Kaiser VPM 3505 or Beseler 45 MX enlarger?

[carolina cattan]

Hi,

This is my first post here. I just bought the complete darkroom from a friend who had a kaiser 3505. For the past year I've been using my Beseler with a condenser head and liking it very much. There are a few drawbacks that could very well my fault, such is bad alignment, and uneven distribution of light when making prints bigger than 11x14. Right now I have them both set up as I'm testing and comparing them, but I can't make big prints with both set up as my darkroom is in my small bathroom. Although it was efficiently planned, it is still small for two enlargers and 4 big trays.

I shoot only 35 mm BW film, but there is always a chance of going a little bigger in the future. Does anyone have any experience with this model of Kaiser? Do you find the column steady if the head is all the way up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[AgX]

The Kaiser has two advantages:

-) being part of a modular system

-) yielding Scheimpflug distortion correction



One could bolt the collumn to a wall.
(Maybe difficult in a bathroom, but you could employ unobtrusive/undamaging solutions)

 

[AgX]

Welcome to Apug, by the way.

 

[fotch]

Welcome to APUG

 

[John Koehrer]

Presuming you're in the US bits & pieces will be more available for the Beseler.
I SEEM(?) to recall an adjustable lens board for Beseler. It a standard 4X4 size with a second plate that uses adjustment screws for alignment.