Duka 50 Sodium Safelight: worth keeping or not?

[Hal]

Here's the score; I recently received a Kaiser Duka 50 safelight as part of a package-deal on the contents of a darkroom, and am wondering whether to hold onto it or sell it while it still works.

From what I have read, sodium-vapour lamps are considered the ne plus ultra when it comes to safelighting, being very bright without fogging B&W paper, and even allowing the handling of colour materials if dimmed. The problem is that replacement bulbs for the things start at $400 and go up from there.

So, should a hold onto it and hope that the bulb still has plenty of life left in it (I'll be heading to university in September, so the home darkroom isn't going to see intensive use, except maybe during the summers), or should I sell it and buy a more conventional (and more easily replaced) safelight (given how expensive the bulbs are, I'd imagine it's worth more than a bit)?

Thanks in advance,
Hal

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I bought one new years ago. The bulb burned out and I never replaced it. It's not worth it for me. If I knew how expensive the bulbs are, I never would have bought one. Buy a new sodium vapor safelight on Ebay. Thomas Duplex are available for less than a cost of a bulb for your Osram Duka. Thomas Duplex are brighter to boot.

 

[pentaxuser]

Most analogue items on the U.K. e-bay are rising in price at a frightening pace, especially Jobo stuff but strangely enough DUKA lights are still only fetching reasonable prices( have a look if you are in the U.K.) so I don't think you will get anything like the price of a new lamp alone. Given the price of new lamps for the DUKA I think that once all the current DUKAs are sold then that's the end of the DUKA.

The lamps have a very long life but there are two caveats: 1. If you use a DUKA for B&W then it's an expensive light given that you are using hours of light that could be provided by ordinary B&W safelight like the Patersons, Kaisers and Ilford where the bulb is a simple and cheap 15W.
2. Because the DUKA needs to warm up to become safe you cannot use it with B&W analysers like the RH Designs where the analyser relies on darkness while it is working out exposure etc.

On the plus side I think there is no equal to the DUKA as an RA4 safelight so if you think that you'll get around to RA4 I'd keep it exclusively for that.

If you never do RA4 then you can still sell the DUKA in the future when there may be so few of them that bidders will pay silly money as it seems there are already doing for things like Jobo tanks.

pentaxuser

 

[dancqu]

With Graded papers a high level of safe lighting
can be maintained with the more usual yellow
to orange safe lights. Dan

 

[Martin Aislabie]

I like mine - gives a nice bright darkroom.

A bright well lit darkroom is a pleasure to work in but a gloomy one is a PIA

If you stick with it and give it a go - a Duka 50 needs about 30 mins to get up to full brightness and don't try quickly switching it on then off or off then on again without leaving a considerable time for the lamp to warm up/cool down.

If you are doing a stint of printing in the darkroom, switch it on as soon as you go in, leave it on for the rest of the day and switch it off as you leave at the very end of the day - with care they can last years/decades

My $0.02

Martin