Using my new D5-XL: Carrier Question

[Jason24401]

Hi all,

I just bought an Omega D5-XL with the Chromega lamphouse. I also purchased a few neg. carriers to go with it. They are the sandwich type - mostly rectangular except for two bulges where the carrier sits over the lens, the typical D series carriers. My enlarger doesn't have any pins or anything to align the carrier with. Am I supposed to just eyeball it everytime? I'm not sure I'll like that.

Thanks

[Mark Sampson]

The old style Omega (D2) neg carriers have two half-round cutouts on the back side, to register the carrier against two pins at the back of the neg stage. So the neg carrier is always square to the lamphouse. The D5 enlargers have a circular opening in the neg stage, and the D5-specific carriers have a frame on the bottom half that drops into the opening. This locates and centers the carrier but allows you to rotate it for positioning. But as you found, the D5 lacks the D2's registration pins.Your old-style carriers will work fine, it just takes a little more care.

[bob carnie]

Jason

I use only glass carriers with all the omega enlargers I have.
A trick I have learned is to use electrical tape on the back side of the glass or bottom when in the carrier position to mask out for the different formats.
there fore I have quite a few glass carriers.

Size up your image to your printing height . then take the glass carrier out of the enlarger. raise the head to load position and turn on the light, you may want to rack out the bellows a bit . What you will see on the baseboard is your printing light.
Center the Blades of your easel directly using the light as a guide. Then put the negative back into the carrier load position and move the *** negative **** into the correct centered position.
Once you have the negative into place ** for arguments sake I am not cropping the image.*** take the glass carrier out of the head . flip it over and mask out the negative with black electrical tape.
Now when you place the same type of negatives into this carrier and into the head of the enlarger , your image will always be centered to the easal, lens and light source.

sounds a bit complicated and a lot of work but if you do it once you will see it to be very easy to do.

hope this helps

[Jason24401]

I knew something wasn't right. The guy I bought the enlarger from was very knowledgable and helpful. I think he just overlooked the fact I needed the carriers with the "frame" on the bottom. Perhaps I'll sell these and look for the proper ones, or maybe just modify these. I've always shied away from glass carriers since they seem to introduce a few extra problems. Anyway, thanks for the quick help. If it wasn't for this forum, I wouldn't know where else to turn.

Thanks,
Jason

[David Crossley]

Good advice from Mark and Bob.

I would add these bookmarks for the best info on Omega Enlargers + used and refurbished parts: www.classic-enlargers.com & www.khbphotografix.com ....


David Crossley/Crossley Photography....

[Carioca]

Hi,
I had the same problem with Omega carriers.
I traded them in, now I work with Beseler glassless neg-carriers, they have four registration pins.
All there was to do, was to drill 4 holes in the carrier base of my Omega head. I usually don't like tampering with the original gear, but this modification was well worth it, especially if you don't want to fiddle around too much in the dark...
With this modification you can use either carrier.

Sidney