Saunders Enlarger

[Robert C. McColloch]

I am evaluating two Saunders enlargers: LPL 4500II B&W and the LPL4500II Dichroic.
A a friend has told me that John Sexton uses and recomends the latter. However, since I am strictly a b&w large format (4x5) photographer, why would I need the dichroic? My understanding of the word "dichroic" is that it has something to do with color? It would be appreciated if those of you with some experience with Saunders could advise me.

[David Karp]

Robert,

Sexton uses the black and white with the variable contrast head. I saw them there in person during a workshop. (He actually uses the version with the more powerful lamp.) Bruce Barnbaum, I believe, uses the dichroic version. My late father-in-law took a workshop from him.

I really like the VC version. I would prefer it to a dicrhoic head, since I think in paper grades, not in units of magenta, etc. Many others use dichroic heads for black and white, so I will leave it to them to describe any advantages to that approach.

By the way, I believe that Omega/Satter is now the distributor of these enlargers, in place of Saunders. The enlargers are built by LPL, from Japan.

[Eric Brody]

While I use a Beseler dichroic head for my black and white work, all dichroic enlargers work on the same principle, continuously variable filtration. That is the crucial point. A dichroic head allows one to easily achieve intermediate contrast grades. If you were to make a print at whatever filtration produces contrast #2 for your paper, and another at #3, you can, if you wish, split the difference easily. I do not know how easily one can accomplish this with a more step-wise approach, perhaps the equivalent of using above or below the lens filters.

The other major advantage is the ability to adapt to new papers, or to old ones as we scramble to keep film and traditional papers available. I suspect relatively few people are using dichroic heads to print "wet darkroom" color in the era of Photoshop and good inkjet printers.

You'll probably be happy with either.

[Oren Grad]

Yes, the dichroic head was designed principally for color work. But you can use the magenta and yellow channels for the filtration needed with variable contrast B&W paper, and also C, M and Y together if for some reason - say a very thin negative being printed at modest enlargement - you need more neutral density than the 2 stops that the built-in ND filter switch provides.

I have a 4500II with the dichroic head, which I use strictly for B&W. I like being able to fine-tune contrast on a continuous scale. Certainly, it's sometimes just an indulgence, but it can be a huge convenience with difficult negatives. When I bought the enlarger, I also liked the thought that it could be used with color if I ever got around to it. But that's less of an issue for me now both because I never have gotten around to it, and because at this point I'd probably explore scanning and inkjet printing first if I did develop an urge to work in color.

I don't care about grade numbers that much - they correspond to different contrasts with different papers anyway. With the dichroic head, you start with the grade-equivalent M and Y filtrations provided by the paper manufacturer, but as you gain experience printing you should very quickly gain an intuitive feel for how the filtration range behaves with your favorite papers.

I believe that the LPL VC head has two channels, nominally representing the Kodak and Ilford filter sets. Despite the grade numbers, you cannot assume that either of these channels will yield evenly spaced contrast grades with any particular paper - there's just too much variation across papers in their actual response to filtration.

[Chris Ellinger]

I use an LPL 4550XLG with the VCCE (Variable Contrast Constant Exposure) light source. If you use VC papers, the VCCE or Dichroic (color) light source will be much more convenient than the B&W source and filters.

[Oren Grad]

Chris's post reminds me that there may be some confusion here. There are actually three versions of the LPL 4x5 enlarger head filtration module, which the company labels "B&W diffusion", "VCCE" and "dichroic". The "B&W diffusion" version doesn't have any built-in filtration at all. In fact, I'm not even sure there's a place to insert filters other than to use them in a below-the-lens holder, which is not ideal.

I would recommend either the VCCE or the dichroic, but would avoid the straight B&W diffusion version.

Although I prefer the dichroic version, the VCCE version does have an advantage I didn't mention in my last message. As the name suggests, the VCCE automatically introduces neutral density sufficient to keep exposure times fairly close, if not quite absolutely constant, across filtration changes. There are ways to do this with the dichroic as well, but it's less convenient. If this is very important to you, the VCCE version might be your best choice.

[Tom Westbrook]

Probably worth noting that the heads are modular and can be interchanged (about $500 for a new module).

I have the VCCE and find the constant exposure feature to work pretty well, but it's not perfect, as Oren indicated. I haven't done any rigorous tests on it, but I'd guess that it's within about 1/2 stop for the inner contrast grades, at least that's what I've found with Polymax Fine Art. YMMV.

[Jim Ewins]

I have the dichroic model and use a chart of magenta and yellow values that give constant (??) light output. Perhaps equiv of the VCCE. A value to me is the ability to use the cyan filter to balance the orange film base on negative color film to produce B&W enlargements with RC paper. That is, after balancing, one uses the yellow and magenta for contrast control.

[Robert C. McColloch]

Thanks to all. You have been most helpful. I now understand. (this is great group of photographers).