multigrade enlargers?"

[didi]

what kind of benifit would I get if I have a colour enlarger.?

are colour head and multigrade enrargers the same?

[Leonard Evens]

I don't think either term is definitive. Almost any enlarger will have a drawer into which you can insert filters. If not, the filters can always be put under the lens. There are filters which can be used to vary contrast with multigrade or polycontrast b/w papers. There are other color correction filters which can be used to make color prints. You can also get special heads for many enlargers which include an appropriate light source and built-in dichroic color correction filters which allow you to dial in the appropriate filtration. These are designed primarily for color printing, but they can also be used with multigrade b/w papers. Color heads are considerably more expensive but they are certainly easier to use and probably more consistent. On the other hand, you can do it all with an ordinary head and a set of filters. For purely b/w printing, some people prefer not to use a color head in order to have greater choices for the lighting source.

[kthompson]

ilford made a "multigrade" head--used 2 lamps, each filtered either green or blue & varied the exposure for contrast. aristo makes a VC coldlight that works in similar way--but uses a green and a blue tube that you can vary the intensity of to get various contrasts. there are some other dedicated VC sources as well. there are also additive (as opposed to subtractive--CMY) color heads that use RGB filtration or lightsources to do sorta the same thing. A reg CMY color head works fine for b&w, but sometimes the high & low ends of the dichroic filters don't give you the same extremes as a -1 or 5+ filter would. The blue-green heads work pretty well in this regard though. I use both colorheads, coldlights and VC coldlights for b&w--and they all have their good & bad sides. in the end, it probably doesn;t matter as long as you find something you like. just from a parts/service point of view--it probably makes sense to skip the older ilford multigrade heads and the beseler 45A. these are pretty much on the way to becoming obsolete. hope this helps. my opinions only as always.

[Witold Grabiec]

If you believe that its the photographer not the camera, then same applies to darkroom work. Personally I would not change a dichro head for an MG one, because while techinque is somewhat different, the results SHOULD be the same. It's the pratice that makes perfect. It's unlikely that you will see a long term improvement in your printing by simply changing the light source. Some may make it a bit easier in the beginning but having printed on both, dichros and cold lights, I see virtually no advantage of one over the other. My own apporach has always been about running some tests on film/paper/chemistry combinations and using it to getting consistency in the pre-darkroom process. Then you know its the printing that needs working on.

[Kirk Gittings]

I have used Beseler color heads for printing VC for many years now. I used to use an Arista cold light for graded papers during those lean years when there were no good VC papers (1978-1988?). The Color heads (I have two on MX chassis) were originally bought to print color because I have a very busy commercial photo business as well, but I switched to them for B&W too about 12 years ago. The reason was two fold. One was the resurgence of decent VC papers, and the other was the ease of doing split-filtering on a color head with VC paper. Split-filtering takes VC papers to another whole realm of possibilities.