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  #1  
Old 9th March 2017, 07:35 PM
M Stewart M Stewart is offline
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Default Enlarger component?

At a recent camera fair I bought what may be the basis of an enlarger. It's a circular sheet of black-painted metal (115mm diam.) with a rectangular aperture of 43mm x 34mm in the centre. On one side of the rectangular aperture, is a plano-convex lens with a focal length of around 70mm, plane side next to aperture in metal sheet. The lens is held in place by a circlip device, and seems to be of good quality - well polished surfaces, and no faults visible.

There's no hint of rails or channel to take film, or similar. Could it be designed to allow 35mm to be projected complete with edge perforations? At the moment, I can't think of any other use. (It cost me next to nothing.)
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Old 9th March 2017, 08:02 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is online now
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A picture might be worth a thousand words here, Malcolm

Mike
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Old 9th March 2017, 08:43 PM
Lostlabours Lostlabours is offline
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Old condenser enlargers needed supplementary condensers for smaller formats and the FL of the condensers needs to be matched to a specific FL lens.

Ian
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Old 9th March 2017, 10:43 PM
M Stewart M Stewart is offline
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I'll try and post an image or two. Here's one side

and another view, from the other side. 115mm diameter, with 43mm x 34mm aperture.


I didn't pay as much as the £5 on the sticker.
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Old 9th March 2017, 10:55 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is online now
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Thanks, Malcolm. I knew I couldn't help even if there were pictures but these may help others identify exactly what they are

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Old 9th March 2017, 11:13 PM
big paul big paul is offline
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its as others have said a condenser lens, the one that sits above the film 35mm ,a lot of the cheap enlargers only had one condenser for 35mm and one for 120 ,the bigger enlargers like my devere 504 varicon will only work with two one facing up and one facing down and just change them for bigger or smaller condensers with different film formats ..



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Old 9th March 2017, 11:19 PM
M Stewart M Stewart is offline
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Many thanks for the confirmation. Any ideas as to what format it might have been intended for? Oversize for 35mm, or perhaps about right?
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Old 9th March 2017, 11:34 PM
big paul big paul is offline
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it would be a little bit away from the film just above the negative carrier ,it looks 35mm film to me ,And if you put it in the right enlarger it would still work today.


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Old 10th March 2017, 09:09 AM
Lostlabours Lostlabours is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by big paul View Post
it would be a little bit away from the film just above the negative carrier ,it looks 35mm film to me ,And if you put it in the right enlarger it would still work today.


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Not necessarily, if there's only one lens in it then it would sit on top of the larger condenser set. that's what happens with my Johnsons V45, there would be an air space between it and the condenser set below.

If two lenses then it sits on it's own..

Ian
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Old 10th March 2017, 05:03 PM
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Martin Aislabie Martin Aislabie is offline
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Well, it looks like an Enlarger Condenser Lens to me.

As Ian says, unless there are two lenses nestling in the part, then its missing its matching twin.

Condenser Enlargers were the standard enlarger design for many years, really until the advent of colour.

Colour Enlargers are a diffusion design - so that coloured filters could be easily added in to the light path.

Condenser designs produce a print of much greater contrast than a diffusion design - so for many years B&W films were quoted with development two times - a Gamma of 0.62 for diffuser enlargers and a Gamma of 0.58 for Condenser designs.

My B&W Kaiser Enlarger has a Condenser set in its light path

You can/could get pairs of Condenser Lenses for 35mm, 6x6 and 6x9

However, no one could ever tell me what I would gain by buying the 35mm set apart from shorter exposure times - which I never felt the need for.

Martin
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