Enlarger

[WickedLady]

Hallo!

Now that I'm graduating from High School (and no longer have access to a darkroom) I'm setting up my own dark room, and I need an enlarger. I was wondering what enlargers y'all think are the best. I'm looking for something fairly straight forward and hopefully not extremly pricy.
I do mostly Black and White photography, but I'm planning on eventually expanding into Colour ( I'm paranoid that the people at the photo place keep messing with my negatives on purpose ).
As much as I love digital photography, there's something so cool about developing and printing your own photos... I'm uber excited about my darkroom.

-Krissy

[Photoshop_Geek]

For the money....you'd be better off shooting in film and scanning it. Then doing all your manipulations in photoshop....hope this is helpful

[sethcapitulo]

i agree with photoshop geek.. let a reputable photo lab develop/process your films.. saves you time and energy.. and probably, money..

[Telos]

I'm not an expert when it comes to dark rooms but I can imagine you can do pretty nice stuff there which you can't do if you develope your photos on somewhere else. There is also the feeling what comes when YOU develope your own photos. But still...decide do you need your own dark room and if the answer is still yes then go ahead but "normal" photographing doesn't require your own dark room.

[tamlin]

Speaking as someone who has moved from traditional darkroom processing to digital image manipulation in Photoshop, I know which I prefer! Messing about in the dark with poisonous chemicals does give you a sense of achievement when you finally produce a good image, but most of the image manipulations I used to do in the darkroom (dodging, burning, toning, solarization etc.) were get-it-right-first-time-or-forget-it processes. Now, I can do exactly the same stuff (and more!) in Photoshop, and if I screw it up the first time I just hit the History palette and start again. As far as I'm concerned, there's no contest - but that IS only my opinion!

[Laser Rat]

Like Tamlin I come from a "wet" darkroom background. I still have my 4 x 5 Sinar view camera and Omega 5 x 7 enlarger and have thought many times about selling them and adding to my "digital" dark room. I'm thinking now that I will hang on to them and resurrect everything when I retire. The wet and digital experiences obviously overlap but one thing I would say about the "wet" is that (no pun intended" is that I could focus more on the end result. With all the variables involved with a wet darkroom it certainly takes longer to get the end result that you want and with far more restrictions. But...I always had an idea of what I wanted going in I and I would often spends hours getting there, a meditation of sorts. If you are young I would recommend you give the wet darkroom a try. I think you'll find that it will give you a much deeper experience of creating something special, rather than the somewhat manic click/delete/paste world that digital can easily become.

Cheers, Rat

[notjustgraphics]

While I agree that digital solutions can be a near-par substitute for most traditional darkroom techniques, I have a significantly different view when it comes to some of the more advanced methods...

Certainly if all images are scanned and displayed on a computer screen, they will be on a level playing field, but if you have ever seen a selenium toned print on fibre based paper by Ansel Adams for instance, you will see what I mean.

I suppose, in equivalent terms, you could liken the difference to viewing a DaVinci painting in real life vs. an imitation, or reproduction, digital or not... the life of the image is truly lost... the brush strokes, the subtly of texture from the layers of paint, the rough hewn properties of the canvas, and so on..

The same can be said from great prints from darkroom masters... much is lost in the translation to digital media... unfortunately for most of us... we seldom see these great works and begin to accept the much less impressive digital results as an advancement or improvement, likely because it is all we know.

Although Ansel Adams is not the most outstanding photographer in my mind, he was by far the greatest darkroom master... A status I am sure will remain unchallenged in light of our rapid transition into digital imaging. It will become a lost art...

For those who truly enjoy black and white photography, you owe it to yourself to see at least one exhibit of a great photographers work (non-digital of course)... then decide if you think digital is a replacement for the darkroom, or an alternative method that sacrifices true quality for efficiency.

Don't get me wrong, I am not down on digital because I know that for the majority of practical purposes it is more than adequate and should readily be accepted as an art form all to itself... I just have a great love and a humble regard for the work done by master photographers in darkrooms long since dismantled.

Sorry... my 2cents.

Mike.