Anyone tried a LED-bulb in his enlarger?

Erik van Straten

Erik van Straten

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In The Netherlands it is increasingly difficult to buy classic lightbulbs. As my enlarger works by means of a lightbulb, I wondered if the modern LED-lightbulbs can be used in photographic enlargers. Has anyone experience with these? Could it be that the LED-bulbs work better than the classic bulbs? At the moment I do not have the time to try them out myself.

Erik.
 
classical light bulbs are on black list in EU because of energy consumption and with that connected CO2 production :)rolleyes: .. do not get me wrong, but ... just forget it) and the production is being ceased.

Anyhow - the LEDs have very different light color spectrum so you may up for a surprise. It is worth a try, but I would not expect the filters to work the way you were used to. Try to google more on the light spectrum from LED. Problem is that there are different on the market ..
 
Can't help on LEDs, but like you, I find it impossible to buy bulbs locally. Thank goodness for the internet, google and ebay. For the Durst and LPL enlarger bulbs are cheap and plentiful, and I keep several spares for each. Do the EU laws prevent you from bying from US and China?
 
Wow, who would have ever accepted that the Edison light bulb was such a evil device. They want to do the same thing in America. I hope they don't.
 
Assuming they make them in product ranges similar to conventional bulbs or CFLs, you should be able to buy LED units marked as 'full spectrum/daylight,' 'cool,' or whatever else tickles your fancy :p
 
Mister E said:
Wow, who would have ever accepted that the Edison light bulb was such a evil device. They want to do the same thing in America. I hope they don't.
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They have always been horribly inefficient. When I lived on an island that generated its own power the best thing we did for energy efficiency was get rid of the regular globes for normal room lighting.

Marty
 
Freakscene said:
They have always been horribly inefficient. When I lived on an island that generated its own power the best thing we did for energy efficiency was get rid of the regular globes for normal room lighting.

Marty
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They are 100% efficient in cold climates. The light they produce is also second to none.
 
Mister E said:
Wow, who would have ever accepted that the Edison light bulb was such a evil device. They want to do the same thing in America. I hope they don't.
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I know in California, the pseudo-environmentalist are trying to outlaw the incandescent bulb. I don't know if it is law or not. If so, we must rely on mercury based FL., or LED. FL have an awful spectrum and give me eye strain. Won't life be grand when they toss the mercury in a landfill.

I don't know what the light spectrum of the various full spectrum LEDs look like, but I suspect it isn't a matter of screwing it in and printing.
 
Enlargers, except those which run on fluorescent ('cold' light) or sunlight (yes there were such) were designed around the incandescent or halogen filament type lamps. The lamp housing, the condensers, and even filtration systems were built to accommodate the lamp's luminance (in)efficiency, the heat it produced, and the colour of the light it produced. Using another type of lamp may not just work unless the enlarger itself ist radically altered mechanically or electrically.

Here, getting the real EL type opal lamps is next to impossible. The Edison screw mount incandescents of up to 200W are still available widely. The local 7-11 has them. But getting them to illuminate the enlarger (I am using condenser heads) evenly is difficult. They also burn too yellow and appear dimmer than the EL types which look 'whiter' and brighter.

There were 2 enlargers which I found to run properly with ordinary 60W household incandescents: the Russian UPA suitcase and the Chinese Jiufeng "Students" enlarger. Both appear to have been designed with the use of ordinary lamps in mind.
 
I don't think so! The main problem is light evenes. It even happens with generic enlarger bulbs , that don't match a particular enlarger model.

Regards,
RLouzan
 
bwcolor said:
I know in California, the pseudo-environmentalist are trying to outlaw the incandescent bulb.
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It already has been outlawed in Europe. And Osram and Philips may be more to blame than any environmentalists. Special purpose light sources are exempt, though - enlarger bulbs can still be made and sold, and even new enlargers would not be affected until somebody invents a true continuous spectrum fluorescent light.

However enlarger bulbs were just a side product of incandescent production - with the production lines for high power general lamps closing down, enlarger bulbs get terminated as well. As with most other things dropped by the first world mainstream industry, some Chinese or Indian maker will probably fill that gap whenever rising prices make it profitable again, but right now, there may be too much new old stock about for that to happen.

Sevo
 
I am 100% for going the green way, reducing CO2 and such - we are indeed earning troubles for the future with our live style. But light bulbs are such a TINY part of our electric consumption that you could as well forget about them. it all a big money and big politics fluff as it just give the people feeling that their smart government is saving the nature (and it is just a tip of an iceberg of nonsense eco stuff we are fed with to keep us from actual eco problems - heating, electricity production, fuels, garbage, you name it). And many companies make nice money on selling crazy stuff to people who do not care (or can not manage) to understand a few numbers.

In the case of bulbs the best reason to go fluorescent or LED is if you can cut on your electricity expense (as mentioned in some of the posts above).

In fact we did change most of our bulbs for fluorescent ones over last 2 years - we do not need that much heating in winter & standard heating provided in our house is much cheaper.

But we still did not solve the issue with the enlarger ... :confused:
 
Using blue and green LEDs, appearently you don't even need VC filters; this link is a good starting point. Looks like a good idea, but I've got some spare bulbs to keep me going for a while...

Dirk
 
delft said:
Using blue and green LEDs, appearently you don't even need VC filters;
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And using RGB, you don't need CYM filters either. LEDs make superior soft light colour heads - and darkrooms were one of the first places where they saw serious applications. But for point light and condensed light sources, they are no altervative, as there are no sufficiently small, bright and homogeneous LED or other fluorescent lamps - it is either incandescent or high pressure arc light there.
 
Matus said:
I am 100% for going the green way, reducing CO2 and such - we are indeed earning troubles for the future with our live style. But light bulbs are such a TINY part of our electric consumption that you could as well forget about them....
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True. The internet is killing the environment at a far greater rate. Each search engine question costs an hour of vacuuming, due to the number of computers, hubs, switches etc that must relay it.

Stacking up on bulbs might be a good idea!
 
CFLs are far worse for people and the environment that the Edison light bulb has ever been. That and CO2 is good for the environment.
 
ZeissFan said:
I converted my very old enlarger to use a CFL bulb. I just had to diffuse the light. Seems to be working well.
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Well, for very casual use it might. In serious use you would discover that fluorescent needs some 10-15 minutes warming up to be somewhat constant, so that timer switching like with incandescents is impossible - i.e. you need a shutter (and electronic leaf shutters and control boxes for enlarger use are hard to find).
 
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