looking for "Small" 4x5 enlarger

loman · May 9, 2008

Hello Everybody.
I have a very small dark room, where I currently have a durst m800 installed (takes up to 6x9). I had to saw a bit off the top of the column to make it fit, but it works fine. I have a 5x7/4x5 sinar norma, and just got a 4x5 wista field camera, that I'm absolutely crazy about. Untill now I've mostly done contacts from my 5x7 negatives, and have hardly used 4x5. But now, since I got the wista I really want to use and enlarge 4x5.
So my question is this:
Is there a 4x5 enlarger out there, that is no bigger than my durst m800?

Which would mean:
a baseboard no longer than: 51 cm wide (20,4 inches), 58 cm deep (23,2 inches). and a colum height of max 93 cm (37.2 inches).

Thanks
Mads Hartmann

munz6869 · May 9, 2008

Hi Mads

Out of interest, I measured my Durst CE1000, and the column is 110cm - it needs to be, to get a 5x enlargement out of a 150mm lens for 4x5" - otherwise the column could well be shorter (not that you could "cut it down" without re-engineering the winding system). The baseboard is neither here nor there - it only needs to be stable enough to hold the column and head, and have enough surface to usefully place paper or easel, so that could easily be cut to fit a given space.
Good luck!!

Marc

Marcust101 · May 9, 2008

Mads,

I'd be interested in the answer to this one too, I have some similar height issues in my "dark-shed"

Marcus

loman · May 9, 2008

Hi Marc
Thanks for your answer.
I should have mentioned this, but I will only be enlarging to 8x10, since my darkroom can't handle prints that are any bigger. (it's aprox 2 square meters).
I always get confused with the x factor. Since 8x10 is four times as large as 4x5 but it's only a 2x enlargement right?

Best Regards
Mads

Soeren · May 9, 2008

Mads
Some of the locals mentioned Liesegang enlargers at our meeting in Frederiksvaerk. Try and Pm KajF
Kind regards

Nicholas Lindan · May 9, 2008

loman said:
So my question is this: Is there a 4x5 enlarger out there, that is no bigger than my durst m800?

Sure:

Attach the column to the wall at a height that the head doesn't hit the ceiling. Use a table of some sort to hold the paper. If the table can have it's height adjusted then you have a lot of flexibility in print size.

A typical arrangement is to put work surfaces/cupboards on both sides of the enlarger and have a sheet of plywood that fits into the space between the cupboards. The sides of the cupboards have strips at several heights and the plywood slides in and rests on the pair of strips. All sorts of variations are possible.

The smallest enlarger head is probably a Graflarger head attached to the back of your Wista. There is somebody using a small light-box/tablet and a Shen Hao http://pig.sty.nu/wiqi/large-format-enlargement.html

Nick Zentena · May 9, 2008

munz6869 said:
Hi Mads

Out of interest, I measured my Durst CE1000, and the column is 110cm - it needs to be, to get a 5x enlargement out of a 150mm lens for 4x5" - otherwise the column could well be shorter (not that you could "cut it down" without re-engineering the winding system). The baseboard is neither here nor there - it only needs to be stable enough to hold the column and head, and have enough surface to usefully place paper or easel, so that could easily be cut to fit a given space.
Good luck!!

Marc

I don't know if my 1000 is the same model or not. But on my 1000 under the baseboard is a metal setup to hold the baseboard. You could shrink the baseboard a little but not very much.

Nick Zentena · May 9, 2008

BTW if you're short of room print drums might let you go up in size. A single 11x14 or even bigger doesn't take up that much room.

removed account4 · May 9, 2008

hi

the smallest 4x5 enlarger you will find is
a 4x5 camera and a graflarger back.
the graflarger backs were a light source ( cold light head )
sold by graflex that is designed to go on the back of any camera
with a graflock back. all that is needed is a copy stand and the camera.

the graflarger backs can be found on eBoo from time to time,
and can be re-tubed by aristo for about 100$usd.

-john

Ronald Moravec · May 9, 2008

I have a low table and Omega D2. The table is about 22 in high and very sturdy, 4x4 legs 2x4 solid planked top with plywood cover. Cross bracing on the legs.

This get the machine lower than the ceiling. I can sit on a small stool to enlarge or stand and use a removeable 12" tall shelf over the baseboard.

loman · May 9, 2008

Thanks everybody for your answers.
Just to clarify.
I want a "real" enlarger (if possible), not a graflarger. I don't like to use tubes, and 8x10 enlargements are fine for me. I can possibly lower my table a little, but not by much. My darkroom is not big enough to put a stool into and still have room for me. It's around 55 cm wide, 180 cm long, and 185 cm high. I have enough room for the enlarger on one side, a table on the other side with three dishes and me in the middle. Mounting on a wall seems a good idea, can you do that with all enlargers or do you need specific ones?
Of course the baseboard is easy to cut to size, so that's not really a problem, but do any of you know of an enlarger that will fit my height criteria?

Lopaka · May 9, 2008

Looking for a small 4x5 enlarger is a bit like looking for a small grand piano. However, there are solutions for limited height applications. One is to mount the column to the wall and use a working height surface that can be removed and placed at lower levels when needed for greater enlargement. This can be needed even for 8x10's if cropping a lot. Mine is set up to project all the way down to floor if need be:

Bob

loman · May 9, 2008

I just read on the large format forum while googling "small 4x5 enlarger" that an omega D II is aproximately 3 feet tall. Can anybody confirm this? If that's true then that is what I'll be looking for. I know my favorite photographer used one of those (Diane Arbus).

loman · May 9, 2008

By the way in the same thread I read of somebody using an Astron enlarger, and calling that "nice and compact", someone also mentions having converted a 23 enlarger into a 4x5. How difficult is that? Is it at all possible to convert my durst m800 to take 4x5 negatives?
By the way: Bob, I wish I had as much space as you have, then there would be no problems... sigh.
What brand of enlarger is that? It looks gigantic. I'm sure I've seen 4x5 enlargers that are smaller than that.
Best Regards
Mads

Lopaka · May 9, 2008

It's an LPL4550 which mounts easily to the wall. This enlarger is only 8 inches from the top of the head to the negative stage. I only have a 7 foot ceiling, and space really is small. (Aren't wide angle lenses great?) But I can work on the normal counter top height for most prints up to 11x14. For larger prints, or when I need to crop a lot, the easel table lowers to several levels and all the way down to the floor. Being able to project 7 feet from the top of the enlarger head is great, even if it takes a bit of acrobatics to work with it. Getting each level aligned is a bit of a pain, but worth it in the end.

Bob

RobC · May 9, 2008

if you only want 8x10 prints why not forget the enlarger, get yourself an 8x10 camera and do contact prints which will give far superior quality as you will have 4 times as much negative area, no enlarger alignment problems, no height problems, no focusing problems and only a small work area is required with a suitable bulb hung above the print.

loman · May 9, 2008

Been there done that. Going to 8x10 means 4 times everything. 4 times as much trouble with the wife ranking pretty high.
Seriously though, I don't want a bigger camera than the 4x5 wista I have, it's very portable, which is just one of the things that I really like. Besides, my darkroom doens't like tray developping 8x10 sheets, since there's only room for 8x10 trays; it's a: "no bigger than 5x7 negatives kind of darkroom".
If I had the money I would go out and by a similar type 5x7 camera as my wista. I don't have the money, and I still really, really want to use 4x5. I love the size of those small film holders, small lenses, easier to handle negatives etc. (I've been known to have used a 360mm f3.6 hugo meyer lens on a toyo 810g, I doesn't get much bigger when we talk 8x10)
The only thing I miss about 8x10 is looking at that huge ground glass under a dark cloth, now that's magic, but it's also a kind of magic I can live without.
Best Regards
Mads Hartmann

paul ewins · May 9, 2008

The column on my Beseler 45 is 1090mm tall and you need to add another 50mm for the baseboard. I bought an Omega (a D5 I think) recently to get the Ilford 500 head and the column on that is 1340mm tall. My Astron is in storage at the moment but I think that the column on that would be shorter than the Beseler.

The biggest issue is usually how high you can go before the top of the lamphouse hits the ceiling, not the column length. A cold light head is the most compact followed by a dichro head and lastly the usual condensor head. At full stretch the top of the Beseler condensor head is 1340mm above the baseboard. If you use a 135mm or 120mm WA enlarger lens then you should be able to print any of the standard sizes. The Beseler also has the option to swivel the head and project onto the wall.

bdial · May 9, 2008

An Omega DII with condensers is 54.5 inches (138 cm) tall and 15 (38cm) inches from the top of the lamp house to the negative stage.
Enlargers that have a right-angle light path like many Dursts or the LPL will probably work better for you because the lamphouse is much shorter, so you get more effective use of the height available to you. I know that in my constrained space the LPL works better than a DII.

If you can mount the base of the column below your table and perhaps notch the table surface around the column you will probably get the best use of both. This would be easier with a vertical column than an angled one like Omega uses.

There is an older thread here in APUG on modding a Beseler 23C to take 4x5, perhaps that's something to consider too.

GeorgesGiralt · May 10, 2008

Hi !
You may consider the Durst Laborator 1000. I own one and I was forced to put it on a table of reduced height for the top of the column not hitting the ceiling. (my basement darkroom is 2.04 m at it's tallest part).
As there is an anchor for the weight compensating spring at the top of the column, you would be forced to saw it at the base (which is easy as the baseboard pinches the column for the fixation) but you may also consider, as I've done, wall mounting. I've written a little article (in French, but look at the pictures) here : http://www.galerie-photo.com/support-mural-durst-laborator-1000.html
If you plan to wall mount any enlarger, you may find interesting the way I've devised to make the support, in order to adjust baseboard and negative stage parallelism.
Feel free to contact me if you need some measurements of the beast.

loman · May 10, 2008

Merci beaucoup Georges!
Heureusement je parle francais (ma femme est francaise).
Ca ma beaucoup aide.

(I just said thanks in french, hope it's allright everybody)

2F/2F · May 10, 2008

There are a few things I might do in your case.

First, I would simply purchase any 4x5 enlarger and put it on (or near) the ground.

Second, I would rig up the Norma to a head and make neg. carriers from black Plexiglas (or pick up some DeVere carrier inserts and just use those. It doesn't have to be pretty; just light tight with an even spread of light.

Third, I would consider purchasing a beat-up Crown and a Graflarger.

The only one of these I have ever actually done is number two. While working in Yellowstone one summer, I bootlegged a darkroom in my quarters using the same camera I used to take some of the pix: a Pacemaker Speed. It was mounted on my tripod projecting onto RC paper taped to the front of a clothes dresser. The neg carrier and light baffles were made of black mount board and gaffer tape, and the light source was a work lamp with a white pillowcase folded a few times for diffusion. I washed using stockpiled tap water stored in 1 gallon drinking water bottles, which I replenished from an outdoor spigot when needed. This was enough because it was RC.

Most of the pix I printed were of people, and from a 120 Brownie or a Canon, not the landscape on large format (although I did develop all of and print a couple of the 4x5 negs for people). I probably went through about a box of 100 5x7 and half a box of 100 8x10. The prints were surprisingly decent, although the smaller the format, the better, due to my crummy diffusion and use of a taking lens leading to vignetting. But the pix were at least good enough to make my coworkers happy with them as gifts, and the whole setup was enough an adventure to give me something to obsess over while there.

I was just stupid enough to do this back then. I might not have so much energy if it were today. You could so something MUCH better than this at home, and with a proper enlarging lens, a better light source, fiber paper, and a better water situation.

But quite honestly, I would just put an honest-to-god enlarger low to the ground.

2F/2F

john cowie · May 10, 2008

Ronald Moravec said:
I have a low table and Omega D2. The table is about 22 in high and very sturdy, 4x4 legs 2x4 solid planked top with plywood cover. Cross bracing on the legs.

This get the machine lower than the ceiling. I can sit on a small stool to enlarge or stand and use a removeable 12" tall shelf over the baseboard.

Hi, I'm in a wheelchair and set up something similiar to Ronald's and it works great. I have a removable shelf for the easel that I can remove if I want to print larger.

looking for "Small" 4x5 enlarger

loman

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