Omega NE?

[Rael]

I moved this to its own thread, hoping to find someone who might know about this particular enlarger. I recently stumbled on one of these called the Omega NE -- supposedly made for the Army, specifically for aerial film. The seller said he thinks it will do 5x7 negatives, but wasn't entirely sure. Just that the glass negative holder was 5x7 and has a movable mask for other sizes. Has a square flat coldlight head and an electronic shutter since the fluorescent lights stayed on all the time. My questions are -- will it work for 5x7 sheet film? Is it worth picking up? Is there a way to put a condenser or color head on it if that fluorescent bulb thing doesn't work on VC film?

[metalsmith]

Yes, I have an E, it does 5X7 very nicely. Lens cones are hard to find, but easy to make if needed. The glass negative carrier is handy for smaller negatives too. Just need to cut a mask. If this comes with lens and carrier, it should be almost ready to go.

I have not messed with the cold light with a shutter, but EBay has the newer version occasionally. I call it the flying saucer one. Looks like one. It is turned on and off as needed.

[Rael]

What light source do you use on yours?

[Jerry Bodine]

I, too, have a 5x7 Omega E6 with the Omegalite (saucer-shaped) lamphouse. It was designed to use a circular fluorescent bulb long before VC papers were on the market and worked very well with graded papers (which are sensitive only to blue light). The folks at http://www.khbphotografix.com/ are very knowledgeable about Omega enlargers and have told me the E6 was designed for military use. All the information I could find about its use with VC papers was negative for this purpose. So I modified it myself to an LED system and tested it with VC paper, using Ilford under-lens filters. The mod was reported here. Since then, I've made a glass carrier with a variety of format masks cut from fully exposed/developed sheet film. The LEDs run very cool and are rapid start/stop.

[metalsmith]

Rael, my E6 is a condenser unit.

[Rael]

This is with the light on - you can see it's flat and square. Its about two hours away so I'm just trying to figure out what it's worth before I make the trip.

[metalsmith]

I paid $200.00 for mine with no lens cone or lens. Had to drive 4 hours one way. Took the wife, made a day of it.

Kevin

[Rael]

Well...I bought it. I am thinking I'm going to need to convert this head to LED or something, because these bulbs are blue. Like sky blue. The reference manual mentions bromide paper, so I guess that's why. Any thoughts about whether I could replace these bulbs with something more full spectrum? Or would that just be a waste of time with modern papers?

[Jerry Bodine]

Since you already have a lens of proper focal length for 5x7 and a glass negative carrier, it's certainly worth the effort to design a head with the correct color spectrum for VC papers. I use Ilford under-lens filters with my LED system, which is easier than trying to make a head from scratch that accepts filters above the negative. Ilford filters are designed to be used with an incandescent light source (~2800K), but my LEDs are about 7500K and test out OK so it seems to be not too critical; there's probably some effect on spacing between the characteristic curves of the various grades. The simplest mod would be to stick with incandescent bulbs; otherwise, you'd need to do some research on such variables as LED type, output, spectrum, driver, etc. Heat generated by incandescents shouldn't be a problem since you have a glass carrier. Whichever road you go down, you'd need to pay attention to evenness of illumination of output, adequate diffusion, and light leaks. One other thing comes to mind: The pic of your enlarger appears to have a tall column, so I'm wondering if it has a power lift mechanism to raise the head OR a power focus mechanism. If it doesn't have these, it may be limited by how high you can reach for big enlargements when doing it manually. My enlarger has a tall column and when my power focus failed I couldn't reach high enough to focus manually while viewing through the grain focuser on the baseboard. I had to design a long-handled gripper for the focus knob, which works well (I can post pics if you need them).

[Rael]

It's interesting that it mentions incandescent lamp replacements but I've never seen incandescent lamps that had the prong ends like these fluorescent lamps that are in there now. I'll have to google that to see if they still exist. I've seen replacement bulbs for $20 each, but not sure if those are exact blue replacements or whether they are something closer to the correct needed spectrum.

What does your LED system look like? As for the height, it's definitely tall, but not so tall I won't be able to reach, as least so far. Looks like with this lens the max size is 3X.