Brilliant video, so well explained. I have an LPL 4500 which doesn't have film plan/lens tilts but my smaller LPL 67 does so I kept it for this reason. Keep up the best darkroom videos on the web.
If your enlarger doesn't have movements and you need more DoF for your corrections, get a longer lens (eg: instead of using a 50mm lens for 35mm negatives, use a 70mm lens). Being the lens physically further away from the easel it creates a wider dept of field.
The Kodak Precision enlarger is one of the more curious designs out there designed as a system to give you 3 ways of doing movements. They offered a tilting head (with up to 45 or 90º of tilt), a tilting lens board, which gives some degree of tilt, and 350º of rotation, and a paper board (easel) with 3 legs for tilting. Probably one of the most versatile enlargers in terms of movement. (Both in the A configuration 2¼ x 3¼ condenser model, and in the model B 4x5 diffusion enlarger). Kinda one of the more obscure enlargers out there but I love it. Not very suited to color work, but it’s pretty sound otherwise.
Just as a note I recent saw a Leitz enlarger, leitz easel, and accessories. It allows you to essentially attach a ball head on the slide in the base and then attach the easel to that. This allows easel movements.
Excellent video! I just got membership access to a darkroom which will be the first time I'll be working in a darkroom all by myself. Really excited to put some of what I've learned from your videos into practice! :+)
funny how the more you delve into and learn about darkroom printing the less important it seems to have that top of the line camera and lens combination. So many parts to the puzzle renders each less important to stress over...
Very interesting. Even if you have an enlarger with appropriate movements, are there limitations with lens field of view, such as loss of sharpness or vignetting at the extremes of the field that become worse when tilting?
The tilting of the lens stage keeps the coverage of the lens centered, so if this is done right, vignetting and related sharpness issues are not a problem. However, if you have even tonal areas and a fairly large adjustment, one side of the image can become far enough away compared to the other side of the image that you may have to burn or dodge part of the image to hold an even toned cross-section. For most images and convergence corrections, this is not a problem.
It also depends on your enlarger design. Since my model has the lens and negative stages separate, then moving one doesn’t affect the other, but some models may work differently. The Beseler 23C, for example, doesn’t have negative tilt so you would lift one side of your easel, but the lens can tilt for correcting focus, which shifts your image to one side a bit.
Brilliant video, so well explained. I have an LPL 4500 which doesn't have film plan/lens tilts but my smaller LPL 67 does so I kept it for this reason. Keep up the best darkroom videos on the web.
Awesome, thanks. I have never bothered trying this, but now I’ll give it a red hot go!
If your enlarger doesn't have movements and you need more DoF for your corrections, get a longer lens (eg: instead of using a 50mm lens for 35mm negatives, use a 70mm lens). Being the lens physically further away from the easel it creates a wider dept of field.
thanks
The Kodak Precision enlarger is one of the more curious designs out there designed as a system to give you 3 ways of doing movements. They offered a tilting head (with up to 45 or 90º of tilt), a tilting lens board, which gives some degree of tilt, and 350º of rotation, and a paper board (easel) with 3 legs for tilting. Probably one of the most versatile enlargers in terms of movement. (Both in the A configuration 2¼ x 3¼ condenser model, and in the model B 4x5 diffusion enlarger). Kinda one of the more obscure enlargers out there but I love it. Not very suited to color work, but it’s pretty sound otherwise.
Just as a note I recent saw a Leitz enlarger, leitz easel, and accessories. It allows you to essentially attach a ball head on the slide in the base and then attach the easel to that. This allows easel movements.
Great episode! I have wondered about this. Will give it a go!
Excellent video! I just got membership access to a darkroom which will be the first time I'll be working in a darkroom all by myself. Really excited to put some of what I've learned from your videos into practice! :+)
funny how the more you delve into and learn about darkroom printing the less important it seems to have that top of the line camera and lens combination. So many parts to the puzzle renders each less important to stress over...
Great video! My enlarger is a 4x5 camera set front/downward. I will for sure give a try, thanks ^^
Very interesting. Even if you have an enlarger with appropriate movements, are there limitations with lens field of view, such as loss of sharpness or vignetting at the extremes of the field that become worse when tilting?
Not that I’ve seen, but you can always go up to the next longest focal length to gain more coverage.
The tilting of the lens stage keeps the coverage of the lens centered, so if this is done right, vignetting and related sharpness issues are not a problem. However, if you have even tonal areas and a fairly large adjustment, one side of the image can become far enough away compared to the other side of the image that you may have to burn or dodge part of the image to hold an even toned cross-section. For most images and convergence corrections, this is not a problem.
It also depends on your enlarger design. Since my model has the lens and negative stages separate, then moving one doesn’t affect the other, but some models may work differently. The Beseler 23C, for example, doesn’t have negative tilt so you would lift one side of your easel, but the lens can tilt for correcting focus, which shifts your image to one side a bit.
If my enlarger has the movements, correcting lines won't affect illumination, if it doesn't can it produce uneven illumination on the print?
If the movements are extreme you may have to burn one side a little. I didn’t need to, but I wasn’t making a fine print.
@@TheNakedPhotographer Thanks!
I need that t-shirt haha
Can you do that toy miniature tilt shift effect on photos by tilting the enlarger or easel?
Like the second half of the video, or do you mean something different?
@@TheNakedPhotographer Yeah except intentionally making it mostly out of focus.
It might look a little different, but would be close.