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Old 29th July 2010, 08:47 AM
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Default Results From LED Enlarger Light Source

Further to my posts on getting a large format enlarger and converting it to use an LED light source, here are some scans of some actual prints produced!

The first is one which I'm optimistically calling 'normal' contrast which uses both the blue and green LEDs on together. It does appear normal to me:



The next print I made was with just the blue LEDs. As can be seen, the contrast is higher:



And with only the green LEDs being used, contrast is lower:




Steve.
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Old 29th July 2010, 08:54 AM
Neil Smith Neil Smith is offline
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Very interesting, you seem to have been successful with this. I wish I was able to undertake such a project, my do it yourself skills are good, but I lack the electronics knowhow.

Well done

Neil
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Old 29th July 2010, 10:41 AM
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A bit of extra information:

The negative is 5" x 4" and is one of four I took on the first trip out with my home made camera a few years ago (yes, I only owned two film holders at the time!). It is not particularly exciting but is adequate to test the enlarger out. Prints are 10" x 8" on Ilford MG IV.


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Old 29th July 2010, 01:22 PM
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Certainly a success. I can clearly see the difference between normal, hard and soft. The soft is very soft and the hard "punchy" to my eyes.
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Old 29th July 2010, 01:23 PM
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The photographs you posted, which I could see earlier have now disappeared? All I can see now are little blue squares with a ? in them.


Neil
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Old 29th July 2010, 01:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Smith View Post
The photographs you posted, which I could see earlier have now disappeared? All I can see now are little blue squares with a ? in them.
I can still see them! They are hosted on webs.com which hosts my websites so perhaps they were offline for a while.


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Last edited by Steve Smith; 29th July 2010 at 01:40 PM.
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Old 29th July 2010, 01:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrian Twiss View Post
Certainly a success. I can clearly see the difference between normal, hard and soft. The soft is very soft and the hard "punchy" to my eyes.
Yes. Although it is not as much range as the 0 to 5 you can get with most enlargers, it's certainly enough for me.

I am guessing that I can get about 1 to 3.5 for grades as I don't really know how to measure it. Others who have used blue LEDs say that about 3.5 is the limit with a standard blue LED so I think it's close.

I don't think I'm that interested in knowing what the grade is anyway as long as I can adjust it to suit.


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Old 29th July 2010, 05:51 PM
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How does the normal one look "in the flesh"? On my screen it seems just on the soft side of normal. I does not look flat in the least. Rather attractive actually.
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Old 30th July 2010, 12:03 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrian Twiss View Post
How does the normal one look "in the flesh"? On my screen it seems just on the soft side of normal. I does not look flat in the least. Rather attractive actually.
I am very happy with the 'normal' contrast print. It came out the way I would probably print it with a 'normal' enlarger.

The high and low contrast prints are too high and low for my taste which makes me think that I have enough variance in the system.


Steve.
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Old 30th July 2010, 08:07 AM
Dave miller Dave miller is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Smith View Post
I am very happy with the 'normal' contrast print. It came out the way I would probably print it with a 'normal' enlarger.

The high and low contrast prints are too high and low for my taste which makes me think that I have enough variance in the system.


Steve.
Makes sense. I rarely need to print outside of the grade 2 to 4 band. With your system would you be able to add filters if you did need to cope with a difficult negative or raise the contrast?
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