Large Format cameras are enlargers. Flip it upside down, throw in a correct enlarging lens, add a lightsource, and put the negative in a a holder and slide it in.. Only issue is the tripod needed to hold the camera...
Has to hold the weight, has to be rigid..
SO does anyone here have much time making actual enlargements with a rail camera on a tripod for an enlarger?
...can work great. Just make sure that both lens and negative stages are square with each other and with your easel, and if you're using glass plates to contain the negative, do your squaring up with the glass plates and light source in place, as they can deflect the film back. Better yet, have the light source supported independently of the camera unless the camera is ultra-sturdy or the light source is lightweight.
A copy stand to hold your camera works great, but if you're using a tripod, either remove the middle column or at least make sure that its not in the optical path...and that you can either counterweight your setup or affix a part of the tripod to the wall so the whole thing doesn't come toppling over forward!
Edit: you might find a standard film back to be a bit too restrictive for the light path, and if so (if your image edges are being infringed upon), you might just remove the entire film back and simply lay your glass plates over the opening. Good luck!
I've only every used cameras to enlarge 4x5 and 5x7. I lived overseas for thirty years, where it was impossible to get a 4x5 enlarger, so on a trip to the US I picked up a Graflarger, and put it on an old Crown Graphic. When I accidently blew the Graflarger by plugging it direct into 220v, rather than through my transformer, I just built a light source, and since that worked, I also built a 5x7 enlarger for my 5x7 camera. You can see pictures here: https://www.largeformatphotography.i...e-5x7-enlarger
Using a tripod looks like a pain. Might be easier to have a long table and project horizontally. The shelf supports worked fine for me, allowing height adjustments of about half an inch, I think.
I returned to the US in 2016, but life and work kept me mostly away from photography, but now I'm semi-retired, so last summer I built a little darkroom around a closet in my basement. I was going to adapt a medium format enlarger for 4x5, but even that was too big for my little space, so I bought a copystand, and the Intrepid 4x5 enlarger lightsource (which is essentially an updated graflarger with built in filters, timer, and dinky safelight), and am getting by with that. I also still have the 5x7 enlarger in a box somewhere, but have not set that up yet.
I started using taking lenses, and they worked fine, but you can pick up enlarger lenses cheap and I eventually swapped out the taking lenses.
Hope that helps.
I have never used it, but the Interpid 4x5 camera-to-enlarger conversion kit looks like a well thought out package:
i currently use my 4x5 speed graphic as a diffusion enlarger, and it work very well. I use a cheapo $10 usb diffusion pad as a light source. I use the focal plane shutter to control exposure time using a cable release. I use a 135mm Rodenstock Rogonar-S enlarging lens that works very well with it. The focus on the graphic cameras is very smooth and precise, and the focus lock works very well without changing focus. The Graphlock back has to be removed for this. I built a simple enlarger adapter similar to Graphlarger to hold the light pad and negative at the right positions.Originally Posted by monochromeFan
I say NO to using a tripod for this. Not stable enough for an enlarger, and too much trouble. Two by fours are quite cheap and work rather well. I also use it as a camera from time to time with same lens. I bought this camera 25 years ago to use as an enlarger. My first enlarger, around 1965 was a Dekon 35mm fixed lens slr, which was also my first decent camera. I opened the camera back and placed the negative strips right on the film rails and placed a piece of ground glass cut to 35mm width on top of the negative with the diffusion side away from the negative and used a light bulb to illuminate. I used close up lenses to get closer focusing. Made decent 5x7 and 8x10 enlargements with it for a few years. Also used the focal plane shutter as on-off control. Wrapped aluminum foil around it for light leak control, something I still do sometimes.
Most view cameras would make poor enlargers due to course focus control that will drift when vertical and difficulty in removing the backs on some if not most. The Graphics are excellent for this.
Alan Townsend
Many years ago. I built a platform that held my 8x10 Deardorff and a 12x12 Aristo light source behind the camera. I custom made a glass negative carrier that replaced the ground glass. This entire setup sat on my enlarger table where I projected onto a wall housing a magnetic board. Used a Schneider 305mm G-Claron as an enlarging lens. It all worked fairly well, but after making some large prints I found out I really didn't like large prints. Go figure! The hardest part was stretching myself between the focus knob on the camera and the focus loupe at the paper plane.
Has anyone tried using a 23c as a 4x5 enlarger by sticking a crappy negative into the nice little metal section you stick the carrier in? in theory it could work, most likely with a nice early 1900s Kodak black border.
I've not seen a 23C up close since I'd stopped teaching...but if the carrier opening measures out large enough (to accommodate a 4x5 negative) then it might work. You could always test this out by simply laying a sandwich of two plates of glass with negative in between over the top of this. If no vignetting happens, there are still other potential issues - like bellows induced flare from light reflecting off of a bellows "throat" being a tad on the narrow side. But if you have a 23C already or access to one, then it would be fairly straightforward to test this.
...and not to hijack this thread - but Alan I'm very curious about the performance of your 305 G-Claron for enlarging. I'd be pushing mine a bit further out for 11x14 negatives, but still.
My first 8X10 enlarger was a monorail camera a B&J. I lived in a converted textile mill building that had a floor to ceiling structural steel rod about 1.25" in diameter and accurately perpendicular in my lab. I clamped the B&J to it with Manfrotto Super Clamps. I replaced the Camera's gridded ground glass with a plain one. I attached a masked-off Double Circuline lamp fixture to the camera's ground glass frame with Velcro. For a negative carrier, I modified an 8X10 glass plate holder into a glass negative carrier (sold this to Corran I think). My intent was to make full frame 11X14 and 16X20 prints from my 8X10 negatives. It worked quite well and although we have better light sources today, it gave me a taste of what is possible. I used camera enlargers of various home-brew designs, including a 4X5 Beseler MCRX I converted to 8X10. Since 2010 I have been using a Beseler 45VXL with Beseler cold light W45 head. I don't make prints larger than 16X20 and am quite happy with it.
It's not that simple. The 23c is a condenser enlarger, and the condensers are not large enough to cover 4x5. I used to have a 23c, but don't remember the details. You would need to remove the lamp house and the condensers, then replace them with a box that fits the opening where the negative carrier was, adds a space of maybe 3 to 4 inches due to the bellow draw being unlikely enough for a 135mm enlarging lens, and with a larger top opening that will take a 4x5 carrier. Then you need a new lamp house that would have some diffusion material with lamps above. I use a cheapo $10 led viewing screen for this, which works well although would be hard to turn on-off without using lens cap or other crude means. Unless you are good at building things, this would be very difficult. Laser printer likely not workable for this.
This is similar to adapters that turn 4x5 cameras into 5x7 or 8x10.
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