I have a couple of opportunities to get an 8x10 enlarger. It seems making prints larger than 8x10 contacts would be pleasing, say something in the neighborhood of 16x20 or 24x30, but I wonder if laying out $1,500 would be worth the expense and time to adjust and learn the machine. Anyone go from contacts to an 8x10 enlarger for prints? Was it worth it?
I've had my 8x10 Salsman for about a month now and I'm enjoying it very much. I got it, with two companons, for about 1/3 the amount you are talking about. As nice as they are, as much as they are, it all boils down to how close they are. $ 1500 local still beats $500 three states away.
I have an 8x10 Elwood with a 229mm Ilex Copy Paragon. Well worth it(but then it didn't cost anywhere near $1200!)
My subjects have changed as well as my tastes and I don't use it much, but for the proper subject I think huge b&w enlargements from an 8x10 negative are extremely powerful. The downside of course is that you've got to have room, not only for the enlarger but for everything else neccesary for printing 16x20 and larger (up to 40x80 using Arsta mural paper) I used to rent a cheap airplane hangar from the county, but they raised the prices and besides mine was loaded with black widow spiders---and dust. Hangars also aren't light tight so it was a late night deal (unless someone taxis by with strobes on!)
Gee, now you've got me thinking about blowing up one of my more intimate landscapes to 40x80 ---I'll bet it would make you feel like you could walk into the print and pick the wild lilies! If only I still had the room :-(
It is a heck of a lot of fun. The Elwood does a nice job a warming tortillas for late night snacks (quesadillas, anyone?) For some reason working out with the Elwood is always a late night affair. Maybe its because of the airplane hangar.
I steal time at 1/125th of a second, so I don't consider my photography to be Fine Art as much as it is petty larceny.
I just bought a Besler 8x10 a few months ago.... came with a cold head. I love printing with it way more than contact printing. Paid Canadian $500.
-Rob Skeoch
bigcameraworkshops.com
John Kasaian
I had an Elwood 8 x 10 and always thought the prints were too soft until I put in a condenser cell with a few modifications to the enlarger. The original diffuser was 10 or 12 sheets of glass above the negative stage. How do you find it contrast wise?
Richard
I started out contact printing my 8x10 negatives, not so much out of choice as necessity. Contact printing for me meant putting the negative over enlarging paper in a small folding easel and exposing on a very small enlarger. Never tried any of the “alternative processes” or POP. Then I made the leap to 8x10 enlarger (Zone VI, type II, no longer in production so far as I know). I have not contact printed since.
Enlarging to 16x20 or 20x24 (the limit of my system while using the baseboard) allows the viewer to see a lot of the detail not readily noticeable at 8x10. On the downside, flaws that would otherwise escape attention are now distressingly in plain view.
Enlarging allows you to make from subtle to drastic changes in composition. The enlarger gives you the chance to rethink your original ideas in the field, from fixing the horizon or architectural line to reorienting a horizontal composition to a vertical or v.v., to completely excluding parts of the original composition, and so on.
Burning and dodging become realistically possible. This by itself justifies moving up to an enlarger.
When shooting 8x10 for contact printing, there is little or no room for error when exposing the negative in the field. But when looking ahead to enlarging, I often take a somewhat wider shot to give myself some breathing room and to allow for re-composing in the darkroom.
As has been much discussed, there does seem to be a significant relation between the nature and dimensions of the subject and the size of the print. Some subjects simply look better on a bigger print.
For me, producing big prints from my 8x10s (and 5x7s) tends to limit the amount of shooting I do. All the talk about the “contemplative” aspect of LF comes into play here. Every shot is a potential mounted, over-matted, and framed 16x20 or 20x24 on a wall. The effort, time, and expense involved slow me down a lot. I put much more into every shot in terms of advance planning, execution, and thinking about the place of that image, once printed, in its setting. I have been forced to become a much better photographer as a result.
But there are different ways of looking at it, I know. I could have gone in for albums of 8x10 contacts, to look at it on your lap, something like a photography book. But I wanted to hang on my walls, and for me that meant a much bigger print.
I have a 8x10 Fotar enlarger. It was too tall to fit into my house vertically so I used it horizontally. I bought it originally to enlarge 4x10. I found that the contacts from 4x10 were just too small for my taste. If you have the space for it it is certainly nice to have one of these beasts.
You might do better than $1500.00 by having some patience and watching Craigs list for your area. Sometimes labs that have gone digital give them away. Mine came with 1200 watt head which I found kind of wimpy. I have since converted it to a 2000 watt head which works better for my way of working.
I to have the Fotar 10x10 enlarger with a 2000 watt color head, and I love it. I make prints from my 4x10 up to 20x50 and from my 5x7/4x5 up to 32x40. It has loads of adjustments so aligning it is a piece of cake, and it has a real deep negative drawer which allows me to use my homemade unsharp mask registration system. I purchased the enlarger and completely rebuilt it include new dichroic filters for less than I paid for my 4x5 enlarger.
8x10's are fine, but there is nothing like a 20x50 print. It is like you are standing there looking out a window at the real thing. It is absolutely breath taking.
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