Another Enlarger Enhancement
I have been steadily modifying my Meopta enlarger that I bought for £15.00. I started with raising it up to allow larger prints. Then I upgraded the lenses as I saw I was losing sharpness on the edges. Then because I wanted to stop down the lens for better sharpness I changed my 75 watt bulb to 150 watt.
More light helped immensely with exposure times with stopped down large prints. On the other hand smaller prints suddenly became challenging as I could not stop the lens down enough and I kept running into sub-8-second exposures even at f22. Though I have automated my enlarger and that makes the short exposures accurate, there is not much time for dodging and burning.
Finally I decided I could improve the setup using the now unused filter drawer. Since my automation project uses below-the-lens filters the filter drawer is unused. I bought a pair of single stop ND filters (Cokin P Series P152 0.3 ND2 - 1 Stop Neutral Density Filter) and carefully cut them to fit the filter drawer. These filters are very fragile and though plastic are easy to crack like glass. I used a sharp utility knife and scored the cut cut repeatedly from both sides until I was sure I could break it free. I tried a small dovetail saw but nearly destroyed the filter.
I used 2 1-stop filters as the 150 watt lamp made a 2.5 stop increase in light. 2 filters I reasoned would give me more latitude in adjusting the exposure time. I stack the two filters when I need all the attenuation. So far the system works well.
More light helped immensely with exposure times with stopped down large prints. On the other hand smaller prints suddenly became challenging as I could not stop the lens down enough and I kept running into sub-8-second exposures even at f22. Though I have automated my enlarger and that makes the short exposures accurate, there is not much time for dodging and burning.
Finally I decided I could improve the setup using the now unused filter drawer. Since my automation project uses below-the-lens filters the filter drawer is unused. I bought a pair of single stop ND filters (Cokin P Series P152 0.3 ND2 - 1 Stop Neutral Density Filter) and carefully cut them to fit the filter drawer. These filters are very fragile and though plastic are easy to crack like glass. I used a sharp utility knife and scored the cut cut repeatedly from both sides until I was sure I could break it free. I tried a small dovetail saw but nearly destroyed the filter.
I used 2 1-stop filters as the 150 watt lamp made a 2.5 stop increase in light. 2 filters I reasoned would give me more latitude in adjusting the exposure time. I stack the two filters when I need all the attenuation. So far the system works well.
Comments