Horizontal Mirror - horizontal projection with Devere 108

[M/A]

Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone has experience with projecting horizontally to the wall with a vertical enlarger. I realise that ideally it would be best to use a horizontal enlarger but its not something I can afford atm.., hopefully in the future. Currently I am less interested to discuss alignment issues in this thread, and I am aware of the different way to resolve these issues once I am able to project correctly onto the wall.

I recently picked up a Devere 108 10x10 enlarger with spectacular 2000w light source with 8 light bulbs (which is currently being shipped and will arrive in the next month or so), and I am exploring the idea of using it in the studio for both vertical and horizontal projection to produce mural size prints (140 cm and above, regardless the media and paper size and projection on several sheets of paper).

I can see in the manual in the accessory list 2 items that are relevant; 1. Horizontal Mirror (Non Tilting Version) (Code 1021), & 2. Horizontal Mirror (Tilting Version) (Code 1014). I am sure these are very rare and hard to find but I was wondering if anyone has experience working with such technique?
Alternatively I may end up with the DIY version, so where should I start? I will probably need to weld some elements to attach under the lens an optical grade mirror in 45 degrees, and it will have to be suitable for different lens size? I suppose different lens and different distance from the wall will need different distance between lens and mirror? any info would be greatly appreciated. I will be printing mostly from 8x10 negatives but also 4x5 and medium format (the enlarger came with both 10x10 & 5x5 mixing boxes, so I will take advantage the large amount of light and energy).


Many thanks,
Matan

[Bernard_L]

You might use the tiltable mirror from an overhead projector. These are obsolete, so you might save one from the dumpster; but maybe they are so obsolete that they have all been dumped already.

[ic-racer]

You should be able to do 40" prints vertically. I think the roll paper is 50", so only gaining ten inches by side-projection. If you are planning on splicing multiple 50" sheets, you could do something similar with 40" sheets on the baseboard, though you would need a shifting negative carrier to do that.

I did a mock up of a 50" horizontal projection of a single 8x10 negative, on the baseboard with five pieces of 20" paper. This would be twice as big if 40" paper had been used. It is the bottom print. The top two prints are totally different, done with a Rolleiflex multi-exposure panorama attachment on the camera.

[M/A]

forgive me for the delay,
that is a very good idea I will look for a tiltable mirrir mechanism for projectors - looking online it seems that they very much still make them. -otherwise I could also follow my idea of getting optical grade mirror and find a way to fix it in the correct position in 45 degrees (the alignment I will figure out later). the only thing about the piece of kit I mentioned is that it hangs bellow the lens and more likely to be in the correct angle and distance from the lens, but I guess that may not matter much.. I will have to experiment and see what kind of results i'm getting

[M/A]

very interesting to see the mockup - that is a good idea to do that before going big. yes - I am looking into splicing of several sheets of 50'' paper, which cannot be done with a vertical enlarger. which enlarger are you using? whilst the neg carrier I have will shifts correctly for this purpose - away for the column - there are other physical limitation such as enlarger hight and so on.. so the only way is to project horizontally. I think up to 50'' to use the enlarger vertically is possible but beyond will require horizontal projection..
I guess I will keep investigating and working on it till I am able to get horizontal enlarger

[Tin Can]

Wonderfull news!

Thank you both

[ic-racer]

I don't have any trouble projecting horizontal with my Durst, however, I don't have any way to process 50" sheets of paper.
I'm always curious how people are processing the large prints. How will you be doing it; tray, trough, drum, machine??

[ic-racer]

Just the other day I was re-watching Bob's video below on his large print processing setup. Maybe I misunderstood, but I got the impression he was only going up to 20x30 now. Since I have a 20x24 print washer, I thought I'd just not go any bigger than that.
I did find this example of the size comparison:



https://youtu.be/AUfcU_lK7Us

[interneg]

I can see in the manual in the accessory list 2 items that are relevant; 1. Horizontal Mirror (Non Tilting Version) (Code 1021), & 2. Horizontal Mirror (Tilting Version) (Code 1014). I am sure these are very rare and hard to find but I was wondering if anyone has experience working with such technique?
Alternatively I may end up with the DIY version, so where should I start? I will probably need to weld some elements to attach under the lens an optical grade mirror in 45 degrees, and it will have to be suitable for different lens size? I suppose different lens and different distance from the wall will need different distance between lens and mirror? any info would be greatly appreciated. I will be printing mostly from 8x10 negatives but also 4x5 and medium format (the enlarger came with both 10x10 & 5x5 mixing boxes, so I will take advantage the large amount of light and energy).

I have a horizontal projection mirror (the last one that Odyssey/ De Vere had at that time) for my 504/5108 - it's a considerable chunk of metal & (thick) glass - with height adjustment etc for different lenses. It makes sense if you are doing prints bigger than the baseboard will allow on a more occasional & batched basis. De Vere's viewpoint seems to have been that for anything more than that, a horizontal enlarger would be a better bet - De Vere's control mechanisms and overall locked-down precision precluding swinging the head like the Dursts.

[M/A]

I have a horizontal projection mirror (the last one that Odyssey/ De Vere had at that time) for my 504/5108 - it's a considerable chunk of metal & (thick) glass - with height adjustment etc for different lenses. It makes sense if you are doing prints bigger than the baseboard will allow on a more occasional & batched basis. De Vere's viewpoint seems to have been that for anything more than that, a horizontal enlarger would be a better bet - De Vere's control mechanisms and overall locked-down precision precluding swinging the head like the Dursts.

Thank you! yes that is exactly what I am looking for and exactly the kind of problem I am trying to solve within the circumstances in which I am at.. I would imaging there would be a discrepancy in quality and sharpness but I would imagine it may not be very noticeable in the print size I am looking to experiment with. Did you notice a significant difference?
- I would be interested in experimenting with that - do you have any pictures and the size of the horizontal projection mirror? perhaps I could potentially build a similar one if it's not available.
Thank you