Chromega newbie needs help

Rolleiflexible

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Melanie has been wanting to print color. Last week, a local widow sold her husband's darkroom to me for $200. Included: Three enlargers (an Omega D5500 with lens turret, an Omega D5XL with motor drive, and a Leitz Focomat Ic), all with top-drawer lenses and the usual accessories. The D5500 has a late-model Super Chromega II color head. I bought the lot for the head, which alone was a steal for $200. At this point, I have so many enlargers, maybe I'll open a museum or something.

I know squat about color heads or printing in color. And I can't seem to locate manuals or tutorials online for printing with a Chromega color head. Can any of you with Chromegas (I'm looking at you, @Sirius Glass and @Donald Qualls) share any manuals or sites with pointers for printing with one of these beasts?

 

darkroommike

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Sorry I'm not one of the"cool kids" you mentioned. But there are "nuts and bolts" color printing books out there. I like the ones by the two Bob's. Color Printing by Bob Mitchell, any version, mine happens to be the Petersen's Complete Library of Photography version. Bob Mitchell was a color gear designer and consultant and sold a lot of his inventions through Unicolor. And the other is Color Printing by Bob Nadler. Try to find a copy of each.
 

Sirius Glass

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I found information at

Welcome to KHB Photografix

KHB Photografix is Canada's leading repair specialist for professional photographic equipment - enlargers, electronic flash, and large format and specialty cameras. We also provide expert sales and service for LPL, Omega, Beseler and DeVere enlargers, and Arkay darkroom equipment.
www.khbphotografix.com
​
Thank you for including me in the kewl kids!
 

titrisol

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Cool find!!!
KHB had a wealth on info on Chromegas

The Omega Enlarger Guide: Home page

The Omega Enlarger Guide provides pictures and descriptions of Omega enlargers, timers and color analyzers, plus listings of major components, negative carriers, lensboards and other accessories.
www.khbphotografix.com
I used one of those @NC State back in the day for BW printing
 

ic-racer

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I refurbished a "D" Chromega for a friend about 15 years ago. It looks like it will last a lifetime.

 

DREW WILEY

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That Chromega colorhead will work fine for color printing. In fact, my first enlarger was a Chromega D, and I only printed color back then. All of today's easily printed color papers are RA4 processed. So you'll want to follow threads on RA4 color printing. Most of the paper is made by Fuji; and you'll need to shoot color negative film like Kodak Portra or Ektar, not slide film.

You're not going to find anything up to date in print mentioning today's specific films and papers. But even a 20-year old Kodak Color Printing Guide will give you a clue about procedural basics. They could be taught in an afternoon. But like anything else, getting seriously good results takes a lot of patience and practice. Web U-tube tutorials must be taken with caution, but there are some out there.

A good starting point when printing color negatives would be to set the colorhead to Y30 / M30 / C00, and adjust as needed from there. The paper can be developed in light-tight drums, which are commonly available used. And you'll need to devise a water bath to keep your mixed chemical bottles at the correct temperature prior to use. RA4 developer consists of parts A,B, and C; and then a Blix (bleach-fix) is also needed, consisting of parts A&B. Various brands of RA4 are out there : Kodak Ra/Rt, Arista, Silver Pixel, and Fuji-Hunt.
 
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pbromaghin

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I just downloaded this from Butkus today
 

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Don_ih

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I just fumble with the dials until I get a filtration that looks right. Dealing with expired film can be a nightmare - you end up with some weird tint to the base and it can make it very hard to figure out the filtration. Fresh film, however, always seems easy to get close very quickly. Once you get a filter setting for one image in a roll, you tend to not need to change it for the rest of the roll. When you figure out a good filter setting, write it on whatever you're keeping the negatives in (Printfile, envelopes, whatever).

Get one of these:



maybe not exactly that one...
 
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Rolleiflexible

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@Don_ih and @DREW WILEY , thank you both for these pointers. Me, I am mostly colorblind. But I will pass these thoughts onto Melanie. I am sure she will find them helpful.

Has anyone used a Chromega head for B+W printing onto variable-contrast papers? Looking through the manual linked above, I see it provides values for Grades 0-3. Is the Chromega not capable of printing the higher-contrast grades?
 

DREW WILEY

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The same Chromega colorhead will be excellent for printing VC black and white papers too. Start with zero settings on all three dials.
Then if you need to increase contrast, raise the Magenta setting as needed; to decrease contrast, up the Yellow setting instead; leave Cyan at zero. Don't worry about grade this or grade that. The unit will easily handle any level of contrast you need to achieve.

In terms of color printing instead, NO, there are no film specific settings for particular films. Earlier I gave you a general starting value. But unless the lighting was very precisely controlled in a studio using the same batch of color film, you will potentially need to adjust the color balance somewhat for each shot, and for esthetic reasons too. It also depends on what specific paper you are using, along with your own standardized chemical temperature and timing too (I personally standardize on 83F/30C temp for 2 minute each development and blix steps, with shorter 1 minute water pre-soak and stop bath).
 

Sirius Glass

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Any places to find a copy or other source please?
 

Don_ih

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Sirius Glass said:
Any places to find a copy or other source please?
Click to expand...

Those charts are in almost every colour printing book. A poster came with the Kodak colour darkroom guide that had a Kodak Shirley on it



These can be found on ebay every now and then. Probably lots of members here have a copy (I have one somewhere - I don't think it's this exact poster, though).
 

pbromaghin

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Rolleiflexible said:
Has anyone used a Chromega head for B+W printing onto variable-contrast papers? Looking through the manual linked above, I see it provides values for Grades 0-3. Is the Chromega not capable of printing the higher-contrast grades?
Click to expand...

I haven't started using my Chromega yet, but I found that the info page that comes with Ilford Multigrade papers has a conversion chart that gives the settings for grades 00-5 in 1/2-grade steps. The Chromega shares the same settings with several other brands.

Oh, wait. I just found this - the Ilford website has this pdf about contrast control:
 

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mgb74

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Make sure the three filters in the Chromega head are intact (don't ask me how I know). I have manuals for the D5, the Super Chromega D, and the Chromegatrol (though it looks like you have the power supply without timer). They are available on the web (as that's how I got them) but msg me your email if you want me to send them.
 

darkroommike

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The older versions of Polycontrast paper required pretty extreme filtration, the new stuff? Not so much. What I did was use a good set of below the lens filters with the colorhead just used as a diffusion light source. The other way to go (been there, did that too) was to just assume that 0-0-0 on the colorhead is about a 2 or 2.5 contrast and then just added magenta if I needed more contrast and added yellow if I needed less contrast. I never worried about what the actual contrast values were, just winged it.
 

DREW WILEY

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Keep in mind that every single VC paper on the market has changed since any Chromega manual was written. And even what is meant by a CC value increment on a colorhead can differ brand to brand. Conversion tables do exist; but it is a lot easier just to ignore all that and rely on basic test strips instead.
 
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Rolleiflexible

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Drew, thank you -- your advice is helpful. I am passing it all along to Melanie, who suddenly realized she can move out the old D5 with diffusion head to make way for the 5500 and Chromega.

Now, I just have to figure out what to do with the three other Omega Ds -- the one with the diffusion head, the one with an Ilford 500 MG head, and the new XL with a condenser head. Or the Focomat. Oh wait, up in NYC we still have an Eastman 5x7 in storage. Geez. This is getting ridiculous.

It reminds me of the old joke about the typewriter collector who left an old restored Woodstock desk typewriter in the back seat of his car and forgot to lock up when he ran inside a bodega in a dodgy part of town for a gallon of milk. When he came back, he found three Smith Coronas inside.
 

Kino

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That was me...and it's not funny. Besides, they were a Remington, a Olympia and a Blickensderfer...
 
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