Printing 4x5 smaller than film size

[removed account4]

what kind of enlarger do you have ?
if it is an omega, they have these bellows lens cones
called the accessory bellows (i think?)
used for making reductions, they are great for bypassing
the cone/rail system too if you can find them ..
as IC said+showed in his diagram, reduction with an enlarger
is like macro with a camera ( bellows camera )..
making jewel prints is a lot of fun,
good luck !

 

[darkroommike]

1. Many enlarging lenses are symmetrical designs and don't much benefit from reversal, and changing apertures after flipping a board is a pain, worse though on enlargers with a fixed LTM.
2. Nikon at one time made lens reversing rings to fit their El-Nikkors for macro work that would be nice in this application, hard to find and priced a little high for my tastes but there may be cheaper after market rings.
3. Without an auxiliary bellows you quickly run out of lens extension when trying to use long focal length lenses. Use a shorter f.l. lens it will "cover" at the longer extension and for any given extension will give you more reduction.
4. Think "bass-ackwards", set your reproduction ratio by extending the bellows, focus by moving the enlarger head up and down. Again this is something that people do all the time when using a bellows or ext. tubes for macro work.
5. As others have mentioned you will probably need to raise the easel to achieve focus. I always used 250 sheet paper boxes for this task, and usually keep a couple around just for this job.
6. And yes, if you have an Omega the aux. bellows is nice, I have aux. bellows for both my D2 and my D3 but find that if I use a shorter lens on a 4.5 inch cone I can get the reduction I usually need. I removed the standard #6 machine screws from all my cones long ago and replaced them with DIY knurled thumb nuts to make swapping lens boards easier.

 

[dvornik]

This thread is extremely helpful. Since we have a bunch of different 4x5 enlargers and lenses I was able to figure it out.

I haven't shot macro on a 4x5 (or any other format actually) but I wanted to learn more about it and this is actually helpful to get an idea how it would work, because it would be the same thing in reverse.

Basically for reductions the print size is determined by the focal length of the lens relative to the diagonal size of the negative. And the bellows need to extend far enough to get to the second focusing point. And then focus by moving the head.

One point that I'm still curious about is why adjusting the film plane relative to the light source affects the print size and focusing distance (while reducing the light coverage circle). I tried it with a regular and a cold head on Beselers 45mx and the result is similar. But it is not relevant to what I'm trying to do, just something I noticed.

The lenses I tried to reverse seemed to be symmetrical - I tried several Schneiders and a Beseler. The darkroom might have bellows extensions for Omegas, I'll need to look around. But I usually print on Beselers anyway.

 

[Steve Smith]

Reversing a lens doesn't change its focal length, but could change its optical centre which could allow you to focus closer to the paper.


Steve.

 

[jsmoove]

@ic-racer Hey, do you still have those diagrams you posted? The image link seems to be broken.

I frequently make reductions. You will need a lens with a shorter focal length. For example if making reductions to the size of a 35mm negative, use a 50mm lens. Use the 'focal length = diagonal' of the proposed reduction size, not the original size.