Meopta colour head grades

fidget · Dec 4, 2006

Does anyone know what colour settings on a Meopta colour head are used for multigrade printing grades?
My old Opemus 5 came with a colour "Meochrom" head with colour intensity adjustments that run from 0 to 150. This is not listed in Ilfords information included with their paper, Meopta is listed but it must be a more recent range which goes up to 200, and that stops short of grade 5.
Should I just scale each setting down by a factor of 150/200?

Regards, Dave

pentaxuser · Dec 5, 2006

I did a quick check on one of the grade settings only using the factoring for my Durst M605 to see if I could arrive at the correct filtration for the 130M max head as opposed to the 170M max head and it didn't get me there - well not quite but it wasn't a mile off. I think it was off by 6M.

I don't know how crucial 6M is but not very I wouldn't have thought, given the difference in the M or Y rating for even half a grade difference.

I'd do the calc for each grade and see what the difference is. Presumably with more units on your head you could afford to be further away i.e. a 6M difference on a Durst head may be equates to a 10M difference on a Meopta head.

Hopefully there are others who use Meopta and have user knowledge. If I recall correctly from his books or his website Roger Hicks is/was a Meopta user.

Best of luck

pentaxuser

Ole · Dec 5, 2006

I've got a newer head, unfortunately.

But I don't really understand the need to know the exact settings - if the first print is way too soft I crank it up a lot, if it's a little soft I crank it up about 30, and if it looks good I'll crank the magenta up about 15 anyway.

clogz · Dec 5, 2006

This link may help: http://www.rhdesigns.co.uk/darkroom/html/junk1.html

Hans

Neal · Dec 5, 2006

Dear Dave,

I would like to second Ole's comment. The concept of specific grades is not needed with VC paper.

Neal Wydra

fidget · Dec 5, 2006

Neal said:
Dear Dave,

I would like to second Ole's comment. The concept of specific grades is not needed with VC paper.

Neal Wydra

Thanks for your comments, all gratefully received.
I am newish to this, having run my M670 for a couple of years (not enough printing though). This Meopta is to be dedicated to 35mm as frequent changes to/from MF are a pain. I would like to increase a colour to change contrast, in fact that sounds perfect, but I thought that the mix or balance between two colours was to keep a constant exposure across the range. Is this not the case?

Regards, Dave....

Ole · Dec 5, 2006

Dave,

I recommend a (very cheap and very useful) Ilford EM-10 enlarging meter. It just so happens that a reading of an almost-white area of the print will give exactly the same tone across all filters with Ilford paper.

If I find I need to change filtration I select a highlight, twiddle the meter dial until it goes green; change filtration, twiddle the aperture (or in my case, aperture and Neutral filtration) until it's green again; and then make a print at exactly the same exposure time.

In ten prints it had paid for itself in test-print savings.

Woolliscroft · Dec 6, 2006

The settings for Ilford papers are printed on the paper's processing instructions, although just to confuse us, they are on the other side from the English language section. The chances are that other papers wont be much different. They give the settings for a range of enlargers, not just Meopta.

David.

Andy K · Dec 6, 2006

I use a Meopta Opemus 6 Color enlarger. These are the recommended grade settings from Ilford for RC paper with a Meopta colour head:

Colour........Grade
setting

150Y..........00
90Y............0
70Y...........1/2
55Y...........1
30Y...........1 1/2
0...............2
20M...........2 1/2
40M...........3
65M...........3 1/2
85M...........4
200M..........4 1/2

Y = Yellow M = Magenta

Petzi · Dec 6, 2006

fidget said:
Does anyone know what colour settings on a Meopta colour head are used for multigrade printing grades?
My old Opemus 5 came with a colour "Meochrom" head with colour intensity adjustments that run from 0 to 150. This is not listed in Ilfords information included with their paper, Meopta is listed but it must be a more recent range which goes up to 200, and that stops short of grade 5.
Should I just scale each setting down by a factor of 150/200?

Regards, Dave

I think if you wanted to be really sure, you'd have to make some densitometric tests under your working conditions. You would expose a step tablet through various filter settings and measure the results on paper to find the contrast range for each setting.

haris · Dec 7, 2006

You can try to use Ilford under the lens, glass (or into filter drawer, plastic), multigrade filters. Just use unfiltered light from enlarger head and use Ilfords filters. I have Opemus 5 and Magifax 4 with colour heads (Old Meochrome for Opemus and newer Meochrome 3 for Magnifax), but I will buy Ilford under the lens, glass filters. No more guessing "is grade 3 60M20Y or 65M15Y, or...?"

To say, as I have b/w heads too for both enlargers I am OK, I don't know how light from colour head (that is halogen, unfiltered) works with multigrade filters.

Ilford filters should work fine with ordinary b/w head, but if someone tried halogen light from colour head (unfiltered) to use with Ilford multigrade filters (especially glass under the lens type), I would be gratefull for informations how that combination works.

michielp · Jan 9, 2007

Ole said:
Dave,

I recommend a (very cheap and very useful) Ilford EM-10 enlarging meter. It just so happens that a reading of an almost-white area of the print will give exactly the same tone across all filters with Ilford paper.

If I find I need to change filtration I select a highlight, twiddle the meter dial until it goes green; change filtration, twiddle the aperture (or in my case, aperture and Neutral filtration) until it's green again; and then make a print at exactly the same exposure time.

Hi Dave, I have such a EM-10 meter and would like to use it the way you describe and for the same purpose. I just have one question. When you say that you select a highlight, do you mean that you put the meter where there's hardly any projected light on the paper? (It will be white after the printing process) Or at the spot on the paper where there's the most projected light? (It will be black after the printing process).

Woolliscroft · Jan 9, 2007

haris said:
You can try to use Ilford under the lens, glass (or into filter drawer, plastic), multigrade filters. Just use unfiltered light from enlarger head and use Ilfords filters.

Putting a plastic filter between the lens and the paper is asking for image degredation. If you don't get on well with using multigrade with the colour head, you can always take it off and get a used condensor or multigrade head. They are completely modular and swapping head takes a matter of seconds.

David.

Ole · Jan 10, 2007

Michiel, that was me with the EM-10...

Yes, I meant an area that will be a highlight in the print. I've learned that I need to turn off the safelight though, since my (print) highlights tend to be very dense (in the negative) and my safelight is quite bright. So I turn off the safelight when metering.

Meopta colour head grades

fidget

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Ole

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clogz

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Woolliscroft

Andy K

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Woolliscroft

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Meopta colour head grades

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