Beseler has discontinued the 45S head and replaced it with the 45SL which features a LED light source and an external stabilized light source:
https://www.beselerphoto.com/light-sources/
How significant are the benefits of having an LED light source over the bulb? I have had the 45S for years now and have never noticed a vibration on the easel. The B&H price tag is $4300 - almost twice the price of the 45S. Is it worth it?
Thomas
For that amount of money, I'd make my own. The main advantages are less heat for a given lumen output, and long-lived bulbs, assuming good heat management.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
I built my own variable contrast LED system. I think it's got a lot of benefits, but those are more related to the controller and the blue and green LEDs for VC printing than just replacing halogen bulbs with LEDs.
If you are printing black and white only...you might find a VC LED head from Heiland which might actually cost significantly less than the new Beseler Unit. I've been using a Heiland unit for up to 5x7 and love it.
Interesting!
Will look and see.
Originally Posted by John Layton
Tin Can
It is a 3 lamp + Dichroic Interference Filters
In the past interference filters were moving their position to filter more or less of the light before the mixing box.
I cannot say what's inside the 45SL, perhaps it's an additive system that has "substractive controls" for the user interface, the 3 lamps suggest that, this would be 3 high CRI warm white LED sources each filtered with dichroic filters, and each lamp would have a separate dimmer.
My guess is that this color head should reproduce very well the spectral nature of a Tungsten dichroic head, so it should be very suitable for RA-4 printing as channel crosstalk would be the standard one. Besseler is a serious thing, if they say that price this is beacuse it's a fine product for master RA-4 color printers.
For BW things are way simpler, two Rosco filters allows to make perfect prints, as Steve Sherman points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRlq8CwVvws , so for BW a DIY LED source it's the way. IMHO.
Offhand, I'd say gold.
The electronics always contain a tinny amount of gold
...but the 45SL specs suggest that this is not a botched job and that they know about what they do.
I think you are correct about it being an additive head made to operate like a subtractive head. IMHO these are being produced for the educational market, which I suspect represents 98% of Beseler Photo sales. Thus the elegant simplicity, and high cost. Since there's no moving parts in the new Beseler head, split grade printing will be possible by turning the now effortless to rotate, CMY knobs.
I suspect this head will be very well received by educators that want to teach photography, not DIY 1980's electronics.
I've used the original Dichro S heads and Beseler's, love it or hate it, Universal 45 additive head. Both the older units work great if you don't have a problem. I've gotten good at replacing opto-isolators.
I would love to see the new Beseler head with a separate control box, not CMY dials on front, with optional color and VC controllers.
People that want this kind of sophistication will probably go with the well known Heiland units.
Sorry www.modernenlargerlamps.com , only made to fit Omega D chassis
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