New (Old) Beseler Enlarger
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.
Posted on November 29th, 2009
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
Posted by Harry Snowden on 29 November 2009 @ 8am
Thanks for the tip Harry.
Posted by Dave on 14 December 2009 @ 8pm
How much does this camera go for?
Posted by Jennifer Nolan on 25 February 2010 @ 3pm
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.
Posted by Dave on 25 February 2010 @ 8pm
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