Heiland LED Cold Light Source

[Daniel Unkefer]

Modern Enlarging Systems Model 2 on DII 1 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Modern Enlarging Systems Model 2 on DII 2 by Nokton48, on Flickr

This is not a Heiland, but I just got this LED unit for my Omega DII. Bright as 150W incandescent so useful for making large prints.
And it works with 6x6 Ilford Multigrade filters.

A poor man's Heiland I guess; $135 not $1890

[JMO]

As an FYI, I'm not sure if there might be other sellers of Heiland gear in the US, but one is Omer Hecht at CatLABS. If anyone has questions about Heiland LED enlarger light sources, you might try contacting Omer. In the past I've found him to be knowledgeable and helpful about a lot of subjects related to LF photography, and especially about the JOBO gear he specializes in. I assume this would extend to the Heiland gear.

[Duolab123]

Just want to chime in to say that for me...the Heiland LED VC head, while initially expensive, ends up being very cost/time effective - in that the unit behaves exactly the same every time I use it. What this means, so long as the paper stock is still reasonably fresh, is that I can create a duplicate print after the previous one has sold - and do this by using previous print data, without time consuming testing...assuming I don't want to tweak anything. And if I do want to tweak, even months after an initial print...I can go ahead and do this almost as if I'd made this initial print only minutes previously.

Before I purchased the Heiland unit...I'd generally need to create a number of "duplicates" during a single processing run, just to cover myself...because chances were good that if I'd try creating more prints later I'd need to re-test first...as the older (Zone VI VC fluorescent) head would behave differently than before. Furthermore, there were times with my old head when its performance would vary from print to print during a single session - despite my use of the compensating timer.

Aside from the above, the Heiland unit is (quite unlike my old head) completely even in illumination from edge to edge - and bright enough to enable reasonably short print exposure times when using my 150 G-Claron stopped down to F/22 (its ideal aperture) while the head is elevated to the max. when I print 30x40's. In fact, its not unusual in this configuration to still feel the need to dial down the light output somewhat!

Right now I'm testing to print 40x60's horizontally...and, once again, the Heiland still allows for reasonable exposure times.

Depending on my goals for a given print...I tend to work interchangeably between "split grade" printing and setting a grade number using the control unit. Other times I employ a "hybrid" approach...setting for a specific grade (love the 1/10th grade increments!) for part of the exposure, then dodging/burning with max/min contrast settings.

I use the manual control unit...and like the way this is designed to allow a simple one-click toggle between "full green" and "full blue" light for split grade. When using it in "graded" mode, its amazing that there are indeed extremely subtle, visible differences between each and every 1/10th contrast increment...over the complete scale from 00.0 to 5.0. I actually printed a photo of very delicately-toned dried yucca flowers recently...and toggled in "split grade" mode between two of these already tiny increments, with the nearly impossibly subtle difference from a single grade print making all the difference (to me at least) in the final result. And how nice that this level of subtlety is not only achievable, but now also reproducible!

Edit to add: that the aforementioned yucca flower photo was first taken/printed about twenty five years ago...and now the Heiland unit is allowing/motivating me to further explore many of my older negatives.

VERY well said. I don't think there's ever been a device that is as consistent and predictable as these LED heads produced by Heiland. I have a Metrolux II timer on the last and best Zone VI VC heads. There's no way that any timer can compensate with BOTH tubes illuminated. I got this equipment so cheap used I could easily justify the expense of these Heiland heads.

[swmcl]

I just bought this ... https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...2d1a1855IRBlf9

I'm thinking of making a custom housing to fit onto a Durst L138. The only thing I'm worried about is the number of lumens I need.

What do the viewers of this thread think ??

[John Layton]

...that 3200K will not give low enough contrast - although from the ad it looks like there are filters included? If so...the green and magenta filters look like they might work in sequence for split-grade printing. And possibly you could use these filters while tweaking Kelvin settings to achieve some continuity/linearity of progression between low and high contrast? Hmmm...the price is right - maybe give it a try?

[swmcl]

John,

It has 3200K to 6500 K continuously variable. Being RGB you simply turn a dial to get different colours (white light, red light, orange light, green light, purple light, blue light ... etc.). There are no filters.

Rgds,
Steve

[Michael Wellman]

I believe Catlabs is the designated dealer for Heiland. Omer has been great to work with as well as Heiland themselves. I have gone ahead and pulled the trigger on getting the light source and split grade controller. I wasn't planning on going with the split grade controller but after hearing remarks here and from a few others this seems like something that is worth the cost in the long run. thank you all for your comments

Michael

As an FYI, I'm not sure if there might be other sellers of Heiland gear in the US, but one is Omer Hecht at CatLABS. If anyone has questions about Heiland LED enlarger light sources, you might try contacting Omer. In the past I've found him to be knowledgeable and helpful about a lot of subjects related to LF photography, and especially about the JOBO gear he specializes in. I assume this would extend to the Heiland gear.