Durst CLS 450: Reaching VC Grade #5

[four-by-five]

Hello everyone,

up until now, I've never bothered with VC papers. However, there is a negative that I believe could look quite dramatic in grade 4 or even 5. As I have no fix-grade paper that hard in stock right now, I used my ancient Kodak Polymax. All proper calibration and scientific testing aside, I read that 3Y + 112M would be a good #5 starting point for this paper on a Durst color head (with 130 points max).

So, I dialed in those values on my CLS 450 color head and did some testing. The test prints did not look anything like a hard grade at all, exactly the opposite to be precise. Very low contrast over all, no clean whites, no dark blacks. The paper itself is not fogged, I know that for sure, but I thought that because the paper is quite old aging may have taken its toll on it. I ordered some fresh Fomaspeed Variant 313 and followed its data sheet's recommendations of setting 130M on the enlarger. The results were almost identical.

I grew suspicious that the color projected by the enlarger head was wrong so I watched a YouTube video where someone demonstrates VC printing. The light for grade 5 looked purple/dark pink-ish but what my enlarger produced was rather simply red. I tried fiddling with the controls, tried literally every single extreme combination and watched the easel as I rotated the dials. Couldn't get anywhere near purple.

I've recently replaced the bulb in the enlarger head. It is an "OSRAM ELC 64653HLX A1/259 24V/250W GX-5,3" – AFAIK the right replacement. I recall reading that the filters in the enlarger head are safe against fading but I start to wonder if that's really the case. After all, the enlarger and the head are really quite old now and AFAIK my model came from a photo studio, putting it through heavy use.

All this drove me terribly mad, I really want to figure this out.

So, to sum up: Could it be the filters having faded, the wrong bulb/an electrical problem, the head generally being unable to reach that high of a grade or something else entirely? Picture me puzzled...

Greets!

 

[bernard_L]

Did you dis-assemble the color head to perform a visual check of:

• the color of the magenta filter?
• does it move into the light beam when you turn the dial?

 

[MARTIE]

I take it the white light setting handle on the lefthand side is in the correct position?

I believe forwards for filter in and back for filters out.

 

[DREW WILEY]

You'd have to dial up the Magenta as far as it can go; but that doesn't mean your VC paper itself is up to the job. Paper "grade" spacings vary by specific product line; and VC papers involve a continuum anyway.

The hardest light you can achieve would be by means of just leaving all your colorhead settings at zero, and then putting a deep blue 47 glass filter over your lens. It will be more effective than maximum magenta.

Dichroic colorhead filters do not "fade", technically-speaking. But they can develop grime over time; or even worse, start spalling off bits of coating if overheated for many years, making them less effective.

Papers do not achieve their full DMax potential without post toning afterwards (selenium, gold chloride, etc).

 

[Paul Howell]

Now in the distant past. but I was under the impression that VC papers in the 80s to early 2000s could not reach grade 5 or 5, grade 4 was as high you got. Then with paper going on at least 10 years old, if one of the sensitive layers has aged, that could reduce the VC range.

 

[ic-racer]

t my enlarger produced was rather simply red. I tried fiddling with the controls, tried literally every single extreme combination and watched the easel as I rotated the dials. Couldn't get anywhere near purple.

The enlarger needs to be serviced.

 

[koraks]

Could it be the filters having faded, the wrong bulb/an electrical problem, the head generally being unable to reach that high of a grade or something else entirely?

Faded filters: no. Spalling is possible, but I've not personally seen it on any Durst heads.
Bulb: won't make much of a difference even if you manage to get the 'wrong' one in there.
Head in general: nope, that's not it; you should be able to get around grade 4 to 5-ish depending on paper & developer (Fomaspeed doesn't hit a true grade 5 anyway; refer to the datasheet as to what you can expect).

So probably something else. A red projected image sounds like a red filter being stuck in there somewhere. You mention a CLS450 head but not the type of enlarger. Is there a filter layer somewhere with a red filter stuck in? Most Durst enlargers have a red under-the-lens filter that can be swung in the light path; can you confirm this is not under the lens when doing these tests?
There's also a lever on most Durst heads (IDK for sure about the CLS450) that engages the filters; however, with that in the 'wrong' position, you'd get white light, not red.

Note that you can sometimes eek half a grade of extra contrast from a paper by using a blue filter instead of a dichroic magenta filter. However, the gross problem you appear to be describing here suggests something else is wrong, so look at that first. You should be able to get a pretty darn hard grade with a dichroic magenta filter. I've done it lots of times with a Durst dichroic head and Fomaspeed paper.

 

[darkroommike]

If you tried your test again with "fresh" VC paper rather than paper that is 25+ years old you might get the contrast you need. That said, for years I printed VC papers with a Durst M601 with the CLS66 color head. 0-100 CMY.

1. The first thing you have to realize is that "Durst" numbers do not equal Kodak CC numbers or Agfa CP numbers. And Durst 0-100 heads do not equal Durst 0-130 heads! Yea!

2. The next thing is that magenta and yellow are opposites, one removes blue light and lowers contrast, the other removes green light and increase contrast, the only reason to use both in a "filter pack" for black and white contrast printing is to attempt to match speeds as you change filtration, which, in my opinion if pointless.

3. What I did, when I needed a lot of contrast was the put a Polymax filter in the filter drawer of my color enlarger, that is the easiest was to get a 5+ contrast with my Durst. I still have sets of both Ilford MGIII and Polymax filters sized for my Durst and another set of 6x6 sized filters for my Omega enlarger.

If you are a masochist, and aren't all darkroom workers masochists, you could also do this with just two "pure" filters, blue and green, and expose your negative to varying combinations of minus yellow and minus magenta light. Too much work for me, but I know the theory.

You could also buy a MG head for your Durst, Durst called that thing a Multigraph. (Good luck with that, I suspect they all got bought up as spares for people already using them.)

 

[DREW WILEY]

"ancient Polymax" is one obvious clue to your dilemma . Ancient anything would be. Try fresh VC paper.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Drew gave you the answer you needed. Get your hands on a 47 blue filter or gel. that will max out the contrast.

You should definitely check that your enlarger head is functioning correctly though.

It is also worth noting that Ilford paper will give you the most contrast these days but it needs to be fresh.

 

[koraks]

"ancient Polymax" is one obvious clue to your dilemma . Ancient anything would be. Try fresh VC paper.

I ordered some fresh Fomaspeed Variant 313 and followed its data sheet's recommendations of setting 130M on the enlarger. The results were almost identical.

So that's fine.

Get your hands on a 47 blue filter or gel. that will max out the contrast.

But with 130M on a Durst head he should get pretty darn punchy grade 4 or so, and given the flat and fogged results, something's going wrong.

PS @four-by-five - what kind of safelight do you use? Please note that Fomaspeed needs a red safelight. If you're using an OC safelight or something similar, this will fog the paper. It can easily explain the flat & fogged prints you got. It doesn't explain the red projected image of course.

 

[Paul Howell]

Other option as a test is to get set of under the lens VC filters as a test along with a pack of ILford or Foma VC paper. I have not seen grade 5 or 6 paper in a long time, Foma does offer a grade 4. Polymax was rated for OC, so following s Koraks line of thought do a safelight paper test.

 

[four-by-five]

Wow, thank you all very much for your quick and comprehensive answers!

Did you dis-assemble the color head to perform a visual check of:

• the color of the magenta filter?
• does it move into the light beam when you turn the dial?

I have not yet done that. I'm confident the filters themselves are moving fine, though I don't know it for sure. Is the disassembly very involved?

I take it the white light setting handle on the lefthand side is in the correct position?

I believe forwards for filter in and back for filters out.

Yes, it is. Tried switching it around a few times too. There is a change in color as I dial the filters, that part is working fine, it just doesn't seem to reach the right color.

You'd have to dial up the Magenta as far as it can go; but that doesn't mean your VC paper itself is up to the job. Paper "grade" spacings vary by specific product line; and VC papers involve a continuum anyway.

The hardest light you can achieve would be by means of just leaving all your colorhead settings at zero, and then putting a deep blue 47 glass filter over your lens. It will be more effective than maximum magenta.

Dichroic colorhead filters do not "fade", technically-speaking. But they can develop grime over time; or even worse, start spalling off bits of coating if overheated for many years, making them less effective.

Papers do not achieve their full DMax potential without post toning afterwards (selenium, gold chloride, etc).

Thanks for the tip of the color filter! Apart from that, yes, I tone most of my prints in selenium.

Now in the distant past. but I was under the impression that VC papers in the 80s to early 2000s could not reach grade 5 or 5, grade 4 was as high you got. Then with paper going on at least 10 years old, if one of the sensitive layers has aged, that could reduce the VC range.

Thought so too, that's why I tried fresh paper afterwards. According to the manuals of both papers, grade 5 is indeed possible.

The enlarger needs to be serviced.

Ouch, sounds expensive
Besides, who even services these and how much should one expect to pay?

Faded filters: no. Spalling is possible, but I've not personally seen it on any Durst heads.
Bulb: won't make much of a difference even if you manage to get the 'wrong' one in there.
Head in general: nope, that's not it; you should be able to get around grade 4 to 5-ish depending on paper & developer (Fomaspeed doesn't hit a true grade 5 anyway; refer to the datasheet as to what you can expect).

So probably something else. A red projected image sounds like a red filter being stuck in there somewhere. You mention a CLS450 head but not the type of enlarger. Is there a filter layer somewhere with a red filter stuck in? Most Durst enlargers have a red under-the-lens filter that can be swung in the light path; can you confirm this is not under the lens when doing these tests?
There's also a lever on most Durst heads (IDK for sure about the CLS450) that engages the filters; however, with that in the 'wrong' position, you'd get white light, not red.

Note that you can sometimes eek half a grade of extra contrast from a paper by using a blue filter instead of a dichroic magenta filter. However, the gross problem you appear to be describing here suggests something else is wrong, so look at that first. You should be able to get a pretty darn hard grade with a dichroic magenta filter. I've done it lots of times with a Durst dichroic head and Fomaspeed paper.

Thanks for the very comprehensive answer! I was absolutely sure that the red filter under the lens was not in the light path... if I accidentally did leave it in... picture me very mad at myself
I'll check as soon as I get back in the darkroom. I know I haven't changed a thing about the setup since.

The enlarger is a Durst Laborator 1200, by the way.

If you tried your test again with "fresh" VC paper rather than paper that is 25+ years old you might get the contrast you need. That said, for years I printed VC papers with a Durst M601 with the CLS66 color head. 0-100 CMY.

1. The first thing you have to realize is that "Durst" numbers do not equal Kodak CC numbers or Agfa CP numbers. And Durst 0-100 heads do not equal Durst 0-130 heads! Yea!

2. The next thing is that magenta and yellow are opposites, one removes blue light and lowers contrast, the other removes green light and increase contrast, the only reason to use both in a "filter pack" for black and white contrast printing is to attempt to match speeds as you change filtration, which, in my opinion if pointless.

3. What I did, when I needed a lot of contrast was the put a Polymax filter in the filter drawer of my color enlarger, that is the easiest was to get a 5+ contrast with my Durst. I still have sets of both Ilford MGIII and Polymax filters sized for my Durst and another set of 6x6 sized filters for my Omega enlarger.

If you are a masochist, and aren't all darkroom workers masochists, you could also do this with just two "pure" filters, blue and green, and expose your negative to varying combinations of minus yellow and minus magenta light. Too much work for me, but I know the theory.

You could also buy a MG head for your Durst, Durst called that thing a Multigraph. (Good luck with that, I suspect they all got bought up as spares for people already using them.)

1. Yes, I know that. The values used are for the scale on my color head.
2. Interesting, good to know!
3. That might be what I'll do if all else fails

The Multigraph is nowhere to be found around here, sadly. Guess you're right.

So that's fine.



But with 130M on a Durst head he should get pretty darn punchy grade 4 or so, and given the flat and fogged results, something's going wrong.

PS @four-by-five - what kind of safelight do you use? Please note that Fomaspeed needs a red safelight. If you're using an OC safelight or something similar, this will fog the paper. It can easily explain the flat & fogged prints you got. It doesn't explain the red projected image of course.

I use multiple different safelights, all very weak and indirect. I turn them on and off as needed per the material in use. I always perform tests with all papers. The Fomaspeed did not fog with my red light after a few minutes of exposure under typical working circumstances. I believe my safelights are indeed safe for this paper.

 

[four-by-five]

Faded filters: no. Spalling is possible, but I've not personally seen it on any Durst heads.
Bulb: won't make much of a difference even if you manage to get the 'wrong' one in there.
Head in general: nope, that's not it; you should be able to get around grade 4 to 5-ish depending on paper & developer (Fomaspeed doesn't hit a true grade 5 anyway; refer to the datasheet as to what you can expect).

So probably something else. A red projected image sounds like a red filter being stuck in there somewhere. You mention a CLS450 head but not the type of enlarger. Is there a filter layer somewhere with a red filter stuck in? Most Durst enlargers have a red under-the-lens filter that can be swung in the light path; can you confirm this is not under the lens when doing these tests?
There's also a lever on most Durst heads (IDK for sure about the CLS450) that engages the filters; however, with that in the 'wrong' position, you'd get white light, not red.

Note that you can sometimes eek half a grade of extra contrast from a paper by using a blue filter instead of a dichroic magenta filter. However, the gross problem you appear to be describing here suggests something else is wrong, so look at that first. You should be able to get a pretty darn hard grade with a dichroic magenta filter. I've done it lots of times with a Durst dichroic head and Fomaspeed paper.

Just checked, no, I did not leave the red filter in place while testing. I don't know of any other locations/slots to fit a filter and even if there were, there couldn't be any filters stuck/left there as I can absolutely obtain white light when all three CMY filters are dialed to 0/swung out of the light path.

 

[koraks]

OK, if you swing Magenta all the way to the max, you should get magenta filtration. If the light turns red, this means that yellow for some reason is moving along with it. I've never looked inside a CLS450, but on some dichroic heads it's possible that something bumps out of alignment (e.g. during transportation) causing several filters to latch onto each other. Maybe something like this has happened. You would also see exposure times being veeeerrrrrry slooooooow since you'd effectively filter out virtually all of the light the paper is sensitive to.

 

[pentaxuser]

I ordered some fresh Fomaspeed Variant 313 and followed its data sheet's recommendations of setting 130M on the enlarger. The results were almost identical.

Doesn't that excerpt from the OP's original post indicate that paper is unlikely to be the problem as koraks indicated?

pentaxuser

 

[four-by-five]

OK, if you swing Magenta all the way to the max, you should get magenta filtration. If the light turns red, this means that yellow for some reason is moving along with it. I've never looked inside a CLS450, but on some dichroic heads it's possible that something bumps out of alignment (e.g. during transportation) causing several filters to latch onto each other. Maybe something like this has happened. You would also see exposure times being veeeerrrrrry slooooooow since you'd effectively filter out virtually all of the light the paper is sensitive to.

Okay, I guess I'll have to take a look inside then. Part of me just wants to get under the lens filters and call it a day but as I had already considered doing some color printing (see earlier thread by me), fixing the filter situation properly might be smarter. We'll see!

 

[DREW WILEY]

If the filters are dirty or show cracks in the coating, you have to be extremely careful cleaning them. But if you're planning on color printing too it would be beneficial to at least get a look inside and check out the condition of all four sets (C,M,Y, and potentially UV / IR too).

 

[Paul Howell]

As you live in Germany there might be someone in your part of the world that can overall a Drust Color head. Many years ago I had an amamture model the 606 with a color head. a set of colored plastic filters, very easy to clean. In case you don't have it here is a link to the service manaul for your 450.

https://phsc.ca/repair/Durst/durst_enlarger_cls450.pdf

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Hello everyone,

up until now, I've never bothered with VC papers. However, there is a negative that I believe could look quite dramatic in grade 4 or even 5. As I have no fix-grade paper that hard in stock right now, I used my ancient Kodak Polymax. All proper calibration and scientific testing aside, I read that 3Y + 112M would be a good #5 starting point for this paper on a Durst color head (with 130 points max).

So, I dialed in those values on my CLS 450 color head and did some testing. The test prints did not look anything like a hard grade at all, exactly the opposite to be precise. Very low contrast over all, no clean whites, no dark blacks. The paper itself is not fogged, I know that for sure, but I thought that because the paper is quite old aging may have taken its toll on it. I ordered some fresh Fomaspeed Variant 313 and followed its data sheet's recommendations of setting 130M on the enlarger. The results were almost identical.

I grew suspicious that the color projected by the enlarger head was wrong so I watched a YouTube video where someone demonstrates VC printing. The light for grade 5 looked purple/dark pink-ish but what my enlarger produced was rather simply red. I tried fiddling with the controls, tried literally every single extreme combination and watched the easel as I rotated the dials. Couldn't get anywhere near purple.

I've recently replaced the bulb in the enlarger head. It is an "OSRAM ELC 64653HLX A1/259 24V/250W GX-5,3" – AFAIK the right replacement. I recall reading that the filters in the enlarger head are safe against fading but I start to wonder if that's really the case. After all, the enlarger and the head are really quite old now and AFAIK my model came from a photo studio, putting it through heavy use.

All this drove me terribly mad, I really want to figure this out.

So, to sum up: Could it be the filters having faded, the wrong bulb/an electrical problem, the head generally being unable to reach that high of a grade or something else entirely? Picture me puzzled...

Greets!

with your printer and color head, you get the hardest grade at max magenta and min yellow. Your filters are unlikely to have faded.These filters are very stable! There is one more thing you can try. Purchase a set of under-the-lens clip-on filters from Ilford and try them. They are very good and also last a long time if kept clean. Other than that, there is nothing else you can do but get the graded paper.

 

[four-by-five]

As you live in Germany there might be someone in your part of the world that can overall a Drust Color head. Many years ago I had an amamture model the 606 with a color head. a set of colored plastic filters, very easy to clean. In case you don't have it here is a link to the service manaul for your 450.

https://phsc.ca/repair/Durst/durst_enlarger_cls450.pdf

Thanks for the service manual, very helpful! I'll have a closer look at it once I get home. A quick look over it makes it seem a bit intimidating.

with your printer and color head, you get the hardest grade at max magenta and min yellow. Your filters are unlikely to have faded.These filters are very stable! There is one more thing you can try. Purchase a set of under-the-lens clip-on filters from Ilford and try them. They are very good and also last a long time if kept clean. Other than that, there is nothing else you can do but get the graded paper.

Good to know, thanks! Maybe I'll see about such a filter set for the time being, I'll have to make my mind up there.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Thanks for the service manual, very helpful! I'll have a closer look at it once I get home. A quick look over it makes it seem a bit intimidating.



Good to know, thanks! Maybe I'll see about such a filter set for the time being, I'll have to make my mind up there.

You should be able to find the Ilford filters secondhand too or borrow them from someone. Have you tried a local camera club?

 

[four-by-five]

You should be able to find the Ilford filters secondhand too or borrow them from someone. Have you tried a local camera club?

Yes, I would get them second hand anyway. Do they fade with age? My local camera clubs are all but analog, except for one that has a bit of an analog subgroup, I might ask them.

 

[Paul Howell]

ILford filter sheet filters do fade, I dont recall the time line. Under the filters might be more resistant to fading BTW, have you tired to spilt grade print the negative?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Dyed sheet filter materials do fade with age and long-term usage. And as I previously noted, dichroic filters don't fade per se, but are still capable of degrading over the long haul, or have diminished performance simply due to getting dirty.
Older colorheads often show spalling loss to their dichroic filters due to cumulative overheating. I would think it improbable in this case, since a later model Durst colorhead is involved; but it's still worth taking a look at, internally.