What's the most compact 4x5 enlarger in terms of vertical height?

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Originally Posted by jnantz

Sorry to read you got burned, if you still have them, it looks like "aristo grid" is still in business (in the UK at least) you might email them and see if they are still able to retube them and adjust the leaky transformer or know who does that these days, they used to do that sort of thing ... (probably any neon shop can do it, it's just a neon tube that's inside the head)
when I got mine it worked extremely well ( as-is / when purchased) and with a copy stand and very little effort on my part, it rivaled the omega that I currently use. I had plans on driving across the states photographing roadside architecture and living in motels, printing and processing the film but sadly life hit me like stepping on a rake and my plans changed and I sold it.

good luck!

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Thanks for that breakdown. I have a few quick questions:

- What copy stand did you use?

- Do you recall how high you needed to mount the camera to make an 11 x 14 or 16 x 20 enlargement?

- Did you use an enlarger lens or your standard 150mm photo lens?

- What did you do to minimize shaking? Was the copy stand enough?

I have many questions about setups like these because the convenience would do me wonders, but I am skeptical about the user experience.

Are you studying Glennview camera, he is the man to study

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Originally Posted by Certain Exposures

Thanks for that breakdown. I have a few quick questions:

- What copy stand did you use?

- Do you recall how high you needed to mount the camera to make an 11 x 14 or 16 x 20 enlargement?

- Did you use an enlarger lens or your standard 150mm photo lens?

- What did you do to minimize shaking? Was the copy stand enough?

I have many questions about setups like these because the convenience would do me wonders, but I am skeptical about the user experience.

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It was a copy stand that U-Line used to sell. I don't think they sell it anymore, not sure I haven't purchased anything from them in a long long time. The baseplate is heavy and column is sturdy and the "head" / connection is pretty beefy. I really didn't have to worry about shake it was sitting on something anchored/heavy wasn't going anywhere. I used my taking lens, / a computar symetrigon and a wollensak 135. Sorry but I have no memory of how high the head / camera was or maximum print size was, I wasn't printing 11x14+ but 5x7/8x10, this was more than 20 years ago, and it worked fine. I used it a handful of times so I'd be prepared for the trip but as I mentioned life kind of kicked in. I sold the graflarger, and the copy stand is on a shelf. You can be skeptical of my experience, that's fine with me. Im more of a wing it kind of person, I don't spend my time or money with top of the line and chasing magic bullets, I figure if it works, and works for me, it's good enough, and my good enough might be a "waste of time" for someone else.

In all honesty the intrepid enlarger TinCan linked to might be a better alternative. it's an all in 1 kit, and the whole thing probably costs as much as a sturdy copy stand would cost. and ... it's new so you won't have to wrangle with retrofitting a LED light source and wrestling with potently old-gear seeing it's made to be an enlarger, and they have customer service if anything goes wrong. AND as a bonus you can probably remove the light source and use it to make contact prints, besides I'd feel kind of badly if you took my advice, got a heavy duty copy stand, and had trouble retrofitting the LED panel and then after it was all said and done, it didn't work for you, so ... if it was me I'd ignore my suggestion altogether and get the intrepid, unless you have your heart set on a behemoth enlarger from yesteryear. I agree with TinCan, Glennview is good stuff!

My bare-bones Testrite copy stand is certainly sturdy enough to hold the weight of my Beseler MXII enlarger. It's 3 feet tall and could make 16x20 prints on the baseboard, but adapting an enlarger to the copy stand would be a chore. It can handle a 4x5 camera easily, and with a lightsource on the film plane, such as the Intrepid back, it could work.

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Originally Posted by Certain Exposures

Thanks for that breakdown. I have a few quick questions:

- What copy stand did you use?

- Do you recall how high you needed to mount the camera to make an 11 x 14 or 16 x 20 enlargement?

- Did you use an enlarger lens or your standard 150mm photo lens?

- What did you do to minimize shaking? Was the copy stand enough?

I have many questions about setups like these because the convenience would do me wonders, but I am skeptical about the user experience.

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A Linhof copy stand would be a good bet - they were designed to handle a 4x5 Technika + the cold cathode or condenser enlarger light source/ back adapters Linhof offered. It's about 40"/ 1m tall, all told - and pretty solid, if the column/ baseboard joint is tightened up properly. Using an LED panel or similar will help overall height. At some point I'm going to get round to tapping a thread for the 3/8 mount into the bellows/ focusing stage recovered from a scrapped LPL 7451 & see if it can be made into a straightforward enlarger, with a basic LED panel or similar as a light source (despite all the biliousness about LED, they're no worse than the various cold-cathode light sources that were used over the years). It's definitely not a priority, I've got several De Vere machines for day-to-day use - which are not ideal for very temporary darkroom setups, even if very hard to knock out of alignment. A further option if you want to spend a bit (more than a bit) might be to explore the possibility of getting a Kienzle C120 made with a shorter column.

A 135mm enlarging lens would want about 900mm height for 4x (allowing for enlarging easel & some wiggle room to adjust the image a bit) and the 120WA mentioned upthread would want about 800mm (again with the allowances mentioned). By way of comparison, a 150 would want nearer to 1000mm for similar sizing of prints etc. I'd suggest going for the 120 if you think you'll be mainly doing 16x20's and the 135 if you're mainly doing 11x14's.

I tried many copy stands

Rejected almost all

All you need is a 90 degree thingamajig

Nobody has mentioned checking ANY enlarger and copy stand with sticks, an optical pattern or a Laser with mirror

Expensive RARE gear is not better

Most are not shiny either