8X10 enlargers

www.glennview.com

If you can find a 10x10 Durst in good shape-those are absolutely the best you'll ever find. A friend and I had the Beseler for awhile and neither of us were terribly impressed with it.

What Ellis said.

You can check out the Jensen Optical website at: http://www.DURST-PRO-USA.net

They also have some 8x10 enlargers listed on the Bay.

"There is an accessory available to convert the Beseler 4X5 model to print 8X10 negs. This seems like a great and economical way to go about printing 8X10s, since I am already thinking about buying one of these enlargers anyhow . . . "

It might be great but it isn't so economical. IIRC it costs about $2000+ new by itself (assuming Beseler even still makes them)and you almost never see them used. But if you happen to end up with one there was an article by Alan Ross in View Camera magazine, or possibly Photo Techniques, about5 - 7 years ago that discussed the modifications he made to his in order to improve it though I think he said it worked o.k. out of the bos.

I think you'd be better off trying to find a used dedicated 8x10 though the big problem is going to be shipping costs unless you find one that you can pick up. A few years ago wet labs going digital were great sources for used 8x10s but they've mostly converted by now. Still, if there are any wet labs left in your area it wouldn't hurt to ask. You also might post a WTB ad in APUG. Otherwise I'd just follow ebay and other similar sources and hope you find something that doesn't have to be shipped.

Everything I've seen from Jensen has been super expensive, many thousands of dollars, and I can't even imagine the shipping costs for one of their 8x10 enlargers from Portland unless you happen to live in that area. I had a bad experience with Glennview and wouldn't deal with him again.

Have you considered learning to print digitally? Much better for color and at least as good for black and white. The Epson 4990 scanner which will do an excellent job with 8x10 film is being discontinued and can be bought for a couple hundred dollars. There's a whole new generation of pro level printers from Epson and HP just coming on the market that will print 17" wide and as long as you want for around $1000. Or you can get one that will print 24 inches wide and as long as you want for not a whole lot more. I've printed color in a darkroom and I've priinted it digitally and unless you want to get involved with Ilfochrome (do they still make it?) and masking in the darkroom there's no comparison between the two in terms of flexibility, quality, and life of the prints.

I don't know where you're located but I just noticed a new thread in the Q&A section of www.largeformatphotography.info that mentions an 8x10 deVere enlarger for sale in Canada for $6500.

DeVere makes great large format enlargers if your truck can haul it, and you can fit it through your darkroom door<g>.

Just a minor extra point of info - your present enlarger at work is almost certainly not an Ilford 500 - that was a diachoric head only.

Nick

"Have you considered learning to print digitally? Much better for color and at least as good for black and white. The Epson 4990 scanner which will do an excellent job with 8x10 film is being discontinued and can be bought for a couple hundred dollars"

That statement is a bit off the mark,IMHO. It's certainly easier to do color enlargements digitally, but I've yet to see a digitally enlarged 20x24 that can come close to the sense of depth and tonality that a optically enlarged 8x10 black and white negative can give. And I used to work in a camera store so I saw the best the various company reps had to show and also the work of plenty of guys printing digitally. But my opinion is my opinion and you should check out samples of both.

William

Keith, check the Kienzle website: http://www.kienzle-phototechnik.de/

They have all kind of formats and models available. As far as I know, they produce quite a bunch of 8x10 right now.

cheers, Urs