Printing hardware

Easel

L P L 21 x 26 cm

Max paper size usable on this thing is 20x25 (8"x10"), there is a screws on the back to set the offset of the top left corner for the margins. Sadly it is not graduated in any way so you cannot easily set it to half an inch…

Note: Base is magnetic, so it should be possible to use Paterson marginless magnetic holders, if those are any good?

TOG (French brand) 30 x 40cm

It’s a 30x40 cm 2 bladed easel. It’s settings for margin are strange. It otherwise is adequate to do these bigger prints. I only actually used it for making one photograph of this size. But it works well.

Timer

Paterson Precision Enlarger Timer 2040

Type number as amount of 1/10s of seconds on the keypad

Focus button turn line on and off Hold button stops the timer and light up until pressed again Start button just starts the timer

The backlight is dim and green for the screen. bit I still added a blackout cover on it because I fear it could fog paper.

Enlarger Meopta Opemus 6

Made in what was still call Czechoslovakia, factory inspected in august 1990?

This is a medium enlarger for 6x6cm film, have frames for 24x36mm and for 6x4.5cm film

I have all the basic accessories, the condenser lightbox for black and white, and a Color3 color head.

Lenses

• Meopta Anaret S 50mm f/4.5
• Meopta Anaret 80mm f/4.5 + step up ring for M39 mount.
• Nikon El-Nikkor 50mm f/2.8

I have got a 2nd lens board, so now I can swap between lenses with a single thumbscrew. This is handy because unmounting the 80mm lens from the lens board is annoying as generally the step-up ring gets torqued higher than the lens itself.

The Anaret S lens is not actively in use, as I now ise my 50mm Nikon lens for my 35mm enlargements.

Color 3 light source

Bulb

100W 12volt halogen bulb using GZ6.35 base. OSRAM 64627 HLX EFP 100W 12V is a suitable replacement bulb

Fuse

T0.5 250V

Note: I also have a condenser light box for the enlarger but I have not been using it. Even the fact that there’s a ND filter built in to the color head is reason enough for me to not bother with it

The fuse this was shipped with has blown July 13 2024 while printing.

Mixing chamber

My Color 3 is fitted with a 6x6 mixing chamber. Different mixing chambers seems hard to source. The reference number for the 6x6 mixing chamber is 392 821 620 102. But the only identifier on it is a little label saying f 60 - 80. This piece seems fragile.

Black and white

This enlarger head is made for color. But I use it for black and white printing just as well. Beside split grade techniques, this is very easy, see: Using the Meopta Color 3 head, but for black and white

Scales and exposures

Neutral density filter is graduated between 0 and 60. 60 seems equivalent to 2 stops of aperture.

Color filters add a nonlinear amount of exposure that is different per color, and follows a formula and a reference table that is given in the Meopta Color3 head manual.

I have made a spreadsheet, I am not sure it’s 100% right, maybe I’ll share it.

Focusing light

To get brightest white light out of the enlarger, raise both side arms. Left arm removes the color filter, right arm removes the ND filter.

Color specific tools

Chemistry

I am currently using the Bellini RA-4 kit, it is stocked by my online lab. I have more information about this on my RA-4 paper development note.

To this kit, I add one additional step. I use a stop bath between the developer and the blix. This seems to help remove some blue/cyan streaking at the edges of the paper.

I use a citric acid (“odorless”) stop bath. Which one exactly is not very important. I currently use the Bellini ECOSTOP product, but you need to watch the pH. Developer carryover does raise the pH quite a bit relatively fast. I recommend instead the usage of an indicator stop. I do not know if there is any importance or change between citric acid and acetic acid. I personally prefer the darkroom not to smell like white vinegar on top of smelling like drain cleaner, so I will go with the odorless stuff.

In the future, I may use FOMACITRO or Bellini INDEXSTOP

It seems that there are good reason to use Acetic Acid rather than Citric. They have

Temperature control

I need to keep my RA-4 chemistry at the nominal 35 degrees temperature. Technically I know it is possible to use them at room temperature too but require more color correction. The problem is my main issue with color darkroom right now is the color correction process.

Sous-vide cooker

I use a big bucket of water (actually a plastic storage bin), and a sous-vide cooker. The actual sous-vide used does not really matter as long as it can maintain that low-ish temperature on a big volume of water efficiently. The one I have is a cheap one from one of those cheap ones you can find from Amazon. The brand is called “Wancle”, it’s 1100 watts, and I have used it for RA-4 print and C-41 development with no issues.

Thermometer

I taped on the side of my bucket one of these LCD Thermometer It broke, I am using an alchohol thermometer, one I got with a vintage developing drum on LeBonCoin, it is graduated only between 15 and 46 degrees with a precision of 0.2 degrees.

I put the thermometer inside one of the bottles, assuming that every bottles will have the same temperature in them.

Development

To develop color pictures I use drum processing. I do this with ILFORD (Cibachrome) drums. I have one that do 20x25cm, and another one that do 30x40. I have not yet done a 30x40 color enlargement.

The drum has a cup at the top, and it works with 75ml of chemistry. It will actually hold a bit more than that. I generally fill it with around 80ml of liquid.

I recently picked up a AHEL Rotocuve motor on LeBonCoin and I have been fixing it. I have new belts for it and it’s working great. I need to scrub and repaint a few metal parts to make sure they will stay rust free that’s all.

The process is detailed in RA-4 paper development

Color Calibration

Paterson System 2000 PCA 2060 (Philips PCA061)

I found this tool. It needed a bit of work, one of the contacts in the probe was intermittent, I had to resolder a wire in it.

The needle is a bit slow to react when I change channels. I think it is due to old capacitors. I have them on the way. It takes around 5 seconds when switching color channels for the needle to be reacting to the pots value. It is almost like the bias voltage around that galvanometer is waiting for one of those capacitors to charge? It otherwise seems to work…

I may need to make an ideal test negatives using the included chart, but any colorful picture should work just fine.

I do not know if it is worthwhile to follow the instructions to make the “ideal test negative” with the included poster, as any colorful picture should actually work.