Omega D5 colour head options?

[Dave Dawson]

Hi All, I have just won an Omega D5 enlarger with condenser head at a bargain price. I am looking to fit a colour or multigrade head....Apart from a genuine Omega head, can anyone recommend other makes that will fit with little or no modification please?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers Dave

[ic-racer]

Hi All, I have just won an Omega D5 enlarger with condenser head at a bargain price. I am looking to fit a colour or multigrade head....Apart from a genuine Omega head, can anyone recommend other makes that will fit with little or no modification please?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers Dave

I'd only recommend the Omega head. Why do you not want one? There are no other color heads out there that would fit onto the parallelogram lifting mechanism. You would need to have an adapter made like this if you wanted to go that route.
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If you want to use some other head that just sits on the negative stage, without the lifting mechanism, you could try to convert over to the D5500 negative stage system. Then conjure up some way to mount the head.

I'd look for one of these (see picture) .The older ones were gray (like the picture) and the newer ones are all black. Innards are essentially the same.
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[Mark Sampson]

Dave,
ic-racer is correct. The 'Super-Chromega D Dichroic II' head is your best answer. Not only have they been proven by decades of professional use, I'd bet that they are the most common color head for sale on the used market. You'll need a power supply as well; over the years Omega made a couple of different ones. Most common is the 'Chromegatrol' which incorporates a timer.

[Dave Dawson]

Thanks for the advice Mark and ic-racer. I wasn't implying that another make would be better, just wasn't sure of availability in the UK:)

Cheers Dave

[Chauncey Walden]

I've used the same adaptation method on two different enlargers (Omega E5 and DeJur Versatile Professional) to put a Rollei/Honeywell/Nikor 6x7 color head onto the top of the condenser can. Two pieces of board/plywood are required; one with a hole that will go over the top of the can and the other with a hole that matches the footprint of the color head. The two boards are attached to each other and they thus sit on the condenser can (with the condensers in place) and the Nikor head sits on top. The diffusion screen of the head is larger in cross section that the original bulb for the condenser head so works fine. There are two models of the Rollei/Nikor head in that one has the power supply contained and the other has a separate power supply (the heads both look the same!). They (or the complete enlargers) usually can be found for less than $70. Here's a new one on eBay just so you can see what the head looks like - 320938856560.

[ROL]

...just wasn't sure of availability in the UK:)

Cheers Dave


The OP got me to wondering whether black pixels are available in the UK? …or do we all get to post in color now? :eek:

[Larry Gebhardt]

I have a ZBE Starlight 55 that mounts on the Omega D5 with no issues. The lifting arm works as well. It's a much better head than the Omega, when they work. If heard that they were unreliable when new, but mine has been great. I guess I got one of the good ones, with the rest being scrapped.

If you just want black and white the Ilford 500 multigrade head is excellent. They also fit without issue if you get the mounting kit that was available.

[Drew Wiley]

The problem with the Starlight is that they just ran too hot due to the high light output. I had a good face-to-face conversation with the ZBE engineer back then,
since I had a similar problem with my big Durst color mural head and was designing a new style 8x10 colorhead for personal use, which ZBE supplied certain of the
"brains" for, i.e., the feedback system, which sometimes itself goes schizophrenic, but at least the lamp and filter system stays cool. Back when labs wanted high
powered light sources for printing Ciba, they'd have to replace the filters every six months of so, and that got very expensive. Too much heat also inevitable messed
up the feedback circuits. You might not have ever had problems with your Starlight because you simply aren't using it in this manner. Typical black and white papers,
and even chromogenic paper, prints very fast by comparison, so heat build-up is far less a risk.

[buckhorn_cortez]

There are no other color heads out there that would fit onto the parallelogram lifting mechanism.

Not true. I have a D2V and a D5XL and a Beseler Minolta 45A colorhead will fit directly on either enlarger by simply substituting the 45A colorhead for the condenser head on the Omega enlarger chassis. The problem with the 45A is that the flashtubes for it are difficult to find.

[ic-racer]

Not true. I have a D2V and a D5XL and a Beseler Minolta 45A colorhead will fit directly on either enlarger by simply substituting the 45A colorhead for the condenser head on the Omega enlarger chassis. The problem with the 45A is that the flashtubes for it are difficult to find.

How are you attaching the 45A color head to the lifting arms?

[Drew Wiley]

The Omega was a very popular enlarger. All kinds of things were made to retrofit it, either as complete colorheads or as separate adapters from one system to
another. Some of those companies disappeared decades ago.

[RedSun]

Not sure if Omega's own D5500 color head could fit. It has the same arms. I believe the BW head fits both of them.

[ic-racer]

Not sure if Omega's own D5500 color head could fit. It has the same arms. I believe the BW head fits both of them.

You can mount the Super Chromega D head on the D5500 chassis with add-on arms that were available for the D5500 chassis, but the D5500 head has no place for the D5 arms to mount and it is not designed to move up and down.

Drew posted he knew of some aftermarket color heads back in the heyday, but today the most common head available for that enlarger is the Super Chromega D head which is a great head likely to last a lifetime (not counting the power supply).

[RedSun]

I still have the solid state module for the D5. Time to dig it out and list it....