William D. Lester
28-Mar-2005, 07:39
I presently have a Saunders LPL 4500 enlarger with a CCCE head which has served me well for the past 15 years. If I have any nits to pick with it, the negative carriers tend to wear ever so slightly after years of use and leave traces of metal filings which tend to be more nuisance than anything else.
An aquaintance in my camera group has purchased a couple of Durst Laborator L1200 4x5 enlargers on Ebay. The design and construction of the negative stages appears to be first class on the Durst and I'm told the overall build quality is excellent. I might be interested in buying one from him. I have not actually seen the complete enlarger yet in person and hope to aquaint myself with the system a bit more before I seriously consider it. My question relates to the enlarger head module. I have not found any current heads other than a hugely expensive multigraph that offer diffusion light with variable contrast filters. The person in possession of the enlargers claims to have 2 manually operated VCCE heads, but that they must have been discontinued as he can no longer find any information on them. Did Durst in fact have a VCCE head with diffuse illumination for this enlarger? If so can it still be serviced if required? Is the Durst preferable to the Saunders LPL? Any comments would be appreciated.
An aquaintance in my camera group has purchased a couple of Durst Laborator L1200 4x5 enlargers on Ebay. The design and construction of the negative stages appears to be first class on the Durst and I'm told the overall build quality is excellent. I might be interested in buying one from him. I have not actually seen the complete enlarger yet in person and hope to aquaint myself with the system a bit more before I seriously consider it. My question relates to the enlarger head module. I have not found any current heads other than a hugely expensive multigraph that offer diffusion light with variable contrast filters. The person in possession of the enlargers claims to have 2 manually operated VCCE heads, but that they must have been discontinued as he can no longer find any information on them. Did Durst in fact have a VCCE head with diffuse illumination for this enlarger? If so can it still be serviced if required? Is the Durst preferable to the Saunders LPL? Any comments would be appreciated.