were really expensive. Be sure to get all the accessories you think you may need in the package, because you're not going to find them without buying another Philips or Paterson/PCS enlarger.

 

[Lee L]

Yes, you can still get the lamp. When these came out they were considered to be very fancy and innovative, and they were really expensive. Be sure to get all the accessories you think you may need in the package, because you're not going to find them without buying another Philips or Paterson/PCS enlarger.

Very good advice.

Yes, they were expensive relative to other color 6x7 enlargers. Got my light source only and D5 adapter kit at dealer cost where I worked. Printed my portfolio from 35mm, 120, and 4x5 with this setup that got me hired for free-lance studio work.

Lee

 

[srs5694]

Thanks for the information. One thing I'm trying to track down is which condensers come with the enlarger that's up for auction on eBay; the auction text doesn't mention them, but I gather from my Web research that this is a condenser enlarger. If the one on eBay comes with less than a complete set, that really reduces the draw of this enlarger for me, unless it uses something common, like condensers that are also used in a very popular enlarger.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

The condensers are specific to the Philips and Paterson PCS enlargers. If this is a condenser enlarger, as long as you have the 6x7, you can use it for any format, but they also made 6x6 and 35mm condenser sets. 6x6 was standard on the condenser models. I had a Paterson version with all the condensers, but without the additive color head.

On the other hand, I don't recall whether the color version used condensers or a diffusion box of some sort. I tend to think the latter, but definitely ask the seller to be sure.

It looks like you've got the fine focus control, which was one option. There were also glassless carrier inserts available and an insert for mounted 35mm slides, but if you have the glass carrier with the masking blades, which you would, that's really all you need.

 

[srs5694]

I asked the seller about the condensers and got the reply that it has the F145 on top and F135 on bottom. According to this discussion, that's the 2 1/4 set. (Is that 2 1/4 inch, equivalent to 6x6? I'm afraid I'm a bit foggy on some of these bigger-than-35mm format sizes.) Another post in the same thread suggests that this set is useable for 35mm, but requires the head to be raised all the way to get an 8x10 from a 35mm negative. If this is accurate, it's a big drawback for me, since I currently do mostly 35mm, and even if I get some larger-format cameras, I'll probably still do a lot of 35mm. Can somebody "in the know" comment on this?

Once more referring to the photo.net thread, it seems I'd need the F91 condenser to replace the bottom F135 condenser. What are my chances of finding such a beast?

 

[Lee L]

Yes, 2 1/4" square is 6x6cm. The advantage of the 35mm condenser set is faster printing times from smaller film because the light is concentrated in a narrower cone. Unless there is something very unusual about the configuration on this enlarger, the condenser set for 6x6cm should work fine for 35mm.

The condensers don't determine image size on the baseboard, the focal length of the enlarger lens does that. Since the enlarger you're bidding on doesn't come with a lens (IIRC), you can pick your own lenses. A 50mm is "normal" for 35mm format and 75mm to 80mm is "normal" for 6x6cm. Using a normal lens for the format should give you reasonably large images on the baseboard, but I don't have the enlarger itself or instructions, so I can't give you the limits. There are some 40mm "normal" enlarging lenses for 35mm, which should give you an approximate 20% increase in maximum print size on the baseboard compared to a 50mm enlarging lens, but they aren't that common, and some of them are very expensive models. I'd guess 11x14 inches to be a reasonable range for maximum print size with a 50mm lens and 35mm film, but you should check it if it's critical for you.

Lee

 

[srs5694]

OK, thanks. I'm guessing, then, that the poster in the thread to which I referred was confusing enlarging lenses and condensers. I've got two 50mm enlarger lenses (a Durst Neotaron that came with my current Durst C35 and an Industar 96U), so if I get this PCS130, I'll just use one of those, at least initially. If and when I get a larger-format camera, I'll pick up an appropriate longer-focal-length enlarger lens.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

When I had mine, I compared the efficiency of the 6x7 condenser set to the 35mm set, and the 35mm set only produced a half stop improvement, and there were no other effects on image quality or eveness of illumination, so I just left the 6x7 set in all the time.

 

[Lee L]

Just found a Philips Darkroombook for $4 at my local used bookstore this morning. It's a basics book with instructions using the Philips equipment.

Details on condensers for the PCS130:
condensers
Film format bottom top
12x17 mm F91 F145
18x24 mm F91 F145
24x36 mm F91 F145
4x4 cm F135 F145
6x6 cm F135 F145
6x7 cm F135 F160

The F91 and F145 were supplied as standard. The others were accessories. Don't know if the tabs will decipher well, but you can probably figure it out.

Although not specific on models, the book lists 12x to 13x as the approximate maximum magnification with 50mm lens and 35mm film, and 6x to 8x as the approximate maximums with 6x6 cm film and a 75mm to 80mm lens.

Lee

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I'm pretty sure the standard pair was the F135 and F145 for 6x6, and the others were accessories.

 

[srs5694]

FWIW, I didn't bid on the enlarger, and it sold to its one bidder for $50 (plus $45 shipping). My reason for not bidding was that I've just spent a lot of money adding a sink to and otherwise renovating my darkroom, so I've decided to put off upgrading my enlarger until my finances have recovered a bit. If a Philips PCS130 is available at the right time and price, though, I might just get one.

 

[Lee L]

I'm pretty sure the standard pair was the F135 and F145 for 6x6, and the others were accessories.

The book was produced by a publisher in Amsterdam/Brussels in English. I wouldn't be surprized at some discrepancies between the stock configuration of enlargers delivered in Europe (what I suspect is described in the book) and the US.

Lee