Do you enlarge 8x10 negs or only contact print?

[TheDeardorffGuy]

I had to move my dkroom. It was set for 35mm-4x5. Then I was given a used FOTAR enlarger. I built a LED light head. I use stage lighting gels for my PC paper. Printing a nice 8x10 neg is almost the neatest thing you can do. A 20x24 has zero grain. I have better control for burning and dodging. It came with a very heavy vaacum table that goes to the floor. I managed to pack it and my sink in a 7x15 room with a pocket door

[cosmicexplosion]

i only contact print at present, just a light globe and a small contact frame.

its all you need to see how you go, you can all ways farm it out for exhibition stuff later. depends what you want to do and what your budget is and space you have etc.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Only contact print.

[bob carnie]

I enlarge 11x14 film rarely but 8x10 all the time. I contact digital film.

[Robert Skeoch]

For years I had a 4x5 camera and 4x5 enlarger.
Then I sold both and just shot smaller film for work.
One day I decided to get back into large format but realized my wife would kill me if I went out and got another 4x5 and enlarger. The first ones, I bought were new and costly and to redo it seemed unlikely to go over well at home.
So my idea was to get a 8x10 and make contacts prints.

Then I made a nice photograph but it was needing to be larger than 8x10, and I had it printed at a custom lab.

I was no longer happy with just 8x10 prints, and ended up buying a used 8x10 enlarger and rebuilding my darkroom and making 20x24 prints. This was a very happy time.

After a while I decided to sell the 8x10 and get a 4x10 for a project I'm working away on. I can still print it and also use the camera for 5x7.

Now I have an interest in platinum prints, but feel the 4x10 is too small, 8x10 would be as well. So I'm considering making a digital negative in 20x24 and making the platinum prints that way.

There is no real answer to your question so you might just have to "give it a whirl" and see where the trip takes you.

-Rob

[Cletus]

I appreciate all the comeback and opinions.

Leigh - I am in a similar situation in that my darkroom probably wouldn't quite support an 8x10 enlarger. Not that I haven't thought about it! I think it would just be too much and turn my smallish space into a positively cramped space and that's not worth it to me. Lately I've been "exploring the virtues" of 8x10 prints made from 4x5 (or even 2 1/4) negs and many of the photographs I make seem well suited to the smaller print size. Many don't either, though and then I at least have the option of printing larger.

It's exactly that option that I am worried about giving up, by moving to 8x10. Gotta buy the camera and a few more, even larger and more expensive lenses, gotta buy expensive film holders, gotta get a new bag to carry it all in, gotta ask if my current tripod setup will support the heavier camera, etc., etc...Not that I don't expect all this, but when it gets down to brass tacks, it all seems to boil down to whether the difference between an 8x10 contact print, or an 8x10 made from a 4x5 negative is dramatic enough to warrant all the extra luggage. I really enjoy working with cameras and taking photos and that's part of it, but for me, it's really more about the end result, the print, and whether I've successfully executed my "vision" in the end. I'm sure I'm not alone on this point...

It' not that I wouldn't keep the 4x5 either, but now a new issue comes up: I can imagine myself out on a photo "expedition" with 24 sheets of 4x5 loaded and 6 sheets of 8x10 or something like that. Come upon a potential photograph (I usually shoot near the car, or not too far from it) and then....which format to use for this one?? It looks like this will be a special image, I'll use 8x10! But then they ALL look like special images if I've bothered to stop and explore the photo opportunity in the first place. It's not until I'm home, film processed and start working on the light table that the real keepers usually start showing up.

If you're shooting both formats, how do you decide which to use for a particular photograph?

David - Are you happy with contact printing only? Do you do Pt/pd printing, or other alt processes? Are you satisfied with no prints larger than your camera format, or do you scan and do the whole digital negative thing? I'm just wondering because I see you are in NYC. (I envy you!) and I can't help but wonder if your methods and print size is by choice, or if it's just that space is at too much of a premium for a bigger darkroom and bigger prints?

I'll quit expanding on the basic question now, I just think it's really interesting to hear why folks choose the particular format and max print size that they do....

[ic-racer]

The darkroom ceiling is only about 7 feet.

There may have been some variation in size through the years but I believe that if you put an 8x10 Elwood on the floor it is about 6 feet tall.

Can also be turned into a Horizontal enlarger:

[IanG]

Initially I intended to contact print my 10x8 negatives, but as soon as I held some (of my own) I was itching to enlarge them so I went looking for an enlarger. My De Vere 5108 takes up the same space as the 507 or 504 versions as they used the same columns & basedoards anyway. My current darkroom does have an issue with the ceiling height but as it's in the cellar I was able to cut down 8" through the floor and take a joist out to get similar extra headroom.

So now I only enlarge, and reduce

Ian

[Oren Grad]

David - Are you happy with contact printing only? Do you do Pt/pd printing, or other alt processes? Are you satisfied with no prints larger than your camera format, or do you scan and do the whole digital negative thing? I'm just wondering because I see you are in NYC. (I envy you!) and I can't help but wonder if your methods and print size is by choice, or if it's just that space is at too much of a premium for a bigger darkroom and bigger prints?

I'm not David and I'm not in NYC (though there are still a few good pro labs near where I live). But FWIW, I make contact prints because I like contact prints. I'm completely uninterested in making very big enlargements - the largest prints I'll make are 11x14 or 7x17 contact prints, as those are the largest cameras I have. When I'm enlarging from smaller negatives, I very rarely enlarge to a size that won't fit on an 8x10 sheet, and never beyond an 11x14 sheet.

I do ordinary silver prints only, no alt-process stuff.

I've dabbled in scanning sheet film negatives with a flatbed scanner and making inkjet prints but haven't invested much time in it, as I much prefer darkroom contact prints.

As far as the logistics, I had a bench-top 5x7 Elwood enlarger briefly, but found it more trouble than it was worth. I'd have a difficult time fitting a big floor-standing Durst in my darkroom - probably not impossible, but it would force a major rearrangement of other things with resulting hassles. I could manage a bench-top 8x10 Zone VI or Beseler mod with a lot less trouble, but I haven't felt any urge to get one.

[Cletus]

Oren -

Thanks for the comment. Your thoughts on the subject are much like mine. I rarely make 16x20 prints from any negative and even 11x14s are getting to be less and less. There's something precious and...singular?...about a perfectly done 8x10, especially when the particular subject matter is suited to a smaller print. Even more, when matted out to 11x14 or even 16x20 I think a print like this can hold up quite well against a larger print in some cases.

That fact alone is one of my biggest 'pro' arguments to myself when considering moving up to the larger format. I even thought about skipping 8x10 altogether and just going for the 11x14 camera, but for me that would be getting carried away I think. When it gets right down to it, I think the ability to make contact prints, in Pt/pd too if I want - and I really do - is probably alone worth the price of admission for the bigger camera. My whole reason for asking this question in the first place was really whether the investment of time and money into the larger format generally left one feeling limited later, when 8x10 contact prints were the max you could do yourself, without having to scan or farm your work out. That, and were they really THAT much better than an 8x10 enlargement from a 4x5 neg to be worth the trouble.

Yeah, and it never occurred to me there was even such thing as a "Benchtop" 8x10 enlarger. I thought they were all the big machine shop looking, huge stands with the height adjustable easels? My darkroom has really high ceilings and my enlarger bench is REALLY heavy and solid and could probably support upwards of 500 pounds. My big enlarger is an Omega D5XL with a 22"W x 36"L baseboard. Do you think there are 8x10 bench-top enlargers out there that would fit into this footprint? That would really be something and if I could get my hands on an enlarger like that (for less than $3 grand) that'd be all she wrote!