i know this will probably sound ridiculous but I've just inherited a large format camera and i don't have a scanner nor am I a big fan of scanning. I have a Beseler 23c II enlarger. It can print 120 film and i was wondering if I could make a 4x5 holder or buy one or what i would need to do to print 4x5 with my enlarger (besides contact printing).
No, that enlarger can't do 4x5. I have seen a modification online, where someone hacked it slightly so that it could enlarge 4x5, and made a LED light source. You might try googling it.
I did see this but the modification makes it only possible to print 4x5 and the way i saw it was after he took the whole thing apart he removed the top bellows and cut a different 4x5 holder to fit into it. The way he makes it seem is there isn't enough light regularly to fully expose the 4x5 negative. But I'm convinced that the top bellows don't block out enough light to severely block the negative, maybe slightly on the corners but not much at all. So instead of using that carrier he bought if i just created my own out of some cardboard to fit the beseler unmodified I have a feeling it could come out close to perfect. Why would this not work?
Well, try it and see. I suspect you will have light falling off on the corners of the image.
The easy way is to purchase a 4x5 enlarger - it will be worth your while.
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