Heiland LED Cold Light Source

[Michael Wellman]

Is anyone using the Heiland LED Cold Light source? I'm curious to know your experience as well as what you are using as your controller. I was looking to update my enlarger light source and this looks very nice but I'm a little confused by what other extra things you are required to use it. thanks

[Gudmundur Ingolfsson]

I spoke to Mr. Jürgen Heiland about this a few days ago. It is LED light with a narrow spectral red, has a dimmer and it can switched to white. I have a 125 square feet darkroom and he thought I needed only one. In Europe they cost around Euro 180 + tax.

[Payral]

http://payral.pagesperso-orange.fr/labo.html
I use it for about two years now on a Zone VI Type II enlarger and I will never go back.

[MartinP]

I spoke to Mr. Jürgen Heiland about this a few days ago. It is LED light with a narrow spectral red, has a dimmer and it can switched to white. I have a 125 square feet darkroom and he thought I needed only one. In Europe they cost around Euro 180 + tax.

You are describing a safelight. The original-poster is asking about a light-source used for enlargers.

[ic-racer]

"Coldlight" frequently refers to a gas-filled tube charged with a high voltage that lights up right away without needing pre-heat of the electrodes.

[Duolab123]

[quote from deleted post removed by moderator]

Hi, these "not at all warm" LED heads are the new gold standard. You can configure it with VC or color. Heiland products are the finest available. If you look online you can find the massive 20 x 24 enlarger that Heiland produced from the ground up. The light sources are not anymore expensive as the older stuff was 20 years back.

I have been fortunate to find the older technology both "hot" and "cold" , one is basically a light bulb similar to a slide projector, the "cold light" is something like a fluorescent tube (which by the way these cold lights require a heater to work properly )

The modern LED sources put everything else in second place (still perfectly usable 2nd place).

If you shell out the money for the light source, the controller(s), f-stop timer you will have the very best you can find. And from the reputation of Heiland something that will last and work for years to come.

My humble opinion, I get by with some very nice older equipment, but I am sure one day I will be getting one or more of these light sources.
Best Regards Mike

[Christopher Barrett]

I have it in my L1200. I dig it. Won't ever go back. I got the LED light source and the splitgrade controller. It includes an analyser and starts you off with a base exposure and contrast which you can easily adjust manually. The system is highly customizable and has lots of great features. I got their safelights too. All good stuff.

CB

[Duolab123]

http://payral.pagesperso-orange.fr/labo.html
I use it for about two years now on a Zone VI Type II enlarger and I will never go back.

I have two Zone VI type 2 enlargers, one is the 8x10 conversation, the other 5x7. I have the last version VC heads on mine. I use the 5x7 for 6x17 negatives. I like the VC heads, I use a Metrolux II timer for compensation. I would really like to get a Heiland head for the 5x7, I would need to have both the VC and the color. Printing color pan shots would be fun.
Best Regards Mike

[Keith Pitman]

You are a paisan. I have both 5x7 and 8x10 Zone VI enlargers as well and would like to convert the 5x7 to a Heiland LED head. It’s been on my agenda for a while ane will happen eventually.

I have two Zone VI type 2 enlargers, one is the 8x10 conversation, the other 5x7. I have the last version VC heads on mine. I use the 5x7 for 6x17 negatives. I like the VC heads, I use a Metrolux II timer for compensation. I would really like to get a Heiland head for the 5x7, I would need to have both the VC and the color. Printing color pan shots would be fun.
Best Regards Mike

[John Layton]

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.