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  #1  
Old 13th January 2015, 11:14 AM
RussKelly RussKelly is offline
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Default Short Exposures???

Hi. Everybody.

I have now completed a couple of months printing with my newly aquired Ilford Multigrade 500 set up which I must stay I find a dream to use.
The only problem I have encountered is the very short exposure times which the 2 x 300w lamps provide. I have found I am stopping down the enlarging lens to f11 - f22 range to give exposures around 10 seconds when printing my usual 10x8 prints. This does not give a lot of time for any manipulation of the print.
I am sure there will be a solution to this problem as your good selves must have come across the same problems when using an Ilford head, Any suggestions???

Many Thanks
Russ
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Old 13th January 2015, 12:24 PM
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B&W Neil B&W Neil is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RussKelly View Post
Hi. Everybody.

I have now completed a couple of months printing with my newly aquired Ilford Multigrade 500 set up which I must stay I find a dream to use.
The only problem I have encountered is the very short exposure times which the 2 x 300w lamps provide. I have found I am stopping down the enlarging lens to f11 - f22 range to give exposures around 10 seconds when printing my usual 10x8 prints. This does not give a lot of time for any manipulation of the print.
I am sure there will be a solution to this problem as your good selves must have come across the same problems when using an Ilford head, Any suggestions???

Many Thanks
Russ

This can be an issue with small prints on this setup. But remember this is a commercial enlarger and it was designed to give short exposures for repeated runs from the same neg. Such as would be the case in a newspaper's darkroom.

You can get around the problem in a variety of ways:

1/ use a 63mm lens for 35mm, some use a 75mm / 80mm (use larger than recommended for MF /LF at small print size.

2/ develop / exposure your negs on the meaty side.

3/ place a piece of ND filter gel underneath the mixing box.

4/ move the bulb holders away from the mixing box in equal amounts. NB they are designed to do this to accommodate the different mixing boxes. This is probably not an 'official' fix but it works.

5/ fit 150w bulbs instead of 300w. They are available but are quite hard to find.

6/ replace the under lens swing red filter with a swing ND filter.

I use a combination of 1 and 2 + sometimes 4.

It will be interesting if other users can come up with some more suggestions.


Neil.
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  #3  
Old 13th January 2015, 03:05 PM
Wozza Wozza is offline
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Havent got this system I have anold Kaiser Im still learning on but being a complete novice, my guess on such short times would be to go down the "split grade " printing route rather than trying to dodge & burn on such short exposure's.

HTH Warren
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Old 13th January 2015, 03:57 PM
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I have used Lee ND lighting filters on my mixing box for this purpose. (Neils option 3).

They are very cheap to buy in quite large sheets and can be cut to size. You can get them 0.1, 0.15, 0.3 and other densities. I bought the 0.1 density and use several layers to get the lighting level I require. This is on an L1200 CLS501 head but should work just as well under or in the bottom of your mixing box.

Note that they are lighting filters and not optically suited for under the lens use.
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Old 13th January 2015, 06:58 PM
Rob Hale Rob Hale is offline
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Hi Russ,

2 x 300 watts Humm I am not at home at the moment but I am sure my 500 head has 2 x 150 watt lamps in it. Maybe you could check with Ilford which is correct as the 150 s will give you a much longer printing time.

This intriguing as I would not have thought the transformer would carrier the extra 300 watts demand.

Regards

Rob
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  #6  
Old 13th January 2015, 10:13 PM
RussKelly RussKelly is offline
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Default 300 Watt

Rob.

The enlarger head came with 300watt lamps fitted and I have a copy of the original Ilford users manual which confirms that 300 watt lamps are the correct lamps for the 500H Ilford head.

Russ
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  #7  
Old 13th January 2015, 10:58 PM
JOReynolds JOReynolds is offline
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My photocopy of the Ilford 500 manual calls for "2 x 120V 150W lamps ANSI code ESD". The 120V 300W lamps have the ANSI code ELH. Have there been two versions of the head or manual?
Another good thing about the Ilford 500 is that the fan stays on for a little over 2min, which tells you when to take the paper out of the dev...
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Old 13th January 2015, 11:03 PM
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there are several manuals available for download from the ilford website.

Products / manuals
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Old 14th January 2015, 07:24 AM
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B&W Neil B&W Neil is offline
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Less light on the base board with 150w lamps will of course give you less light for focussing. One of the joys of the 300w lamps is the much brighter than average focusing.

You can use either 150w or 300w and I've read it somewhere, probably in my manual, and I have a pair of 150w lamps in my stash of enlarger lamps that came with the system. In fact I have two 500H systems - one my 203 and the other on my 504 and each head came with 300w lamps fitted. I have tried the 150w lamps but after using the 300w ones I preferred the brighter focussing.

The enlarger with 300w lamps comes as a bit of a shock brightness and exposure wise after using one with say a single 100w to 150w fitted.

Are your negs on the thin side ? If so at 10x8 with f8 or f11 you will be on very short exposure times.

Argentum's suggestion with the ND filter sheets sounds a good way to fine tune the output to what you are looking for.

Neil.
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Last edited by B&W Neil; 14th January 2015 at 07:40 AM.
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Old 14th January 2015, 08:34 AM
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B&W Neil B&W Neil is offline
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It appears we have been here before with this one:

http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.or...ead.php?t=3158

Interesting to read that early systems used 150w lamps and later systems the 300w lamps.

From a quick look on the net 150w lamps are hard to find unless you go to the US. 300w lamps can be found but are still rare.

Neil.
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