A new hybrid enlarger on the scene

[Matt5791]

Looks like a cracking product. I love photographic "fusion" products - that blend analogue and digital.

[Martin Reed]

Just noticed the thread... I DID actually think of it, & had a working prototype going before I found out these guys had beaten me to it.

Here's my prototype, gave rectangular full frame images unlike their production model which is square format, probably to keep lens cost down.

[Argentum]

Originally Posted by rh designs

by the end of the video i was getting very annoyed with that damned piano though!

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000

[Argentum]

Didn't shools throw out all their darkroom kit because kids could use computers to make images? Doesn't inspire confidence if they are all now realising what a really dumb mistake they made and are trying to buy enlargers. So thats where school budgets go, replacing stuff they threw out by mistake.

[Martin Reed]

The concept of the hybrid enlarger I think is great, taps into a phone or tablet device that almost everybody carries around, & enable it to be used directly with the little enlarger to make silver prints, & get the old darkroom magic working.

But the problem is getting the, (for want of a better word) iEnlarger sales up & the cost down - the price we were aiming for was £100 retail. An adequate lens covering rectangular format was one of the sticking points. I was hoping that one of the remaining larger material makers would run with it but it got the thumbs-down. British manufacturing confidence!

[Adrian]

I expect those clever guys have already thought of this - but if the cheap lens is a problem, maybe use the app on the phone to pre-distort the image to cancel out the lens abberations to some extent - even if it obviously cannot improve the coverage. Also digitally filter the image to enable contrast control with VC papers. Amazing what could be done with a "smart" enlarger head.

[Argentum]

get an IPAD and then you can contact print

[Martin Reed]

Only wish one could... but the gap between image & paper gives a completely diffuse image. So one effectively would have to construct a 5x7" enlarger, with an expensive lens that can cover that format.

If there were some sort of light piping material to use as a cover for the iPad, & then the paper contacts onto that. Eg a mat of fibre optic strands with high enough fibres/inch - now that should work. Trouble is I don't think such a material exists

[Argentum]

Well if you get the scree manufacturers to design a screen where the image was on the first surface...

[JOReynolds]

They managed to sell 131 units (Feb 2014) including 100 to the original investors. They need more optimisation to increase sales - it's not easy to find on the net.
Their website states that they use glass-filled plastic for some of the injection-moulded parts - an expensive exercise because of the high mould pressures required for the viscous polymer. I hope they recover the cost. Existing moulds for dishes must be languishing, unused, somewhere in Europe.
As Adrian suggests, they could use the app (which presumably converts the on-screen image to negative) to adjust the exposing colour to vary the contrast for Multigrade paper. Or had Ilford, one of their sponsors, already suggested this?