What has happened to Durst?

Thomas, I suspect it is the fact that people do not appreciate film or wet darkroom as much as they used to. They want cheap and now. I am afraid alot of our beloved camera and darkroom suppliers are having a hard time. I do not know durst's exact situation but many of the compaines are barley hanging on by a thread or are being bought and sold by global compaines just for there name. Luckily we will be able to buy used equipment at very good prices for a long time. ,Grinder

Durst is a European company, often mistakenly assumed to be German tho' its origin is Northern Italy in Bressanone/Brixen in the Tryol between Italy and Austria. Both Italian and German are used on various websites and references to Durst, which might help you in searching for parts or information.

As far as I know there's still a Durst/U.K. and Durst rep of some kind in the U.S.A. And I haven't heard any reliable reports that Durst is in any sort of financial difficulty. Like most traditional photography related organizations they've branched out to accomodate changes.

Durst's presence in the U.S.A. has never been continuous, being taken over by one distributor or another with gaps between availability.

They're terrific enlargers - I have two and have considered buying another if I had more room - but you should keep maintenance issues in mind. Specifically, the negative carriers often cannot be easily replaced with homebrewed substitutes. And the lens carriers are shaped like saucers and bowls or cups, the older versions being metal and newer versions usually being plastic.

For some years the US distributor of Durst enlargers up to 4x5 has been Jobo USA. But the US division of Jobo recently closed, handing over distribution of Jobo analog products to OmegaSatter -- see http://www.jobo.com/usa/. This seems to have left several brands, including Durst, without US distributors (see link). Durst enlargers are very fine -- I use a L1200 -- hopefully Durst will find a distributor soon.

For parts and accessories, I can only suggest contacting the factory, http://www.durst.it/, searching ebay, contacting a machinst like S.K. Grimes, Inc., or waiting for a distributor.

Durst enlargers are very high quality, but new, the prices are also high. One guesses that their recent sales volume of enlargers hasn't been high...

P.S. Even if their enlarger market is shrinking, Durst seems to be successful in the new market. They have products that are popular with large color commerical labs (off topic for this forum): Sigma scanners, Lambda laser printers, etc.

"Durst is a European company, often mistakenly assumed to be German tho' its origin is Northern Italy in Bressanone/Brixen in the Tryol between Italy and Austria."

Their origin is indeed Brixen (started off in the late 1920s as a drugstore) and their headquarters might formally be in the Italian Republic but they see themselves, as well as most of the photographic companies in Brixen (such as Durst, Barbieri,Viptronic), more as ethnic Germans. One needs to keep in mind that this area was part of various German language countries--- including even the Kingdom of Bavaria to which Andreas Hofer led a rebellion (one needs to recall that Bavaria allied itself with Napolean)--- and was annexed from Austria after WW-I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Part, however, of the reunification of Austria (recall too that Austria like Germany was divided among the allied forces) was the rejection of a reunification of South Tirol with Austria which led to it becoming a semi-autonomous province with final (near) automony granted in 1972 (following some significant unrest). The treaty was not ratified by Austria and Italy untill 1992(!) and really only in the context as maculatura within the European Union. I've found even today that communication in the German language proves more usefull than Italian (or English).

The modern association with Germany, however, is much more complex since Durst used to also have a sales and production group in Germany. Much of their non-enlarger amateur line used to be made in Germany. Durst also has tended to work together with or subcontract from German companies (their print processors, for instance, from Thermaphot). This continues today with their driers (DevAppa) to their state of the art digital minilabs (Agfa). Tetenal, on the other hand, which distributes Durst in Germany sells the Filmetta as their Colortec Filmlab-1... and there are loads more examples..

Thanks, Edward! I was hoping you'd step in with some history.

I'd always assumed Durst was an entirely German company - it certainly *sounds* German - so imagine my surprise when I read in my instruction manual that the headquarters was in Italy. Well, barely in Italy. ;>

I used to jokingly refer to Pensacola, Florida as Baja Alabama. (For our friends outside of North America, that's an allusion to Baja California, the peninsula south of California, USA, which is actually part of Mexico.) Technically, sure, it's Florida. But it doesn't look a thing like most folks' conception of Florida. No orange groves, no semi-tropical climate. You have to go at least to Panama City to get that ambience.

So, given the assumption that every culture has idiomatic expressions, do Germans and Italians have a humorous reference for the Bressanone/Brixen area?

"that's an allusion to Baja California, the peninsula south of California, USA, which is actually part of Mexico."

Well California (the part that's today part of the US) too was annexed--- by the U.S. in the late 1840 following a land driven war by the United States against Mexico ("Mexican-American War") and sealed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Its interesting, however, to note that despite the mass "repatrization" of "Mexicans" from these terrorities into the 1930s, current demographics (on the basis of the 2000 census) show around 35% of the population of California to be "Hispanic".

"Technically, sure, it's Florida. But it doesn't look a thing like most folks' conception of Florida. No orange groves,"

The orange groves on Wilshire Blvd (Los Angeles) got replaced by the "Miracle Mile" in the 1920s. My old neighborhood in Los Angeles looked in the 1960s like a cross between Brooklyn and North Africa, the smells of eastern European foods and the sounds of klezmer under palm trees.

"So, given the assumption that every culture has idiomatic expressions, do Germans and Italians have a humorous reference for the Bressanone/Brixen area?"

Neither are much known for a sense of humour. Alone the selection of the name (Brixen or Bressanone, Südtirol or Alto Adige or Trentino) is (almost) "political". Language is often central (see, for example,Vlaams Blok in Belgium) but mainly in the context of tribal ethnicity at the core. Sometimes it even needs to be invented: The Italian Liga Nord, for example, see themsleves as Celts. This trend is also wittnessed by American white rascist groups and "Christian Identity" movements but also Nation of Islam and many others from Rastafarianism to Heaven's "Hale Bopp" Gate (E.T.s incarnate).

Interesting. My eldest daughter has, apparently, become infatuated with what she perceives to be her Celtic ancestry. I'm not quite sure where she gets this from. Our family are typical American mutts, a mixed breed of Europeans (German, Wales and probably others) and a smattering of American Indian. This is particularly common among Texans due to migration patterns and intermarriages between European immigrants and American Indians as men and women lost their original spouses due to various hardships en route from Virginia to Texas. Others in my family seem preoccupied with the American Indian part of our ancestry. I just regard myself as a purebred Texas pug, and not a very pretty one at that.

Well ... I've certainly digressed a bit ... again.

Thanks for all the input. I just found a website for the Durst shop online. It is in Italy ......www.durst.it/shop, they have enlargers and accessories. The prices are quite high, but the shipping is included in the price. It may also have something to do with that Euro - US dollar conversion problem. Here is my predicament..I'm using the M670 VC enlarger. it only goes as large as 6x6. I recently purchaced a 6x7 camera. Until only very recently I could easily get the conversion kit to 6x7 through Durst USA, or B and H etc.. Now no one here in the US has it. I did take out the 6x6 masks and put the full frame neg in the chamber and I think it might work if the negative doesn't bow when heated.

Now I have to fire up the dormant Nova upright processor (great space saver) since I've been playing with a digicam over the last few months...sorry. Again, thanks for all your help.