Your Favorite Enlarger & Why

[splaaash]

wow glad i came along to look🙂 Very interesting

I use an omega which is fast solid and well built.

I WANTED a Bessler but living in Europe never found one,used one briefly while in the USA

And i BOUGHT up to now, four Focomats and don't like any of them😡 I do use the focotar on the Omega

The focomats were hugely over priced at around 5€ each and one shockingly so which i couldn't get for less than 20€

I was living in Switzerland then so focomats and err and that huge yes Durst they had a higher asking price,the reason was the colored dials on them

In Budapest (Hungary) i found amazing Russian enlargers including one packed in a not to large suit case

I do have another enlarger for 4x5 which i bough before enlargers became affordable🙂 nothing special but as it has condensers i might bring it down hear--never used it---i used to go along to a local school where someone had a dark room

In Lisbon (Portugal)when i found a small omega 23 I binned my canon scanner which had a light adapter and film clamp for five frames at a time,it never worked with win 7 and my old xp gave up

I bagged an old cupboard in the coffee area and set up my dark room....MUCH faster than scan and print(once chemicals are mixed)and the results just looked better---or different

Didnt know this forum existed😱

 

[John E Earley]

I've been using a Beseler 23CII, which I'm very pleased with and found easy to align and a Durst 606 but may have to go to a Beseler or Omega 4x5 now that I getting more into the 9x12 format.

 

[SQUARETIP]

My old Durst F60 was a great learning tool for me. It was sturdy and yet could be taken apart and put back into it's box in just a couple of minutes. It was my apartment/laundry room enlarger. I used it as a copy stand as well. Eventually I built a darkroom and bought a large Besseler for 4x5 and 6x9. I sold the Durst for around $100. Somehow, like almost all the gear that I have ever sold, I still miss it.

Hey Ken, I have an F60 and would like to convert it into a copy stand. How is this done? I'd like to mount a DSLR for scanning negs.

Cheers
Alex

 

[rybolt]

My favorite is my current enlarger, a Beseler 45VXL. I like it because I need 4X5 capability but prefer not to have the motorized chassis. The VXL is a single column with a crank. It has the same head as the 45MXT but I use the Aristo grid lamp with the collar to fit the Beseler. I also have the Minolta color head for it but don't use it.
I prefer Beseler over Omega simply for the variable condenser in the Beseler. I've used the D2V and it was fine but, to me, the Beseler is more user-friendly.