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View Full Version : omega prolab d6xl enlarger



Tyson Fisher
27-Oct-2000, 19:23
Thinking of buying this enlarger along with Nikon 50 and 105 lenses and Schneide r 75 lens.

Since I am pretty new to 4x5, is this a good buy for around $2000? Thanks

David Grandy
27-Oct-2000, 23:19
I own this exact enlarger and love it (and just stopped using it about ten minutes ago). But there are a bunch of questions I'd have about the one you are looking at.

Does your enlarger have a colour head on it? If it doesn't, I don't think that it's all the great a deal at all. Although many will argue that a condenser enlarger is better than a diffusion or cold head enlarger, I just don't buy it. Condenser enlarger show more of a hot spot, and are designed for people who like to spot prints. I can adjust the contrast with the turn of a control and avoid either having lots of graded paper around or worse, having to print through a piece of 3 cent plastic. And finally a colour head COSTS more than the condenser head when you are trying to figure out the value.

There could be a small chance that there is a Multigrade (wonderful) or cold head like Zone 6 (better than a condenser) on your enlarger and that would make a big difference to increasing the value.

The glass, except for the 105 doesn't sound all that great. You'll need at least a 135 mm lens if you want to print 4X5 and that line up of lenses doesn't give you that. So you will have to buy either a 135 or 150 mm lens and they aren't cheap.

Then you'll have to find out which lenses these ones are. Is the Nikon 50 mm the 2.8 or 4? The 4 is an older lens without the performance of the 2.8 and is worth much less. Schneider doesn't make a 75 mm lens anymore so I suspect that that lens is older, perhaps VERY old. You can check the age of any Schneider lens on Schneider's web site if you know the serial number.

I have a pair of Schneider Componon-S lenses, an 80 and a 135 and I can't say enough good things about them. I can say that it is next to impossible to use a 50 mm lens on my enlarger (I have the three lens turret)as it has forced me to compress the bellows and this can't be good. So I just use the 80 to print 35 mm negs.

Anyway back to the lenses. In a number of different threads other writers have commented that the Nikon 75 mm is inferior to either the Nikon 80 mm or certainly Schneider 80 mm lenses. It's not that the 75 mm Nikkor is that bad, it's just that the 80's are so much better.

So even if this enlarger has a colour head, power supply and voltage regulator, and that the lenses are top end I still think that $2000 (especially of these are US dollars) is still too high.

George Nedleman
28-Oct-2000, 13:28
I bought a D6 chassis from Midwest camera for $200 plus shipping. I built a head for an Arista cold light-designed for a D-2- ($200?) and a new lens an 80mm El Nikkor for6X7 from B&H-another$200. I hade to make the base but I placed it in the corner so that worked out perfectly. The post girders are so long I secured them to the wall near the ceiling with wood blocks. $2000??