Aristo 1212 tube ID, V54 or not

I recently added an Aristo 1212 cold light to my 8X10 enlarger. I am unable to get much contrast out of Agfa and Forte VC papers. When I add a number 4 printing filter, the exposure becomes very long with very little additional contrast.

I bought the light used. The lamp emits a rather green light. The folks at Aristo said that the V54 tube should look "agean green". It does. So whats up with the contrast? A print on Seagull G grade 3 looked fine but required a long exposure.

I am willing to buy a new V54 tube from Aristo but I need to be sure I don't already have one. Please advise.

If you can do without it for a while, you could send the head (or just the bulb) to Aristo to Rick Mehta, an engineer quite familiar with these lamps. I would recommend calling him first - (203) 578-4600 (he's not great at returning calls, so you may have to persist). If you are not USA, you can go onto their site (http://www.aristogrid.com/) and contact them through the email link, I think it goes to him. Anyway, he was helpful to me when I bought my new head. He might even be able to tell you over the phone/email how to tell by looking at it.

I'm not sure what to tell you. I have a V54. It is definitely the greenist of the single tubes Aristo has made. The others have been bluist or white. So if you think it looks green, you are there. You don't say what lens or neg size or enlargement ratio you are printing, so it is hard to know if your exposures are too long or what. With Ilford Multi, when you get to the higher contrasts, then you're right, your exposures are twice as long. I don't know how contrasty Forte or Agfa can go. Do you have some blue filters? Do you have a #47? Try these instead of the VC filters. The #47 will give you a long exposure, but probably the highest contrast you can get from the source. I'm using Ilford and Bergger. I've never really pushed the Bergger, but the Ilford will go pretty far and the blue filters will go higher than the highest of the Ilford multi filters.

I ultimately bought a V54 tube from Aristo. It is blue/green in color and prints with very short exposures. The difference between the original green bulb and the V54 is stark! I now understand why the V54 comes standard on Aristo cold lights.

Thanks
Steve Barth

So just what was the original tube? Did you figure that out?

Yes, the V54 is very nice. I like it better than the Aristo VC system because it is so bright.

With Cold light printing, (unless you get the extremely costly "Variable Contrast cold-Light Head") you need to use graded papers. I am in the process of switching a Beseler 23C XL and a 45 MXT to the older Zone VI Cold light heads. If I don't like the results of cold light printing- I'll just re–install the stock condenser heads.

Changeling1 said:

With Cold light printing, (unless you get the extremely costly "Variable Contrast cold-Light Head") you need to use graded papers. I am in the process of switching a Beseler 23C XL and a 45 MXT to the older Zone VI Cold light heads. If I don't like the results of cold light printing- I'll just re–install the stock condenser heads.

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Changeline1,
Since I replaced the tube in my Zone VI cold light head (single tube) with a current V54 tube, I have been able to adjust contrast quite easily with variable contrast papers and appropriate filters. There is still some compression in the higher grades, but far less than with the original tube. If you have the original tube (W45, I believe), you might still be able to use variable contrast paper/filters by inserting a yellow filter (Y40) in the light path above the negative stage. This reduces the light output considerably, but does offer better spacing of contrast steps. This offers you more options than simply confining yourself to using graded papers, unless of course that is what you prefer.
All the best,
Daniel