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Remember Charles Beseler enlargers?
Still around and made by Fabricated Components in PA. Saw them for sale at Freestyle Photo in Los Angeles. I sold an old Beseler CB-7 with a dichroic colorhead that was fed by a large hose from a blower to cool it. Noisy enlarger too. The large Omega colorheads had the fan in the head which introduced vibration, so C. Beseler thought the blower hose was a better idea. Just learned Beseler also went into the shrink-wrap packaging business too which help to keep them afloat. https://beselershrinkpackaging.com/ Sadly, Omega enlargers folded and went to PromarkBRANDS which seems to be a place where archaic photo gear goes to die. The really cool enlarger head was the one made by Minolta for Beseler that used flash tubes for the RGB light source instead of bulbs. It had multiple pops of the three colors and you could dodge and burn as they fired off in the timing sequence. Focus was also by some longer running flash tube. So much for that one too. Nov 14 20 10:25 am Link GRMACK wrote: For a short time I stayed in California and attended a Photography School run by the city. The administrators built a new state of the art facility and ordered about 10 of those enlargers (I think they were about $5k each at the time... at least that's what they told me). The color consistency and speed was awesome. I really miss those things. Nov 15 20 06:54 am Link I used to sell them for many years but preferred the Omega as I learned on a D22 and a B22 fit my apartment, later got colorhead for it. the problem with both was the designs were dated and the Minolta was at the time IMO the beat medium format enlarger on the market and later the LPL, also a Japanese company. I got one and used it for many years, still in my darkroom? storage room. Priced one at B&H a few years ago and it was over $4,000. Besides being a well designed and built machine it was made to ship in three boxes, one for the head and micisng boxes, one for the single column and the third for the baseboard so it was a lot less expensive to ship. they also made an XL version with longer column and larger baseboard and resulted in less inventory than different models. Nov 15 20 07:22 am Link I remember them. I had one that had the motor which ran it up and down the chassis. I had another I turned into a copy stand. I still have a couple of the negatrans (I think that was the name) for cranking 35mm negs through them. They work well to hold negatives for copying in a home made copy set up. Nov 15 20 07:26 am Link SayCheeZ! wrote: Thanks for the video. That was a cool enlarger with the Minolta color head and its analyzer/timer. It was really a shocker to those in darkrooms using the tungsten type of enlargers. Nov 15 20 09:15 am Link I've never even used an Omega! My first enlarger I think was a cheap little Vivitar or something like that. After I started shooting a lot of 4X5 I bought an old used Elwood. Thant thing was an old cast iron beast with that giant light bell on it. Then when I went digital I still have a Besseler 45 in good working order but haven't used it for about 10 years. I'm thinking maybe next year I might set it back up. In photo school, about 10 years ago, we had about 20 45's. A couple of years ago I needed to print a bunch of 35mm negs so I rented space at the looking glass in Berkeley. I printed from opening till close and I remember it costing about $45 including chemicals! I used a 45 since I was used to using it. My wet printing days aren't over, or maybe they are!!! LoL John Nov 15 20 11:11 pm Link John Silva Photography wrote: Our college darkroom had maybe a dozen Beseler enlargers. The two color labs for second-year students were equipped with Omegas and the Kodak spinning-drum print processor. Nov 16 20 07:14 am Link Suddenly I'm getting a faint whiff of dark room chemicals, developer, stop bath, fixer . . . ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .  SOS Nov 16 20 08:15 am Link sospix wrote: You forgot the Dektol brown-stained fingernails too. Nov 16 20 08:33 am Link I used to have a DeVere large format enlarger. I see they have something interesting in digital. http://de-vere.com/products-504ds-digital-enlarger/ Nov 17 20 03:47 am Link Znude! wrote: That's interesting! Nov 17 20 07:46 am Link GRMACK wrote: Ouch is right..still... I'd love to see a print made from it to see how it compares to a print from film Nov 17 20 09:55 am Link sospix wrote: GRMACK wrote: And maybe the contact dermatitis, too? Ugh! I'm not sorry to leave that behind. Nov 17 20 01:37 pm Link GRMACK wrote: The one I had years ago was a standard film based rig. But yeah, the new one apparently projects onto paper for chemical process. I don't think I care to go back to dealing with chemicals. Nov 17 20 03:52 pm Link I remember them but I never had one. Nov 17 20 06:28 pm Link Jerry Nemeth wrote: I think that's what the bamboo tongs were for!?! Nov 21 20 08:09 pm Link |
