Enlarger giving long exposure times?

Madhava · Aug 11, 2021

Hello everybody,
My name is Madhava and I'm new to this forum.

I recently bought a meopta magnifax 4 B&W enlarger. My issue I'm having is that I am getting quite long exposure times (in the 2 minute range). I have printed a range of negatives both thin and dense. I have inspected the bulb to find a Phillips photocrescenta 240V 150W bulb. Nothing about my process in abnormal....I'm using Ilford warm tone dev at 20 degrees celsius. Any ideas? I noticed a small amount of light leaking out of the enlarger during exposure...?

Any and all help would be much appreciated

Frank53 · Aug 11, 2021

Are you using the right condensor?
There is one for 35mm and one for mf.
Using the mf condensor for 35mm, times may get long.
Regards,
Frank

Don_ih · Aug 11, 2021

The larger the enlargement, the longer it takes. The smaller the aperture, the longer it takes. Some paper is slow. Old paper can be even slower. The light leaking out of the enlarger makes no difference.
Look through your enlarging lens and make sure it's not hazy.
Other than that, maybe your developer is weak?

pentaxuser · Aug 11, 2021

So we need more info such as prints sizes, how fresh the developer etc. In fact as much as you can provide. like filtration. Otherwise helping you to get to the cause takes longer

2 mins with a 150W bulb and negatives that are thin does sound as if something is wrong

pentaxuser

ic-racer · Aug 11, 2021

Looks like a very nice enlarger. With 150W lamp and a condenser system, with small prints, there is more frequently a complaint on these forums that exposure times are too short.

Pieter12 · Aug 11, 2021

What aperture are you stopped down to?

Madhava · Aug 21, 2021

Hello everyone,
I've since made a few more prints so i'll try break it down....
Today I attempted to make a 11x14" print on fiber paper. My exposure time today was about 2 minutes...is this normal? It feels a a bit long? or am I just inpatient?

Some more details and settings from today's print from the negative shown in the picture:
Enlarger Meopta Magnifax 4
Lens is a Meopta 50mm f/4.5 stopped down to f/8
Contrast filter is number 2
Paper i'm using is Fomabrom Variant III 111 FB VC Paper (Glossy, 11 x 14")
Dev is Ilford Multigrade Warm Tone at 1+9 (see picture... bottle was opened about 3 months ago could this affect the dev time?) - Dev time is 1.5 minutes
Negative is Kodak P3200 and is quite thin (see picture)
I'm using the condenser on the left for 35mm (see picture)
I'm getting power from the wall socket on the left with the socket splitter (see picture)....could this be impacting anything?

I've shared some photos of some of the equipment I am using, the negative I printed from, a test strip (showing 1.75, 2, 2.25 minutes) and other images which may help everyone on here understand more about what I'm experiencing.

Now, in saying all this I printed some tiny 8.9x 12.7cm prints on kentmere VC the other day and had reasonable exposure times of about 15 seconds with very similar settings. The enlarger was approximately only 15 cm from the print where as to print the 11x14" prints the enlarger is a lot further away giving long exposure times which makes sense, however is 2 minutes expected when printing at this size?

There's a lot to unpack here, but i hope it is clear.

Madhava · Aug 21, 2021

Pieter12 said:
What aperture are you stopped down to?

F/8

AgX · Aug 21, 2021

Nominal Mains voltage in Australia meanwhile was reduced from 240V to 230V. This has effect on the effective output of that lamp. Both on gross light output as spectral characteristics.

Don_ih · Aug 21, 2021

Looks like you're doing everything right. That negative strip is not thin - two minutes for 11x14 at f8 is pretty normal. Open the lens to 5.6 and try a minute - see if there's a real difference in the final print (probably won't be much of one) - that's still not wide open.

removed account4 · Aug 21, 2021

2 mins is about right
the thing I love about photography is there is a lot of standing around.
my suggestion is get some music and do as billy idol used to sing ( dance by your self ).
with the red light in my darkroom and the stray light from my enlarger its like a concert with a laser show

Hilo · Aug 21, 2021

Can you give an idea of the distance between the bottom of the bulb and the negative?

Your enlarger head seems to be quite long in the vertical sense. I use two Leitz enlargers for 135mm negatives, the Focomat Ic and the Valoy II. The latter I modified to be able to do 50x60cm (20x24in) prints. I am not in my darkroom now, but my estimate for this distance from negative to bulb with the Ic is 12cm and the Valoy 9cm. My average exposure time doing 50x60cm prints is 70 seconds with the Ic and 45 seconds with the Valoy II. I know this because I print this size a lot, using both enlargers. And I am sure this is because of the difference in distance between bulb and negative.

Obviously my experience is different from the people here who find 2 minutes for a 30x40cm print about right. I find find that way too long. But we have to bear in mind the systems we use are different from each other. For instance, if I were to do a 135mm negative on 30x40cm paper with my Durst L1000 I would not be surprized with an exposure time of 3 minutes. Because the light travels via a mirror to the negative . . .

Andrew O'Neill · Aug 21, 2021

If you're getting decent results with the two minute exposure, I wouldn't worry about it... or you could open up one stop and expose for a minute, as suggested. Enlarging lenses seem to perform best closed down two stops. I've made it a habit of using f/11 (5.6 is widest on my lenses).

AgX · Aug 21, 2021

jnantz said:
2 mins is about right
the thing I love about photography is there is a lot of standing around.
my suggestion is get some music and do as billy idol used to sing ( dance by your self ).
with the red light in my darkroom and the stray light from my enlarger its like a concert with a laser show

I guess it is time for some keyhole peeping at your darkroom...

removed account4 · Aug 21, 2021

AgX said:
I guess it is time for some keyhole peeping at your darkroom...

LOL. no door, just a drape, come on in! not a lot of room but at least there are some tunes

Nicholas Lindan · Aug 21, 2021

Two minutes seems awfully long to me. I usually expose an 11x14 in ~32 seconds (5 stops of time). That's using a Beseler 45, PH212 (150W) bulb, 50mm lens at f8, Ilford MGIV #3 filter. That is 2 stops less than the 120 seconds (7 stops) you are seeing.

I would chalk it up to a combination of factors: the paper is slower; the enlarger puts out less light; pulling the print a bit early in a slow developer - warm tone developers take a long time; a preference for dark/low key images. If each factor contributes a 1/2 stop / 40% increase in time and is not really noticeable on its own, when added together they produce a 2 stop / 400% increase in time, which is decidedly noticeable.

pentaxuser · Aug 21, 2021

It has been a long time since I used Ilford WT paper developer so I cannot remember whether it was clear when fresh but clearly if WT is also meant to be clear then what the OP has shown us is not. It has gone the colour that I have seen in MG developer that has "aged"

Could it be that part of the reason for what seems to some of us as a long exposure time is down the fact that to some extent longer exposure might be needed to make up for partially exhausted developer. If the developer is now 3 months old and the container is now partially empty then unless steps were taken to exclude the air inside the container this may have affected it.

Just a thought

pentaxuser

gone · Aug 21, 2021

My crappy Lentar 35mm enlarger has it's head turned around backwards and is sitting up on books so that I can make 11x14 prints, and even w/ a #2 or #3 filter in it my exposure times run 15-25 seconds at f8. So if yours is taking approx 6 times longer, something sounds amiss.

gijsbert · Aug 21, 2021

Fomatone is pretty slow so possibly fomabrom is as well, and 35mm to 11x14 is a decent enlargement so it’s not too worrying I would say. Look at the bright side, I tried using fomabrom in lith developer and it took 30 minutes

he base fog on the negative does look a bit high - I mostly do 120 so I’m not sure if it really is…

mshchem · Aug 21, 2021

Reciprocity may be at play. 2 minutes at f8 might equal 30 seconds at f5.6. Obviously this isn't linear but as exposure times increase things get weird. Remove the filter and open up the lens wide open see if your time doesn't drop dramatically. Also the beautiful paper made by Foma isn't as speedy as some.

In the old days I got so frustrated with my wimpy enlarger. I put in a photoflood lamp, hooked my Mom's hairdryer up to blow cooling air on the beast. I melted the lens cap on my 50mm f4 El Nikkor .

Nicholas Lindan · Aug 21, 2021

Enlarging paper suffers from almost no reciprocity effect.

A test was made over a range of exposure times from 1 second to 256 seconds and no reciprocity failure was noted.

Quoting from the web page, below:

That there is no reciprocity failure should not come as any surprise. Making exposures
over the same 8 stop range in a camera at shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/250 of
a second won't produce reciprocity failure either.

For the full test see http://www.darkroomautomation.com/support/appnotereciprocityandintermittency.pdf

Nicholas Lindan · Aug 21, 2021

mshchem said:
In the old days I got so frustrated with my wimpy enlarger. I put in a photoflood lamp, hooked my Mom's hairdryer up to blow cooling air on the beast. I melted the lens cap on my 50mm f4 El Nikkor .

Now that's impressive! How did the negative fair?

mshchem · Aug 21, 2021

Nicholas Lindan said:
Now that's impressive! How did the negative fair?

I don't recall. This was in the early 70's (1970's ) I was making color prints from slides. Ektachrome type R paper. Cibachrome was renowned for reciprocity problems, I never had any issues.
I suspect that the OP is experiencing, 1/d2. The intensity of the light from a source is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. So a 11x14 takes a CRAPLOAD more light than a 4x5. The lens probably isn't really a 4.5, the condensers are probably meh, the paper isn't fast, the developer is warmtone, ie more bromide longer development times, and last but not least the unnecessary #2 filter.

Short answer work up in magnification, get an f2.8 El Nikkor off Ebay. Then the times won't be a surprise. I've seen guys that kept time constant and marked f stops on enlarger column. Need a faster lens for 35mm or just relax. And hope the negative doesn't buckle in the heat

Arthurwg · Aug 22, 2021

Get a new or better bulb.

petrk · Aug 22, 2021

Suggestion: Check over the condenser if there is no ground glass. If there is one, try to remove it and enlarge without it.

Enlarger giving long exposure times?

Madhava

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