Missing condensers

I'm having alot of trouble getting the 135 and medium format condensers for my Durst L1000. I've never seen anything other than the 180 (4x5) condensers on ebay, and what is there is very very expensive!

What alternatives are there to getting the condensers? For example, would a cold light head remove the need the need for the condensers?

A Colour head would be the ideal replacement because you can dial in the filtration for MG papers and wit bDusrt enlargers these replace the condenser system completely.

You'd need to check what was available for the L1000

Ian

And with the color head you don't need condensers at all regardless of the lens/negative?

It's one or the other, a colour head uses a mixing box instead of condensers.

Back in the UK I have an article (from the 70's) on making replacement condenser sets for a Durst enlarger, you need to get circular condensers then get a glass shop to shape therm then make the frames to hold them, easier than it sounds.

Ian

I've rigged up condensers for enlargers out of cut-to-size fresnel magnifiers. The $2 "whole page magnifiers" from my local bargain store seem to work fine. Sometimes I stack two or more for a stronger condensing effect. The optical quality is bad but, hey, these are condensers not image makers. At the worst a diffusing sheet helps to even the light out. So far (fingers crossed) I haven't melted a plastic fresnel in an enlarger head.

With the two 180 condensers I have the light is very uneven with 6x6 (similar to a butterfly shape) and absolutely terrible with 135.

The worst part is I scrapped and threw out a CLS450 colour head that would fit your enlarger about 18 months ago, I offered it for free here on APUG, I had one person interested but shipping to Canada was more than it was worth

There's usually CLS450 heads on Ebay, none at the moment but keep lookong, make sure it comes with the transformer/power supply.

Dead Link Removed

Ian

Hello Dfoo,
I own an L1000. I, toot, bought it without the complete set of condensers. (when this machine was new, the condenser prices was awesome, so the photographer buyed only the one exactly needed).
I have found the missing condensers one by one on Ebay and on second hand shops dealing with pro equipment. So do not despair.
In the meantime I used the beast on 6x6 with Nikon lenses (80 and 105). In order to even the light output I played with the height adjustment of the set of condensers and centered the bulb as much as I could. I also tried to reverse the condensers (the curved face facing each other, but the one originally in the lower place now in the upper slot). Then I put a thick piece of glass on the filter drawer, this glass having one face frosted. This way, the size of the light bulb seen by the condenser is huge and you've a semi diffuse head with more even lighting. Another solution you may consider is to put a sheet of frosted glass between the second condenser and the negative stage. It will even out the lighting and make it a diffuse head. You can also try different enlarger lenses as the entrance pupil is/could be different and conjugate differently with you set of condenser.
Last but not least, you may find the cold light head (which is a box fitting inside the condenser box) but be aware that this one was devised before multi contrast paper was in widespread use and is far from ideal for them. As Aristo is quite out of business, they wont make a new tube for them (it has to be custom made as they never made the tube for Durst).
Feel free to contact me with precise questions if you wish.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice. The stuff people throw out is heartbreaking. I bought some paper off a local darkroom guru who just closed his darkroom since he had to move to a new studio without sufficient space. He threw out an entire NIB printo system. Never used once. Oh well!

With a little work, you could graft a Chromega II color head on there as well. If you google durst L1000 and click on images, you'll see a CLS 450 head with the Camodap adapter and also a Kienzle color head with a condenser carrier. The Chromega head has the diffusion boxes in it, where the CLS 450 head has them mounted in the Camodap box under the head.

Get a cold light n a diffuser.