4x5 condenser enlarger

[tom_4558]

I have an old Printex model enlarger that is a condenser. I have just started to print my own photos and I have found that I can only expose the paper for 5 seconds, any longer than that the paper turns black when it is put into the developer. I have read through Langford's The Darkroom Handbook and can't seem to find an answer there. Thanks for any help sent this way.

[Erik Sherman]

Do you have the right size bulb in it? Have you tried stopping down the lens at all?

[Gem Singer]

Hi Tom,

Are you sure that your darkroom safelight is actually safe and your printing paper is not fogged? If those two items are not causing the problem, then you need to stop down the lens on your enlarger until your printing times come out to be around 15-20 seconds. Also, try diluting your paper developer a little more. Read Ansel Adams book, "The Print". Keep working at it. Printing with an enlarger can be a challenge, but the results can be very gratifying.

[Gem Singer]

Tom, I almost forgot to mention,

Try placing a lens cap over your enlarging lens, turn the enlarger light on, place a mirror on the baseboard, and check to make certain that there are no extraneous light leaks that may be causing your paper to fog. Also check make sure that no stray light is leaking out from the negative holder or enlarger head and reflecting onto the paper.

[Ed Eubanks]

My enlarger is extraordinarily bright, also-- so I end up using the smallest stops on the enlarger lens. If you are new (as you say you are) to this, you may not know that your enlarging lens has stops, just like a photographic lens, and you can limit the output light by stopping down to the higher numbers-- f/11, f/16, f/22...
I agree with the rest, that there may be fogged paper or extraneous light, but it may simply be a matter of using what you're given (f-stops, that is).

[james mickelson]

Tom, you can also buy lower wattage bulbs for your enlarger. I use two different wattage bulbs when I have the condensors in the enlarger. An old Beselar 45. I have both condensor and dichroic capability due to the different negs I print from. Also you can stop your lens down quite a bit.

[George King]

Modern enlarging papers for B&W work are much faster than papers were when some of these older enlargers were designed. Going to a lower wattage bulb is a good idea. If this does not entirely do the job, and the enlarger has a filter drawer, or some other place between bulb and film to put it, you can insert a neutral density filter to reduce the amount of light.

The filter, if used in this position, need not be of optical quality, such as a wratten, but can be the sort that studio photographers use to reduce light from strobes. You can get these from B&H or probably from Calumet rather inexpensively, and the material is something like 24 inches square, so you can cut it down to whatever size you need.

I used this method to cut back the light in one of the Arkay 18-bulb contact printers, putting several thicknesses of ND material in a sandwich between two polycarbonte sheets and placing the whole thing on top of the diffuser glass. This allows me to make contact sheets or contact prints on enlarging paper with about a 5-second exposure.

You could also fit an optical quality ND filter over the enlarger lens, or mount it permanently on the back of the lens.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Tom. If you are sure that your paper is not fogged by stray light, if you are sure that
the enlarger light and condensor system are actually too bright, reducing the brightness of the tungsten bulb with a simple (and cheap) device used to dimmer
domestic halogen lights will have a dramatic effect on exposure time. Usually people complain
that their enlarger is not bright enough ;-) it seems to me asier to transform a bright enlarger into a dim enlarger...
This works for black and white only, since reducing the voltage shifts dramatically the color balance of the bulb toward the red end of the spectrum.