Condensor to diffuser

[Richard Littlewood]

Looking at threads it seems a lot of enlarger users change light source that way round. How many have gone the other way round and swaped a diffused light for a condensor? or is that condenser? must look it up.

[Brian Ellis]

Condensers got a bad rap from Ansel Adams, who said they made prints that looked like "soot and chalk." Fred Picker continued in that vein. It's since been pretty well shown that they were wrong, that as long as a negative is properly processed for the type of light source being used, either can be used to make excellent prints. But Adams and Picker were prolific and obviously influential so I'd be surprised if many people switched from diffusion to condenser. In fact given the # of responses here, it looks no one has ever done it.

[Allen in Montreal]

I switched, truth be told, rather by accident more than by plan.
But it is turning out to be a very nice accident.

When I picked up a new enlarger, I started to search for a cold light head for it, but printing during the search quickly made me realize it may be a mistake to jump so quickly. The prints are beautiful, and getting better as I tweak the enlarger and learn it's mannerisms. I really do not have enough experience with it yet to say much more, but I have given up the search for a cold light head.

[John T]

I can't say I've switched back, but, as Brian said, I was influenced by AA and bought a cold light head. Since then, my primary light source is a cold light head. But occasionally, I think a project would be better enlarged with a condenser so I shoot, process and use the condenser head. This doesn't happen often.

[Donald Miller]

I've switched from a diffusion (4550) to a condenser (138S) and I also modified the 138 S to a light source that is more of a point light than the Thorn lamp that the 138 S typically uses. I will not go back to diffusion because I appreciate the prints made with the condenser. I still have both enlargers btw so no axe to grind.

[Bjorn Nilsson]

I recon we all know the pros and cons of each light system. But this is also a matter of how well the condensors are made and with the precision of the enlarger etc. The same goes for the cold light head, where some brands are better than others.
As we're talking LF here, for me it's rather a matter of paper choice etc. I got a Durst L138S (Well, actually two but only one going...) with a good set of condensers which I use for all VC papers. It's more convenient that way, just swapping filters. (I usually work with the split-printing method.) The build quality of the 138 in general and the condensers in particular is very good.
Now, if I have an "easy" negative, for which I can use a graded paper I switch the lower condenser to a Durst cold light head, as I will not loose any visible sharpness when the negative is as large as 4x5". I loose the convenience with the VC filters but the cold light head surpresses dust and scratches on the neg. Switching in between the systems is done in a minute or so.

A small deviation, but on the subject. When dealing with e.g. 35mm negs, the difference is much more visible, as enlargement ratios gets rather high and the pros and cons are becoming more obvious. But build quality again plays a major role. An example: The very common (in Europe) Durst M600 (in various incarnations) color head is a diffuse head, which produces a "soft" image, no matter how good the lens is. Switching to the condensor head makes the image much sharper. On the other hand I don't think many would say that the Leitz Focomat V35 is "soft", even though the Focomat Ic in my mind is sharper. My choice? A Focomat IIc.

//Björn

[Richard Littlewood]

Good responses. I did suspect that AA had a major influence here - maybe he wasnt that good at developing negs! (only kidding). At college we had all condensor heads apart from colour, and on equiping my own darkroom I got a cold light but never liked it too much when it came to making prints over 20x16. I'm strictly a condenser user now but would love to make a good point source head. Anyone ever put one together?

[Nathan Potter]

Richard, I use all three type light sources. Diffusion, condenser and a home made variable point source type. Combined with VC paper I can obtain a large range of paper image characteristics. The point source I developed for industrial microchip documentation purposes then adapted a different version for occasional home darkroom use. I think I described some of the details over on the APUG forum but summarizing here:

My current home setup uses a halogen 12 volt bulb and ceramic holder from Home Depot. I drive the bulb from a DC power supply from Radio Shack. The bulb runs at about 3 amps DC and nominally 12 volts (yields nominally 150 lux at the easel at lens to easel of 33 inches). Bulb filament is not a true industrial point but is about 1/32 X 1/8 inch in size.

I use this with an older D2V enlarger and with the standard condensers but not the variable one for every format from 35 mm to 4X5. The bulb housing is made of plywood painted with black stove paint and made to fit into the position of the normally supplied head. The distance from the bulb to the condenser set is variable from say 8 inches to about 14 inches. Not much heat is generated since total power is about 36 watts. For critical focusing I'll juice the power supply to 50 watts briefly for more light. Occasionally I use something like waterhouse stops (1/4 to 1.0 inch apertures) with a piece of frosted glass to form a larger diameter source for intermediate less pointy sources. That's about all there is to it except for the dust and defect headaches involved with such hard sources.

I have to prepare chromes and negatives in a laminar flow hood with a built in light table to avoid dust problems. True point source images are contrasty in the extreme with virtually no tonal modulation between grains, so under sufficient enlargement each silver grain or color dye becomes visible.

It's an interesting technique for limited applications.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Donald Miller]

I built up my lamp source for my 138 S from a 1000 watt halogen. I could have done with a 650 watt lamp but enlarging times for large prints from the 250 watt Thorn lamp were longer than I wanted. This lamp is not a true point in that the filament length is appr 1/4 inch and the width is appr 1/16 inch. The Durst condensers are so precise that one can not expect much in the way of forgiveness for design errors. The lamp modification required design and construction of a parabolic reflector and a cooling fan to keep from melting down the heat absorbing filter glass.

What Nate mentioned about grain and dust has paralled my experience. Grain from a 4X5 Efke 100 neg enlarged to 11X14 is a fact of life when one gets into this realm. Of course the sharpness and local contrast is beyond compare. One can always diffuse the source if needed. That is easier than trying to sharpen a soft light source.

[Eric Rose]

I have both diffusion and condenser enlargers in my darkroom. The condenser gets used 90% of the time.