Strange lamp head for Leitz Vasex enlarger

Forgive me to take you back about 80 years !

Recently I bought an older version Leitz Focomat 1c. Between the extra parts was a lamp head with four bulbs and a round diffuser with white glasses on each side. This strange lamp head fits the Focomat Ic, but I understand it was made for an even earlier Leitz Vasex enlarger. This (up to) 6X9 enlarger was produced for about four years around 1935. I am attaching some pictures of this lamp head and the diffuser.

I wonder if anyone here has even seen this item, or better if anyone ever used it? And if you are using the Vasex enlarger I would be interested to know more about that enlarger.

I am almost sure it will not work on the Ic, but I will try it on the Focomat IIc which should be closer in construction to the Vasex.

Michael

ps: I also posted about this in the Leica forum: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/272001-leitz-enlarger-head-with-four-lamps/

Fascinating stuff. I trust you're going to check the wiring before giving it a try. I'd be surprised if the insulation is still in safe condition... - ... is the enlarger earthed?
(I've recently brought a Gnome Beta II to a safe condition, and meeting current standards; and it was a bigger job than I expected when I started.)

Why is each lamp switchable on its own? Such reminds me of contact printers where the lamps are seperately switchable too. Though there are more lamps.

Malcolm Stewart said:

Fascinating stuff. I trust you're going to check the wiring before giving it a try. I'd be surprised if the insulation is still in safe condition... - ... is the enlarger earthed?

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Malcolm, the Focomat Ic it came with (in the picture) is not earthed. This enlarger's own head comes with a simple 2-way Bakelite plug which is original and it plugs into the column. This lamp head came with the same plug, a previous owner may have tried to make it work on this enlarger. The person I bought this from never used anything, but did try it out (!!) and assured me it worked. It does work and the wiring looks perfect.

My Focomat IIc I will use to try this out is earthed.

AgX said:

Why is each lamp switchable on its own? Such reminds me of contact printers where the lamps are seperately switchable too. Though there are more lamps.

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Good question! The description in a Leitz catalogue from the thirties says this lamp head and diffuser are meant to solve printing problems due to high contrast. Leitz may have figured four bulbs would be too much of a good thing for certain prints (for instance when doing very small prints). In the same catalogue they say to use ordinary bulbs of 60 watt. This one came with opal bulbs of 50 watt.

Hilo said:

Good question! The description in a Leitz catalogue from the thirties says this lamp head and diffuser are meant to solve printing problems due to high contrast. Leitz may have figured four bulbs would be too much of a good thing for certain prints (for instance when doing very small prints). In the same catalogue they say to use ordinary bulbs of 60 watt. This one came with opal bulbs of 50 watt.

Click to expand...

This lighting scheme reminds me of Ansels Adams' enlarger, with its multitude of lamps that could be switched on or off individually. You can see it in this video, starting at about 5mn30s:
If memory serves, the purpose was to adapt the exposure to the local contrast of the negative by turning off the lamps in areas that you want to print lighter than the rest. Needless to say this wouldn't work well on 35 mm negatives, but a downscaled version might be usable for 120. I don't know if the idea was the same on this Leitz head, but the designs look remarkably similar to me.

Looks like it came from Frankenstein's lab!

Wonderful video on the darkroom of Adams, thanks !

Leitz on this lamp head, in their catalogue about the Vasex enlargers: "If, however, complete diffused light is desired for special purposes, as for instance to soften the appearance of much retouched plates, a special diffused light system can be fitted for the illumination system. In this alteration the upper hemisphere with its 75-watt opal lamp is simply exchanged for another with four ordinary 60-watt lamps, and a special combination of matt-surfaced an opal discs put in place of the two removable condenser lenses"

In other words, it was an accessory lamp head & diffuser meant to solve high contrast issues. The Vasex enlargers went up to 6X9 and I doubt if switching off one bulb makes any change in only one part of the image. When I make tests, I will have a look if even illumination is affected by turning off one or two lamps.

In that case there would be no reason to use separetely switchable fixtures.

Perhaps Leitz just wanted to give the user the possibility to use more, or less light. 240 watt is a lot, when printing small in particular. On the other hand you may be right !

I think the switches make sense. Less light for smaller enlargements. Less heat when left on for a while. Maybe using all 4 bulbs for ease of focusing, etc. I'm no experts in glass plates, but maybe they varied wildly in thickness of the coating. Maybe some required waaaaaaaaaaay more light than others.... To have a variable intensity light source is quite often a desirable thing - especially for labs (which this enlarger seems to have been designed for) that get all kinds of different negatives (especially in the 30ties where probably not many standards existed).

Andi

Today I tried this lamp head on my Focomat IIc. Took out the filter tray and replaced it with the rectangular cover plate. Took out the condenser and put in the diffuser, which fits perfectly.

Very little light came through compared to what I am used to (150 watt), even though these bulbs make up 4 X 50watt . . . Also, it was a far from even illumination. I tried without the diffuser, terrible and I tried with the IIc condenser, still very imperfect illumination. So that was it for now. Next thing is to do what Leitz suggests: to use four ordinary 60watt bulbs. I doubt if this will solve anything.

Looks like the Vasex, for which this lamp head was made, was very different from the IIc