This morning I enjoyed watching Greg Davis' video (https://youtu.be/VQ-9Ch5biKc) regarding the differences between diffusion and condenser enlarger light sources. I have a Beseler 45V-XL with the Dichro 45S head. I've been considering going to an LED light source (i.e. Heiland) and wondered what the difference would be compared to my 45S?
"I have this feeling of walking around for days with the wind knocked out of me." - Jim Harrison
The Heiland is great. I have one in my LPL and I really can't complain. It's the brightest enlarger I've used by far (requiring an ND in some cases). They are a lot of money however. If you have a working dichroic head I'd hesitate to tell you that everything will get better with the LED. In my case my power supply and/or lamp housing was malfunctioning so I made the upgrade, and also purchased the split grade controller. However I have (as of yesterday!) a modified Zone VI 8x10 enlarger with a Kienzle VC diffusion head. Given that the VC head is currently working, I hesitate to spend $5k on an LED for it. It would enable me to print color and use the splitgrade controller more easily, but otherwise it should be roughly the same experience.
Long story short, the LEDs are great. If you have the cash go for it. If you don't, don't feel like you 'have' to upgrade or anything.
That would make a good thread!Originally Posted by sperdynamite
The Heiland LED light source is a diffusion source. It may be brighter/more efficient/give you better contrast control than the 45S head, but they are fundamentally the same as far as rendering of the image is concerned. Diffusion is diffusion is diffusion...
Doremus
Yup reminds me of the old saying that a fool and his money are soon parted!
Eh, I can think of more “foolish” things to spend money on. Watches, guns, fast cars, anything with a red Leica dot. With the Heiland at least you can reasonably assume you will have a working enlarger lamp for the rest of your natural life, with no decay to the filtration strength and completely consistent output. Plus there have been at least 2 Splitgrade firmware updates just this year to add and refine paper calibrations.
It’s all relative to what you can afford and how much interest you have in it.
Living in farm country with a lot of coyotes and such - having a few in different calibers is a lifesaver in many ways.
We shoot geese with a .243 - crop depredation. Lots of ponds and sloughs and one pair of geese can cost $800-1500 in crop loss come harvest time. When they produce a brood the loss goes double or a bit more. So, we get permission to take them to prevent the loss. Shotguns are good but we're not hunting for meat - shoot and move the carcass so it doesn't get into the machinery later.
Then the darned Coyotes. Take more dogs and cats than cattle but they can do a lot of damage to farm animals. Lose a couple of cows and it is a few thousand dollars as well as no calves from them next season.
Raccoons in the corn - especially the gardens. So we shoot them. Odd thing is that high powered pellet rifles that are silenced and legal are very effective within 100 yards or so. The sound of the pellet hitting is louder than the shot. Raccoons can open gates and take some lids off trash cans as well as chew and claw through plastic cans.
Blackbirds in murmerations of thousands descend on corn and sunflower fields. Some neighbors buy shotgun shells by the pallet - a lot more than a case - and have their kids and hands carry them to shoot the birds and keep them from decimating the crop.
There is always the good side that we can photograph our rifles, shotguns and pistols.
” Never attribute to inspiration that which can be adequately explained by delusion”.
Me, I’m plugging along with my ancient Aristo cold light head (not the newer V54) and using yellow filtration to tame the blue light that comes out of that thing like water from a fire hose. The unfiltered cold light is like having a built-in grade 4 or 5 filter. I play that against yellow filtration to achieve a sort of split-grade printing process with Ilford multi-grade classic paper. My Aristo head is at least 30 or more years old. I hope it outlives me.
Additive vs Subtractive printing. The paper does not know the difference, but the workflow of making the exposure is different.Beseler 45V-XL with the Dichro 45S head. I've been considering going to an LED light source (i.e. Heiland)
Moving a magenta filter over a white light source removes green and causes the highlights to print lighter.
Increasing green LED intensity causes the highlights to print darker.
I think I'll just keep my DeVere 5108 Dichroic heads-have two. After all, like Doremus said, it is a diffusion light source! FWIW, a new DeVere dichroic head is more expensive than a Heiland LED head!
Last edited by Luis-F-S; 12-Aug-2020 at 11:53.
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