Whats the point of enlarging meters?

[thomsonrc]

I just bought a Durst Variolux as I thought it might save me time and money on test strips. However it seems a bit hit and miss. I cant always tell accurately which is the part of the image highlights which just retains detail, and consequently I end up doing test strips again. Does anyone find these meters useful?

Ritchie

 

[Mark_S]

I have two meters that I use for different things in the darkroom. My main enlarger is the Ilford MG-600 which has an integrated meter/probe - you tell it which paper you are using, wave the probe on the easel under the highlights and shadows, and it suggests a contrast and time. After a while you get to know where it tends to suggest the wrong contrast values, but it does save a lot of paper in test strips to get close.

The other meter that I have is the EM-10 from Ilford. I use this when I am making a large print. I start by getting a smaller size (usually 8x10) print the way I want it, contrast, time, burn/dodge schedule etc, I then place the EM-10 on the easel under a shadow area, and turn the knob until the green light comes on. Then I raise the enlarger head, refocus, place the meter on the same part of the image, and open the f-stop on the enlarger lens until I get the green light again - then print large with the same times as I was using small.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

I just bought a Durst Variolux as I thought it might save me time and money on test strips. However it seems a bit hit and miss.

I confess that having a company that makes enlarging meters does make me a bit biased in their favor.

They can work very well. There are two reasons why people have trouble: 1) Most meters do not have anywhere near the accuracy or resolution; and 2) Like many things, they give you what you asked for and what you asked for is often not what you wanted.

Most enlarging meters don't work because they can't measure well enough.

To make a print you have to control light to 1/10th of a stop. To control to a 1/10th you need to be able to measure to at the least 1/20th of a stop and be able to do it over a 10 stop range. Most enlarging meters are lucky if they are within a stop or two over a limited range - they are built to less tolerance than a camera light meter, and a camera light meter is only good to 1/3 of a stop or so.

As an example, The Darkroom Automation meter displays in 1/100th of a stop and measures with a an internal resolution a hundred times better.

Most systems only work on highlights and shadows and automatically place the brightest and darkest readings on fixed spots. These are rarely, if ever, the right spots to meter. You need to be able to place any spot on the image on any tone you desire. You also need to be able to use any two spots and tones to determine paper grade. Without these capabilities all you can meter are ‘drugstore prints’ - you can not meter high-key and low-key prints that have no highlights and shadows nor can you meter precise skin tones for portraiture.

You also need to do better than the assumption of many systems that the paper has a straight line response from highlights to shadows and not-to-be-bothered-with toe and shoulder regions. Real paper curves look more like bumpy roller coasters (Ilford MGIV WT FB in Ansco 130 as an example) and a system that can't follow an arbitrary response curve won't give you much control.

Finaly, enlarging meters, like all electronics, are literal instruments and have no artistic soul. It takes a bit of practice to look at a negative or proof sheet and know what spots to place at what tones.

To aid in visualization a good tool to have is a 'custom zone scale' for the paper you are using. It can help with deciding what tone to use for what elements of the picture. A description and instructions are available on the Darkroom Automation web site support section: Making a custom gray scale.

If you can calibrate your meter so it indicates the exposure required for each of the tones in a gray scale then it will be far more useful. You can consult the gray scale and pick the desired tone for the metered spot, read off the exposure meter setting required for that tone, and adjust the aperture or time to get the required exposure to get the tone you want at the spot you metered.

 

[Tony Egan]

I have tried a few versions at the cheaper end of the market and found them next to useless. Considering all the time and experimentation to calibrate etc. etc. you might as well do another test strip!

 

[Ole]

The simple, cheap EM-10 does all I need it to do.

It took me a day in the darkroom with a projection step wedge, a long-scale negative and several sheets of note paper, but I now have curves for several different papers and all full grades of the VC papers I use.

 

[Ian Grant]

A good enlarger meter can be useful, like Ole I have an EM-10 and I also have a Philips Enlarger timer/meter. However I don't use either meter, I far prefer a quick test exposure, that tells me far more and I can generally get very close both with exposure & paper grade this way, it does help that I can read a negative and gauge any necessary dodging and burning before making the first full print.

But for someone with less experience a meter can help enormously. My Philips meter will give a good indication of the paper grade needed as well as giving a reasonably accurate exposure.

Ian

 

[Stephen Frizza]

If a client comes in and wants the same image done in different sizes and its not an image that reqires extensive dodge and burn, God bless my meter!

~Steve
the Lighthouse Lab

 

[Akki14]

A question for those using the EM-10... I'm probably stupid and not using mine correctly but it doesn't seem to work "backwards" if you know what I mean. If I was going from, say 8x10 to 5x7 or whatever, it doesn't seem to calculate right. I can see it being useful for enlarging bigger than 8x10 but I don't do that and don't wish to do so. I think I can do test strips faster and better than messing around with the EM-10...

 

[Ian Grant]

Heather, most meters will struggle with smaller prints due to the size of the sensor and difficulty reading from a precise area. So yes like you say a quick test strip is just as quick.

Ian

 

[Woolliscroft]

I've tried a few and am still back on test strips. Ok it takes slightly longer and costs a bit of paper, but it's accurate

David.

 

[Neal]

Dear Ritchie,

"I cant always tell accurately which is the part of the image highlights which just retains detail..."

An enlarging meter is like any other tool. You have to learn to use it well, or at least well enough to help you. I like my little EM-10 for proofing a number of shots and for getting me close to the correct filter pack. I'm sure that the better meters can help do a lot more. Is it always dead on? No, but what's the point of going in the darkroom then? ;>)

Neal Wydra

 

[LordMagnus]

enlarging meters

I had an em-10, and never did get good results out of it (at least for me). I did get excellnt results out of a beseler analite, but after a couple of years it died, so I bought a beseler color analyzer, and I get good results out of it. I agree with the statement if your doing different enlargements or contrast grades from the same negative, it's excellent to have, save a ton of time. You can compensate for changes of contrast on your VC head, or filter grades, or size of enlargement or both at the same time. as long as you stay with the same paper and developer your good to go, you'll have to take notes on settings with different papers and develoeprs to get the results you want though.

 

[nickandre]

I see no point, personally. If you wish to compare prints side by side, then it might be useful. Personally I like my prints a tad bit dark, so you get deeper blacks. I don't know how to tell a meter that.
If I wanted to stick a grey card in every shot then I might try them. Test strips for me take ~~1 min 30 seconds, plus I would rather spend that money on more chemistry.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Heather, the best way to go backwards or forwards with an EM10 meter, or in fact almost any meter, is this variation I used when printing around 250 transparencies in a daily shift at work.

Assuming you have already gotten a correct enlarging time for a given size, turn off all darkroom lights, pull out the neg carrier about halfway, turn on the enlarger leaving any filtration in place, null the meter.

Place the neg back in, re-compose to the new height, whether it's up or down.

Once again turn the lights off, pull the neg half out again, turn the enlarger on again.

This time, null the meter by adjusting the aperture of the enlarging lens. Don't touch the meter dial at all.

Replace the neg carrier and adjust fine focus then print, you should be pleasantly surprised.

If this doesn't work correctly, check the state of the battery in the meter, if that is alright, the meter could be suspect.

Please let us know if this works.

Mick.

 

[jeroldharter]

I used my Jobo Colorline 5000 for Ilfochrome and it was excellent. With careful metering I could make a good print on the first sheet.

For black and white, I do split contrast printing. I have not invested the time to calibrate with the meter but it might save me some paper if I did. If I tried to print a lot of different negatives one after the other, approximately right (i.e. snapshots, straight prints without a lot of manipulation, etc) then a meter would really speed things up and eliminate the need for test strips many times.

 

[pentaxuser]

A good enlarger meter can be useful, like Ole I have an EM-10 and I also have a Philips Enlarger timer/meter. However I don't use either meter, I far prefer a quick test exposure, that tells me far more and I can generally get very close both with exposure & paper grade this way, it does help that I can read a negative and gauge any necessary dodging and burning before making the first full print.

But for someone with less experience a meter can help enormously. My Philips meter will give a good indication of the paper grade needed as well as giving a reasonably accurate exposure.

Ian

Ian. Is this the Philips PDT2020? I hope so as I have always wanted to find another user. I find it very accurate and able to differentiate between slight differences in the darkest area of the neg and then via the lightest area again with discernible detail to produce a grade which usually looks right.

However as the OP has said the trick is determining the right area on which to place the probe. Often it is difficult to gauge what constitutes discernible detail and more importantly finding an equivalent area on each neg. Usually discernible detail and non discernible are a hairbreadth's apart on the easel and yet the exposure difference between those two areas are the difference between a properly exposed print and one which is way too dark. There are also negs on which a good area of just discernible detail is hard to find.

I sympathise with the OP as I still have similar problems to him even after using the Philips machine for about 3 years.

Is it simply practice, practice, practice and accepting that test strips are required for such negs that defy the machine's and or the user's ability or are there any tips you can give based on your knowledge of this machine.

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[Dave Miller]

I think I must have tried them all; without any success I must add.
When changing sizes a quick calculation will give the new exposure, up or down. However I often find that different size prints require a different density and contrast to work best. So I guess I must be in the test strip brigade.

 

[thomsonrc]

Thanks for your comments everyone, I think I may have wasted my money on a meter, but I might try a few of the ideas you have mentioned.

Ritchie

 

[MartinP]

Does it sound a bit un-sophisticated to say that I use consistently-exposed contacts as my ballpark metering - then get detailed info with a test-print or test-strip. I do have an EM-10, but never seriously tried to use it as my previous approach, and a sheet of height-change compensation ratios, made it unnecessary.

Possibly for speeding up very precise split-grade printing, or assessing contrast filtration for quick high-volume good quality printing then a more sophisticated meter (and associated working method) would be worthwhile.

 

[Ole]

If I decide to change the filtration, I adjust the aperture to give exactly the same reading on the EM-10 with the new filtration as I had before. 18% grey is perfectly reproducible with the same exposure time across the whole range of filtration I've tried.

 

[pquser]

Use meter sensibly

I use a R & H Zone master and find that it get me to the basic exposure pretty well every time without a test strip and is plenty good enough for proof printing provided you buckle down and get the set up done properly !

For what might be called fine printing....

I generaly just meter for a particular Tonal area such as a skin tone in a portrait of deep shaddow in Landscape etc and ''Place this'' on the grey scale
of the meter.

I know what grade I want to use, so just cut a 1 inch strip and after placing it over the metered area and as much of the range of tones I can fit on.
The metered exposure gives me the basic time and I switch the meter off and get on with my interpretation of the negative on that day.

It's just a tool for a job in the darkroom, I use it often but not all the time.

It does save a bit of paper and time if that is important to you.

I have two quite different enlargers so the separatly calibrated chanels for density and contrast readings in the Zone-master enable me to switch from one to the other quite effortlessly.

The R & H has been extremly good, and the companies service is superb

It's in Yorkshire but I will forgive them that.

Bob..[ rochdale..lancashire...uk ]

 

[dfoo]

I've been using my sektonic meter. Open up the lens to 2.8, meter off some dark continuous areas, and I use that to give me a baseline for printing. I know, for example, EV 3 in a dark shadow @f2.8, means around 3s @ f8 with my setup & chemistry on grade 2 apper. Seems to work for me.

 

[Ian Grant]

Ian. Is this the Philips PDT2020? I hope so as I have always wanted to find another user.
pentaxuser

I don't know the model number, I've had 2, but no it's older than that. Philips timers and analysers were always very good.

Ian

 

[fschifano]

What's the point? Well, I use the Jobo Comparator 2. I don't think that unit is still in production, and that's a shame. It's a good and convenient piece of kit. I use small pieces cut from a sheet to test a couple of important areas using the meter's recommendation. With a good negative, the exposure is usually spot on for my taste first time. Once in a while I need to make small adjustments to suit the image, but not often. Saves me gobs of paper.