Over the weekend, my wife’s Uncle Dave gave me his old Beseler enlarger. It has been about 20 years since I last made a print in the darkroom so I am looking forward to trying this again.
So far I don’t know much about the enlarger. The only distinguishing mark is “Universal Colorhead” written on the front. From what I can tell by searching the web, the model is actually a 23C Series II although I haven’t been able to confirm that yet.
The enlarger came with a 50mm Nikon Nikkor lens which will work for 35mm negatives. The enlarger can also be used for 6×6 and 6×9 negatives but I will need a 75mm or 80mm lens to print from those negatives.
I did find a manual for a 23C II – XL on APUG and it looks like it will work with my enlarger.
4 Comments
These are great enlargers. I have an 80’s version
The trick is the alignment of the negative carrier and the lens board.
They need to be as perfectly parallel as you can get it.
I used a piece of window screen in the negative carrier to set it up
It should be sharp corner to corner
Thanks for the tip Harry.
How much does this camera go for?
Jennifer, this isn’t a camera but is an enlarger. I got this one for free of my wife’s uncle. Not sure how much it would cost if I was to buy one. Probably not that much since people don’t do wet prints that much anymore.