I'm trying to decide what kind of enlarger to get for a home darkroom, and I'm trying to think ahead to where I will be photographically speaking in a couple of years. So even though I only shoot 35mm and 6X7 at the moment, I think I need to get a 4X5 enlarger, since I expect to start shooting large format in the next year or so.

I have a little experience in darkrooms in classes, and a little on my own at rental darkrooms, all B&W. But I think I might enjoy color printing as well, if I can control the water temps adequately. But I know nothing about printing color.

So my question is; VCCE and dichroic enlargers are the same price, and you can print B&W on both. Is there any reason to get the VCCE over the dichroic, since the VCCE only prints B&W? I understand what the VCCE is supposed to do, in theory. But is it SO convenient that it's worth losing the option of printing color sometime in the future? I've never used a VCCE enlarger, and without firsthand experience with one I need advice from those who have.

Thanks for your help with this decision.

Dave

-- Dave Terry (drtdave@pacbell.net), April 13, 2001

Answers

Dave, VCCE heads usually goes far on extreme constrast control, with heavier densities of yellow and magenta. But, as these values are seldom useful, you can live a long way with a color head. On the other hand, as the cyan filter isn't much useful on color printing, I'd ask if the VCCE couldn't take care of both. Someone from the color business could certanly be more specific here. Good work.

Cesar B.

-- Cesar Barreto (cesarb@infolink.com.br), April 14, 2001.

Your decision to buy an enlarger that will fit your future needs is a wise one. Many of us have regretted not doing so.

If you are at all considering printing color, go for the color head. While you can easily print B&W with a color head, it's impractical to print color with a VCCE head, unless, of course, you buy the color head, too. Color printing requires blending yellow and magenta filters (very rarely, cyan). In the very old days, I did this with a condensor enlarger using the filter drawer. While this was adequate, modern diffusion heads don't have a filter drawer, thus you have to put the filters below the lens, where there is potential degredation of the image.

One filter below the lens, as for VC printing, is OK, but with color you frequently use several filters of different densities to get the right mix. This is not really practical below the lens.

For printing B&W with the color head, you can either use the built-in magenta and yellow filtration, and work out your own exposure calibration, or use VC filters below the lens. A single filter has minimal effect on the image, it's the multiple filters that have the potential for problems.

On the other hand, if you are feeling flush, you can buy both heads. If so, I recommend getting the VCCE head with the enlarger, and the color head separately, as for some reason, the enlargers are priced the same, but the VCCE costs more than the color head when purchased separately. At least this is the case for Saunders/LPL.

-- Charlie Strack (charlie_strack@sti.com), April 15, 2001.

You probably know the CE in VCCE stands for constant exposure (or something like that). In other words, you're not supposed to need to adjust exposure time when you change filtration.

That hasn't been my experience when using "matched" filter sets, however: usually a change in contrast needs at least a slight adjustment in exposure time, although VCCE should get you a lot closer than dialing in filtration on a dichroic head and guessing at the increase.

However, most constant exposure schemes work by slowing everything down to the filtered speed--there is no more fast ISO 400-500 "white light" speed; you're working at more like an ISO 100 speed. The thing I like about dichroics is that you keep the white light speed until you need to adjust contrast. Then adding just a little magenta (instead of a "speed matched" combination of magenta and yellow) filtration may only slow you down to ISO 250-300. In practice, it's fairly easy to standardize at certain points, like 40 magenta = about a 1/2 stop increase (or whatever the case for your paper/enlarger combinatiion).

-- Brian Hinther (BrianH@sd314.k12.id.us), April 16, 2001.

Thanks for all the responses so far. It seems to be pretty unanimous in favor of dichroic. But Brian's answer made me wonder, just how does the VC head work? If you dial in more filtration, how does it keep the exposure constant? All I can think of is that it increases the wattage to the bulb. I don't think the head will determine exposure times, nor the aperture of the lens. So it must be the amount of light being put out by the bulb. Is this right?

-- Dave Terry (drtdave@pacbell.net), April 17, 2001.

The VCCE head maintains (reasonably) constant exposure by adding neutral density to the filtration. As someone else pointed out, this makes ALL contrast settings as slow as the slowest. The lamp brightness is not changed.

Another issue to consider with the VCCE head is the tone that is held constant as contrast is changed. Some VCCE hold a middle gray constant. The Saunders LPL VCCE holds a light gray constant.

I use the Saunders VCCE head and find it very convenient. I do a lot of portraits, and adjust the exposure for skin tones, and the contrast for shadows. As contrast is changed, the skin tones stay relatively constant, making it easy to fine tune the contrast.

-- Chris Ellinger (ellinger@umich.edu), April 17, 2001.