I just got my new Azo Enlarging lamp

I just the azo lamp for the beseler enlarger. I also just won a beseler enlarger on e-bay and am waiting for it to be shipped. How have the people who have bought it doing with it at this point. And has anyone used it to expose Pt/Pl?

Just wondering
Michael Andersen :confused:

michael9793 said:

I just the azo lamp for the beseler enlarger......

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I'm confused..... Are you saying there is a lamp for the Beseler enlarger that will enlarge a negative onto AZO? Please give me some background information....

I think that he means he is using the enlarger to project light onto the paper. Enlarging a negative onto AZO would take forever...

- Randy

reellis67 said:

I think that he means he is using the enlarger to project light onto the paper. Enlarging a negative onto AZO would take forever...

- Randy

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No, there is actually a manufacturer who designs lamps for enlarging a smaller format negative onto Azo paper. There is an enlarging forum on Michael Smith's website with more info.

That's a hell of a thing!

- R

Fantastic! Now you can sit around and twiddle your thumbs until the new AZO is released! Unless you pick up a few boxes of Ebay or somewhere of course.

That light source would not make it possible to enlarge on platinum. Sorry.

I assume that this is the lamp that Pat Brady developed several years ago. It is a lamp that emits heavily in the UVA band and is designed for the Bessler and Omega enlargers. I imagine that there are not a lot of people ordering those now. They were fairly expensive when first released.

Sofar as using it for printing Pt-Pd it is probably not useful for that purpose. While Pt-Pd are exposed with UVA, that process is much less sensitive then Azo.

The best Pt-Pd enlarger would be the enlarger that Jensen Optical designed specifically for that purpose.

Donald Miller said:

I assume that this is the lamp that Pat Brady developed several years ago. It is a lamp that emits heavily in the UVA band and is designed for the Bessler and Omega enlargers.....

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Yes, I do remember reading about that on the Michael and Paula site. But I've never read any feedback from users. Does anyone know of any users?

Donald Miller said:

.....The best Pt-Pd enlarger would be the enlarger that Jensen Optical designed specifically for that purpose.

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Several years ago Jens was advertising this. I believe it was a 5000w lamp. But as above, I've never seen any feedback from users.

I had the opportunity to purchase a used "The Cold One" AZO enlarging head this past spring. I was using my Zone VI cold light for contact printing. When I was using Tri-X developed in HC-110 my contact printing times were about 45 seconds. Not too bad, but when I switched to Tmax 400 developed in Pyrocat the times increased to 120 seconds. Waaaaaaay too long. With the AZO head my standard 8x10 and 7x17 contact printing times are now 12 seconds, but rather than have the head as close to the paper as possible, I now have the AZO head near the top of the enlarger.

I haven't tried to enlarge with the AZO head yet. From what I have read, you will need Nikon enlarging lenses in order to enlarge. Something about the other lenses not passing ultraviolet light. I have acquired the Nikon lenses, just haven't tried to enlarge yet. I guess I like the flexability of using a VC head for my 4x5 and smaller negatives. I can't seem to part with my valuable AZO when another combination of materials will do the trick. And besides, my smaller negatives were not developed to take advantage of Azo's extended scale.

Ryan mentioned that you can't enlarge on Platimum with this head, but is it possible to contact print on platinum with this head?

Since I acquired my AZO head used, I don't have the original instructions. If you have those could you please post a pdf of them?

To the best of my knowledge there are only about 10 of these heads on the planet. Count yourself lucky. I know I do.

jgjbowen said:

Ryan mentioned that you can't enlarge on Platimum with this head, but is it possible to contact print on platinum with this head?

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It may be possible, but the exposure times would likely be unbearably long, and you would be better served putting the time on a brighter, cheaper, and more readily replaced light source. Pt/pd is something like a hundred times less sensitive than silver.

AZO Enlarging

It MAY be possible to do azo enlarging with led's. Led's are made by Cree research here in Raleigh, and they put us onto a lamp manufacturer that I have some response from. The plan was to see if led's would work and cheaper than the head M&P were handling for $1900.00.

I have not had time to work on this, hopefully by spring we will know the possibilities.

I will post when I actually know something. Right now it is embryonic.

azon enlarging

Michael told me the lamps in his uv head were 4 each 30 watt, if that helps.

The website for the light source is www.azolighthead.com .
The reason you have to use nikkor lens are they are set up for color separation printing and you need to allow UV light to pass through the lens.
Next when you use T-max films for any UV sensitive processes, T-Max absorbs UV light. T-max 100 absorb even more. So try using efke, Tri-x, FP-4.
I have 2000 sheets of G2 and G3 in 8x10 and feel using it on some of my 2 1/4 negs could improve on the quality. As soon as J and C restocks I would like to try contact printing with foma on my 8x20 negs. and using this light. They say it is a slower paper and takes on some of the qualities of Azo. we will see.
Yes I'm just waiting and hoping on the Lodima fine art paper, because that will excellerate the quality of my 8x20's.
This will also replace my overhead lamp and timer when doing contact prints.

Michael Andersen

I have one of these heads and I have used it for enlarging. It works as adverised on grade 2 and grade 3 Azo.

My 150mm lens is a Schneider Componion-S, and it is the only lense I have used with this light. The Schneider may not pass as much light as the Nikon, but it is fine for my needs. Normal enlarging times for an 11x14 inch print from a 4x5 negative (developed in D-76) is 20 seconds at f11. I don't know how long the exposure would be for a pyro negative.

Lately, I have been using the head a great deal, but not for Azo. I have been using it to enlarge 4x5 color transparancies onto 8x10 wet plates--ambrotypes or tin types. It works great for this application. I have a project planned involving nudes that I want to do using wet plates. I originally planned to do in-camera plates, but now I am thinking that I will shoot 4x5 slides and do the final plates in the darkroom. It gets expensive to have a model waiting around while I develop plates during a session.