Excellent used 6x7 enlarger?

Am getting rid of the great Chromega D5500 with Zone VI cold light head. Have a 5x7 setup to take its place. Am starting to look at 35mm/6x7cm enlargers for the small negatives. Do NOT want Omega or Beseler in the smaller enlargers.
What is a solid piece of gear as a replacement for small negative work? Philips/Durst/Nikor/Minolta/Vivitar or whatever? Have only used 4x5 or larger units for 30 years and want to get a solid unit that will do the job with as little light falloff as possible.

WarEaglemtn said:

Am starting to look at 35mm/6x7cm enlargers for the small negatives.
What is a solid piece of gear as a replacement for small negative work? Philips/Durst/Nikor/Minolta/Vivitar or whatever?

Click to expand...

I think those two film formats you mention necessitate two different enlargers to be really good, light-effective and convenient. I'd be happy to find a Leitz Focomat for 135 work, but would not have a preference for medium format. Spend at least half your planned amount on the lens, and be prepared to adjust condensors, film plane and paper plane to evenness of illumination and parallel adjustment. See Ctein's book "Post exposure" for lens recommendations and hints on adjusting.
HTH!
Christoph

Me, and some other use Meopta enlargers (Axomat up to 35mm, Opemus from up to 6x6cm, Magnifax up to 6x9cm), and we are happy with them. Eastern Europe (Czech) manufacturing, that means two things:

1. Maybe not pretty, but durable and you can repair them with car mechanic tools, no need for fancy, micro, etc.. tools . Meopta easilly could still have original spare parts (mixing chambers, condensers, glasless negative carriers, repairing parts, etc...) for very old models. For example, I bought for my Magnifax (almost 30 years old model) spare parts (new, not used) directly from manufacturer...

2. Because of Eastern Europe manufacturing, they were allways cheaper than others, new as well as secondhand.

I really liked the Philips (I think it was rebranded as a Paterson, as I recall) condensor enlarger I had. If you get one, just make sure it has all the condensors and accessories you might need, because parts are hard to find for it. The glass carrier with masking blades was standard, as was the 6x6 condensor set. There is also a 6x7 and 35mm pair (some of the lenses, as I recall, were combined in different ways for different condensor sets). It had attractive features like a tilting neg stage (or maybe it was the lens stage) and reflex light source design to keep the film cool.

They also of course made an additive color light source, if you're planning to do color with it, but I didn't have it. As I recall, this system was considered attractive for Cibachromes when it was new.

I've been using a LPL 670 VCCE and it' s great for use with variable contrast paper, being able to make small (or large) adjustments in print contrast with the dial adjustments.

Jon

I'm using a Durst ac 707 autocolor. goes to 6x7 and is very sturdy and easy to use.

I still have my Phillips Tri-Color enlarger with all the newsletters that came out. I printed both color and b&w. What I liked about the enlarger was the long life of the bulbs and fast printing. But at the present it is in a box and need to replace two bulbs should I wish to use the Phillips enlarger again.