My new DURST laborator 138 darkroom

[thomas ciulei]

and here it is:
Durst Laborator 138s with CLS 301 color head
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43844279@N05/6511447817/in/photostream/

LTronix 24V power supply feeding 24V into modified DURST EST 301,
above is the Durst Fan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43844279@N05/6511446353/in/photostream/

Exhaust fan exchanging 200 m3 air/h
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43844279@N05/6511446823/in/photostream/

JOBO ATL 1000 film processor and 55x65cm sink
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43844279@N05/6511447359/in/photostream/

sry 4 the digital pix-quality, all i got is an iphone 3

🙂

 

[Roger Vadim]

Congrats! The 138 is a truly great enlarger, makes working so much more fun than the fiddly smaller ones - I use mine for everything up to 4x5 " and it really makes a difference when it comes to larger sized enlargements. a beauty as well - it even feels sort of small now after a couple of years.
enjoy and post examples of the work!

 

[pevelg]

I am sooooo jealous! Congrats on the setup.

 

[shadowfox]

Very cool! Plus you can play chess with magnetic pieces 😛

I left a question in one of your picture on flickr.

 

[thomas ciulei]

thank you all for looking and the thumbs up!

@Roger- i picked the 138 up for 450 euro. so glad digital is here 🙂)
i guess i still need a scanner to scan the prints..

@shadowfox- left u the reply on flickr

 

[Tom A]

The 138 is a great enlarger - but what really impresses me is how neat and organized your dark room is! Wish that mine looked like that.

 

[AgentX]

*drool*

I pretty much staked off exclusive use of a huge Durst 4x5 something-or-other with a trick VC head and self-masking glass negative carrier back when I was a student/TA/lab tech. No one else would touch it because it looked kinda scary, anyway. (or at least different than the Beselers that populated the rest of the lab).

Thanks for sharing! Needed the inspiration; my own lab is about complete.

 

[CAMERAOSCURA]

Hi everyone! Great enlarger but even best is the Durst Multigraph 1200...i'm looking for it since an year now but it's impossible to find....suggestions on where i can find it?

 

[sevo]

Hi everyone! Great enlarger but even best is the Durst Multigraph 1200...i'm looking for it since an year now but it's impossible to find....suggestions on where i can find it?

The L 1200 is easy to get hold of, being even more widespread than the bigger sister model L 138.

But the Multigraph head (it is no enlarger itself, but a colour head/system that mounts on any of their large format enlarger bases) is from their latest product line, rather rare, painfully expensive and a jumble of bits and parts, so that most of them will be missing some key element once they've spent some time on the used market, which makes it even harder to get hold of a working one.

While it is doubtlessly the neatest computerized large format print system around, I'd stay clear of it - nowadays, sustainability of lab components is essential, and a enlarger head that is utterly dependant on a proprietary computer is about as far from being sustainable without a factory service contract as it can get. Besides, it really shines when you do large amounts of prints in a constant process - if you are more experimentally inclined, have to buy paper in small batches or have to make do with whatever material is shipping this month (a growing issue), you'll either spend more time and paper on calibration sessions than on printing, or will be using it just like a CLS 501 (which is far more user serviceable, being all manual, purely electrics and mechanics).

 

[thomas ciulei]

good point sevo, the parts and the calibration are the killer.
the fancyer the setup, the bigger the headaches.
and the headaches are bound to happen.
think about the fact that the lab is not the driest place on the world,
even with proper ventilation- meaning that the more
electronics you have, the more problems u will have due to oxidation etc.
but everyone makes his own choice i guess.

besides- i for example buy a lot of "outdated" paper for 'experimantal use',
100-200 sheets minimum for example,
so i'd waste a lot of that on calibrating a paper thats not readily available.

anyway, good luck with your search!