Enlarger.

I hope Intrepid sells lots of 'em! But, having custom built something similar many years ago, albeit a horizontal setup, for enlarging 10x8 negs I would be concerned about obtaining and maintaining precise alignment between the film, lens, and paper planes.
 
If I could enlarge my 5x4 on something like his, I would be a happy Chappy
 
At the bottom of the page, you can sign up for Kickstarter. You do need a camera, of course, but it looks as if any camera with an international back will work.
 
You're right of course. I should have been more precise.
I believe the 10x8 camera Kickstarter project sold out in twelve minutes, so best to be prompt on the fourth.
I have too many enlargers already, so I won't be joining.
It looks about the same size as three or four dark slides, so quite portable. It might be useful for workshops, but you'd probably want to have a decent spirit level handy for setting up.
When will they re-think the darkcloth?
 
Just the 10x8 enlarger to produce now....... sigh, dreams are free.
 
Yes, that seems reasonable. 10x8 enlargers are much rarer and very bulky. To an outsider, it would seem relatively easy to scale up the design, but few things are as simple as they appear to an outsider.
I'd rather like to see the double knobs from the 5x4 MarkIII on the 10x8. Dreams, dreams...
 
10x8 enlarger would need 4x the light output, an abliity to control the colour of the output light, (or under the lens filters) and an ability to cool the heat generated. That's not going to fit in with the budget ethos of Intrepid? I don't know how much the 5x4 enlarger light source is going to be, but I can't imagine it's going to be pennies in the pound. I was lucky enough to find an adequate enlarger for 5x4 with 135mm lens for much, much less than an intrepid Mk III. With the Intrepid as an enlarger, how does one know the front standard is parallel to film and baseboard standards? All things bigger seem to bring a disproportionate set of new challenges. Let the fun begin!
 
A 10x8 version would be significantly more difficult to build. It requires a huge lightsource (12x12” Aristo, in my case), a lightsource that doesn’t generate much heat, some form of glass-based negative carrier, and some means to check for correct alignment of the planes involved. Filtering, if using VC papers, can be done at the lens stage. Honestly, and I base this opinion off my own 10x8 Intrepid, I’m not sure this camera would be up to the task; simply not precise enough.
 
Intrepid have surprised us before and they may do it again. I agree about the alignment, but this is not the first time a camera has been used as an enlarger, so the problems cannot be insoluble. Five minutes with a level should do it, although that would be for each session if the camera was also used for feeding it with negatives. Inconvenient but not insurmountable.
From the Intrepid announcement it seems that the luminaire will fit any standard camera back, so presumably, it would fit something like the more rigid Ebony. Obviously, 10x8 Ebony owners would get the chauffeur to align it before they began to print.
 
Having used a De Vere Whole plate/Half plate/5x4 monorail as a copy camera (accurately alligned) I dont't think it would be difficult to set up any LF camera as an enlarger, and can think of an easy way to ensure alignment each time it's used.

A light source is relatively easy and there's various options, even for a 10x8 or larger camera/enlarger.

There were once products available where you added your field camera to make a horizontal enlarger, then later the Linhof and Graflex enlarger light sources to convert, not sure if MPP didn't make one ?

Ian
 
If you read about AA's early photographic career, he had a solar-powered camera conversion. The darkroom window was blacked out and a sort of giant scoop directed light to the back of his camera, placed against the window. Paper was placed in a vertical easel. It sounds clumsy but workable. California provides a more reliable light-source than Yorkshire, of course.
 
David, never said correct alignment was insurmountable, but it does take a bit more effort than a simple level. A level will certainly get you very close, but making quality enlargements with accurate focus across the entire film plane--especially when talking 10x8--requires precise alignment. Ebony? I thought those cameras aligned themselves?! :D

Ian, my 10x8 enlarger setup was a horizontal configuration using the camera. I only made a few 20x16 prints with it because I found out that I don't particularly care for large prints. The exercise to build the setup was interesting and fun, though.
 
If you read about AA's early photographic career, he had a solar-powered camera conversion. The darkroom window was blacked out and a sort of giant scoop directed light to the back of his camera, placed against the window. Paper was placed in a vertical easel. It sounds clumsy but workable. California provides a more reliable light-source than Yorkshire, of course.


I had a Betamax video compilation with 2 or 3 AA videos, Fay Godwin, Bill Brandt, ect, a friend made it for me later another borrowed it and lost it.

The one AA video had a fluorescent light source he'd had made for a very large Horizontal De Vere it wasn't complex, I saw large prints he must made with it at the Barbican sometime around 1988/9, the exhibition was "Classic Images"

Now with LEDs a low cost 10x8 or larger enlarger light source would be quite a lot easier to build.

Ian
 
I recently changed the light on my home-made 5 x 4 enlarger from fluorescent to LED bulbs. I used four and the cost, including bulb holders was about £8 each. How many you would need for a 10 x 8 enlarger would depend on the design of the lamphouse, but it wouldn't be an expensive job.

Alan
 
Ian, I have a dim recollection of a sort of grey turtle-like thing that fitted an MPP to convert it, but the memory is very vague.

I've just done a brief search and can find no trace of this, so it may have been something else, or it might have been a different manufacturer. I did come across the instructions given with the MPP Mark III which contains a good account of view camera movements in two languages. French cameras have bascules, like Tower Bridge.
http://www.cameramanuals.org/prof_pdf/mk_viii.pdf

I would have guessed that LED technology makes this sort of thing much more practical. Even so, Intrepid say it's already taken two years and obviously not quite ready yet. It's a pity that their low-cost dark slide project failed.
 
Alan, LEDs are available mounted on long ribbons without glass enclosures. These can have R, G, B and white in succession and they are intended for programmable mood lighting in interior design. I suspect that this is what's inside the Intrepid head. It would make multigrade printing possible, provided that the wavelengths were suitable. Presumably some software would be needed to work with a timer, but that's beyond my competence.
 
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