Will I regret selling my Focomat v35?

Lachlan Young said:

The Kienzle parts are a set of machined pieces designed to allow the use of a suitable spec currently available bulb (EFN) - which are essentially identical to Leitz's own upgrades towards the end of the V35's life.

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Kienzle also list the bulbs on their price list though it is possible to get them from various eBay sellers, US bulb specialists and spezilamp.de
I have just placed an order from what seems to be the last producer of the 13139 type bulb: Donar in China. I ordered through the AliExpress app 5 bulbs for just over USD50 including shipping to U.K. I got the same bulbs from a US seller earlier and they work identically to the Philips ones.
I am intrigued by the Heiland LED but for the price of the setup could easily get a top class enlarger or more than 100 halogen bulbs so remain to be convinced! I read that the image is greenish but if it’s much brighter than the original system I’d be happy. With the VC module the V35 is pretty dim.
Making big enlargements is the main reason I like the V35 but the exposures are typically 3-4 times longer than my IIc. My darkroom roof isn’t high enough to raise the IIc to its full extent alas!

logan2z said:

That's where I bought my bulbs. I still get unacceptably long exposure times. Maybe there's something else wrong with my v35 if you use the bulbs from KHB and your exposure times are reasonable. My prints look fine but the long exposure times are a bit annoying.

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I agree about the lengthy exposure times. The filter modules in the V35 dim the image a lot. I started with the black and white module and never had a problem with this but it’s all VC nowadays. The colour module seems better than the VC one in terms of brightness for some reason. All the enlargers I’ve acquired recently have been very cheap: when Valoy and Ics are cheaper than a box of 10x8 paper and my latest V35 less than 50 sheets of 12x16 the only issue is space. Even IIc enlargers can be had for not much if you are patient. For me the pleasure I get from using these machines is part of the reason I’ve found Leitz enlargers taking up the space available and my favourite is still the Valoy II.
For simply functional reasons a Durst 805 Multigrade would be hard to beat or even an LPL 7700 though by the time you’ve bought the universal negative carrier, fine focus knob and a few necessities you’re back in Focomat territory. They’re all good.

apbphoto said:

Kienzle also list the bulbs on their price list though it is possible to get them from various eBay sellers, US bulb specialists and spezilamp.de
I have just placed an order from what seems to be the last producer of the 13139 type bulb: Donar in China. I ordered through the AliExpress app 5 bulbs for just over USD50 including shipping to U.K. I got the same bulbs from a US seller earlier and they work identically to the Philips ones.
I am intrigued by the Heiland LED but for the price of the setup could easily get a top class enlarger or more than 100 halogen bulbs so remain to be convinced! I read that the image is greenish but if it’s much brighter than the original system I’d be happy. With the VC module the V35 is pretty dim.
Making big enlargements is the main reason I like the V35 but the exposures are typically 3-4 times longer than my IIc. My darkroom roof isn’t high enough to raise the IIc to its full extent alas!

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Any additive exposure system will produce a seemingly 'odd' colour of light - I've worked with the Ilford MG500 heads for so long that it really doesn't bother me, but green/blue light can seem very strange indeed on first encounter. From what I understand the Heiland LEDs can be dramatically more powerful in terms of their effective light output relative to what might be perceived from their power rating.

VC systems can be dimmer at some grades than direct equivalent colour heads to ensure constant speed between grades - and both can be dimmer than the Ilford filters.

I have to admit to preferring the Focomat IIa - less mechanically complex than the IIc, albeit with some slightly different limitations - though I always wonder about getting a IIc & modifying it to a dichroic head & newer lenses (would really need a basket case IIc to start with however). And I've always wanted a Valoy II, but then I would really have run out of room...

Lachlan Young said:

Any additive exposure system will produce a seemingly 'odd' colour of light - I've worked with the Ilford MG500 heads for so long that it really doesn't bother me, but green/blue light can seem very strange indeed on first encounter. From what I understand the Heiland LEDs can be dramatically more powerful in terms of their effective light output relative to what might be perceived from their power rating.

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That's interesting. I understand the Heiland system for V35 has had several versions so I am not sure what the current state of the art is.I don't quite understand how the LED light source can be so expensive since the components are cheap and the market weak. I have a 500HLZ Multigrade head on a Focomat Ic which is green and dim even compared to the V35 but still produces wonderful results. When I use a regular Ic or Iic with 75w or 150w bulb in the original configuration I wonder why anyone bothered trying to improve it...

apbphoto said:

That's interesting. I understand the Heiland system for V35 has had several versions so I am not sure what the current state of the art is.I don't quite understand how the LED light source can be so expensive since the components are cheap and the market weak. I have a 500HLZ Multigrade head on a Focomat Ic which is green and dim even compared to the V35 but still produces wonderful results. When I use a regular Ic or Iic with 75w or 150w bulb in the original configuration I wonder why anyone bothered trying to improve it...

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You'd be surprised at what sells & doesn't - De Vere 504's and (especially) 5108's are becoming thinner on the ground, and people seem to be gravitating towards 4x5 machines rather than 'professional' 6x9 kit.

For that matter, my own personal 504 has a MG400 head, running off a 500 controller & power supply on the 500HLZ head's control mode...

It also tends to get forgotten that the Focomat IIa/ IIc was essentially a mid-20th century fore-runner of the Fuji Frontier/ minilab system - at least in terms of the originally conceived market it would seem - though the IIC makes it considerably easier to make larger prints than the IIa. Agfa's Varioscop 60 seems to have been aimed at much the same part of the market.

Lachlan Young said:

You'd be surprised at what sells & doesn't - De Vere 504's and (especially) 5108's are becoming thinner on the ground, and people seem to be gravitating towards 4x5 machines rather than 'professional' 6x9 kit.

For that matter, my own personal 504 has a MG400 head, running off a 500 controller & power supply on the 500HLZ head's control mode...

It also tends to get forgotten that the Focomat IIa/ IIc was essentially a mid-20th century fore-runner of the Fuji Frontier/ minilab system - at least in terms of the originally conceived market it would seem - though the IIC makes it considerably easier to make larger prints than the IIa. Agfa's Varioscop 60 seems to have been aimed at much the same part of the market.

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Tell me more about the difference between II and Iic for large prints. Also can you enlighten me on the Devere 504 negative carriers: did they evolve from the movable masking type to fixed cut-outs like the 203 vs 203 MkII or were they always fixed? I much prefer the option to show a bit of rebate without having to get the metal files out...

apbphoto said:

Tell me more about the difference between II and Iic for large prints. Also can you enlighten me on the Devere 504 negative carriers: did they evolve from the movable masking type to fixed cut-outs like the 203 vs 203 MkII or were they always fixed? I much prefer the option to show a bit of rebate without having to get the metal files out...

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The IIa doesn't have the threaded column like the IIc - it's smooth with a hardened steel pin which can be positioned for AF on the baseboard, or AF on a 1" high easel - you can lift it to the top of the column like a 1c, but with the risk of whacking yourself on the head with a much heavier piece of metal if you loosen it without paying attention! My IIa is a very late model with a 5cm/ 4.5 Focotar and a 9.5cm/4.5 Focotar.

504's started with masking in the carrier (painted brown), then went to masking in the chassis (the black and white carrier) - as to why, I could phone up John Boyce of Odyssey De Vere and interrogate him, but I suspect it was for a very simple reason: when the 5108 was being designed, scaling up the 504 carrier with integrated masking would have resulted in something very heavy indeed - 3-4kg - imagine having to deal with something like that on a routine basis! Or are you talking about the metal inserts themselves? There were (I believe) in the early days fixed format sandwich carriers which were used with short lift pins - I've thought about getting a few carriers laser cut & getting short lift pins made for both my 203 and 504 to eliminate the carriers which I am not the world's biggest fan of.

Lachlan Young said:

The IIa doesn't have the threaded column like the IIc - it's smooth with a hardened steel pin which can be positioned for AF on the baseboard, or AF on a 1" high easel - you can lift it to the top of the column like a 1c, but with the risk of whacking yourself on the head with a much heavier piece of metal if you loosen it without paying attention! My IIa is a very late model with a 5cm/ 4.5 Focotar and a 9.5cm/4.5 Focotar.

504's started with masking in the carrier (painted brown), then went to masking in the chassis (the black and white carrier) - as to why, I could phone up John Boyce of Odyssey De Vere and interrogate him, but I suspect it was for a very simple reason: when the 5108 was being designed, scaling up the 504 carrier with integrated masking would have resulted in something very heavy indeed - 3-4kg - imagine having to deal with something like that on a routine basis! Or are you talking about the metal inserts themselves?

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Just curious really as I know many photographers who prefer prints with a bit of a border around the image edge but enlarger makers seem to assume that we all want to see less of the images we so carefully framed when we shot them and I wonder which neg carriers work for the 100%+ approach...

apbphoto said:

Just curious really as I know many photographers who prefer prints with a bit of a border around the image edge but enlarger makers seem to assume that we all want to see less of the images we so carefully framed when we shot them and I wonder which neg carriers work for the 100%+ approach...

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Or the opposite view to that is that people get disgruntled when you get unwanted flare etc - and before Cartier-Bresson etc became culturally hegemonic/ fetishised as some sort of journalistic 'purity' symbol, people seemed to care less about 'full frame' printing. Beseler make full frame 35mm carriers for the 23 & 45 currently. Kienzle could probably make you full frame inserts for most enlargers if you give them dimensions to work to. I like filed out carriers for the aesthetics, not for some kind of anti-cropping belief.

I have the Focomat IIc and I have no experience with the IIa. A friend prefers the IIa because it's negative holder is larger than the one from the IIc. Larger in the sense that there is more space around the image. With the IIc I have had difficulties with some negatives from old Zeiss folders that are slightly larger than negatives from more modern cameras for 120 film. It is why I filed out an IIc negative holder as well.

Lachlan, you should really get the Valoy II, it is a small miracle and the 135 equivalent of the early IIa with just one lens (which is the IIa that I would get). I have the Valoy II set up to do up to 50x60cm prints (using an Ic column) and exposure times are about two thirds shorter than with the Focomat Ic, which at that size is very good. The system to bring up and down the head is part of the miracle: a matter of simply squeezing the clamp inside the arm. Then fine-tuning with the large round knob (very precise) in combination with the large helicoid. I use different lenses, from a 38mm to a 65mm . . . Libertá !

I have a Focomat 11c with Ilford Multigrade 500H head, a Focomat V35 with B/W filter box, and a Durst DA 900 with Ilford Multigrade 500H head. The 11c enlarges 35mm and Medium format, but only goes up to 12 x 10" on the baseboard with Autofocus, larger up to 16 x 12 without autofocus; the Focomat V35 has autofocus but only enlarges 35 mm up to 12 x 15"; but the DA 900 enlarges 35mm and MF up to 20 x 16" on the baseboard with autofocus. So I am letting the V35 go to a friend of one of my sons because he has borrowed my darkroom in the past, I know he is a committed B/W printer, and will make good use of it; I have to keep the Leitz 11c for a spare 500H head; the Durst DA900 has autofocus and is a joy to use, I only do black and white, 35mm and MF, and there is no difference in quality between the Leicas and the Durst that I can see, and I realised some time ago that I now only use the Durst, the other two are redundant. QED.
Richard

Hilo said:

I have the Focomat IIc and I have no experience with the IIa. A friend prefers the IIa because it's negative holder is larger than the one from the IIc. Larger in the sense that there is more space around the image. With the IIc I have had difficulties with some negatives from old Zeiss folders that are slightly larger than negatives from more modern cameras for 120 film. It is why I filed out an IIc negative holder as well.

Lachlan, you should really get the Valoy II, it is a small miracle and the 135 equivalent of the early IIa with just one lens (which is the IIa that I would get). I have the Valoy II set up to do up to 50x60cm prints (using an Ic column) and exposure times are about two thirds shorter than with the Focomat Ic, which at that size is very good. The system to bring up and down the head is part of the miracle: a matter of simply squeezing the clamp inside the arm. Then fine-tuning with the large round knob (very precise) in combination with the large helicoid. I use different lenses, from a 38mm to a 65mm . . . Libertá !

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The IIa seems to be designed to handle up to 65x90mm film - lots of space for handling 120 film. The main attraction for me was that the late IIa has the two classic (if not necessarily the best, according to the lens tasting crowd) Focotars on board - ie the 50mm (rather than the 60) & 95mm.