Information is key

Maryfield Snooker Hall
Valoy II print on Kodak Bromesko

I had an email in response to Saturday's post from a reader saying it can't be as easy as just switching to the Leitz Valoy II enlarger to improve your prints, otherwise everyone would use the Valoy and demand would push prices through the roof. Of course, he was right: it wasn't the Valoy that made the difference but the change in mindset. Specifically, for me, it was the decision to stop using the RH Designs Analyser Pro as an analyser and, instead, using it as a timer that provided the solution to my problem.

The analyser needs to be carefully set up for each paper you use before it will do its stuff and come up with the right grade and exposure time at a few clicks of a button. There are lots of owners out there who say they can get a good working print first time with no test strips when using the analyser. They're the ones who take the time to work through the process of calibrating the machine for their method and materials.

The lazy people - yes, that's me I'm talking about - attempt to calibrate the analyser using settings for various papers provided by other people. This might get you close but it's not perfect. And sometimes suggested settings for, say, Adox paper will be miles off even though they might work for somebody else. There are a lot of variables at work in the darkroom, from different enlarger light sources to the condition of multigrade filters, that can mitigate against the approach of using third party settings.

The upshot of this is that using the analyser, in my experience, is a bit of a lottery unless you do your own calibration - and that's the part where I tend to run out of patience. I'd love to be able to click a button a few times and then make an excellent print but I tend to be too keen to bash on. And let's face it, as Phil reminded me when I moaned about my printing troubles, printing can be as hard or easy as you want to make it.

Before being able to make a good print you need to know how you want your print to look, you need information about the likely exposure options you have and you need to make the right decisions when it comes to using that information. A well-calibrated analyser can help you but so can the nice and easy test strip. And that's all I did when switching to the Valoy II - used test strips instead of the analyser.

That's not to say that the Valoy II isn't brilliant. It is. There are some things in life that are just about as perfect as it's possible to make them. This is obviously a very personal judgement but, for me, it's always included the original Saab 900 and the Olympus OM1/OM2. I can happily say that I've now added the Valoy II to that list.

As far as 35mm enlargers go, it's the bees' knees. It's got everything I need and nothing more. It's beautifully made, functions precisely and easily, has a tiny footprint and produces truly lovely prints. It's such a well-engineered yet simple device that it will still be here when we're all gone. It even has helical focusing rather than bellows so there's no concertinaed lump of leatherette to crumble or develop pin holes.

OK, if I'm being really picky - some might see this as a far bigger issue than I do - it lacks a filter drawer for multigrade filters. There are four options: use graded papers only, hold the filter beneath the lens during exposure, knock up a device to replace the swinging red filter and upon which you can rest the MG filters or lift the lid off the lamphouse and pop the filters on top of the condenser.

I use the last approach and don't really have a problem unless I want to use more than one filter grade on the same print. Lifting the lamphouse lid up and down a couple of times requires another focus check and I have to be careful lest the negative moves a tiny bit in the carrier. There was a time recently when lifting the lid could also be a little painful as the 150W bulb that came with the enlarger generated a lot of heat and could, after just a few minutes, render the lamphouse just about untouchable.

That changed after a visit to B&Q and the purchase of a Philips 60W equivalent LED bulb designed, like the Jamaican bobsleigh team, for cool runnings. The original bulb - why did the previous owner put a 150W mini-sun in it? - was giving me very short exposure times of 6-8 seconds at f11 for a 10x8 print whereas the LED bulb has increased this to around 8-10 seconds at f8 which is fine.

There are diverging opinions about whether a warm white or cool white colour temperature is better for an LED enlarging bulb. Well, the warm bulb is close to the colour temperature of traditional enlarger bulbs so was good enough for me. I decided to go for a dearer Philips bulb rather than B&Q's own because it was a little shorter and just about the same length as that recommended for the Valoy for even illumination. So far so good where the LED bulb is concerned. A potential issue was whether or not I'd be able to achieve the harder grades but I've had no problems so far although I've not done any testing as such.

The other thing I've done is to pick up a spare 35mm negative carrier so that I can file it out a bit and make it easier to have a thin, black border around the photograph when printing full frame. It's do-able with the standard carrier but is very finicky when it comes to getting everything nicely centred and even.

And what of the prints? I'm very chuffed, to be honest. The Valoy isn't a diffuser enlarger and not strictly a condenser either. The lamphouse is painted white on the inside and designed to direct a flood of diffuse light at the single condenser. This approach is intended to deliver the benefits of both diffusion and condenser systems - sharp prints from a collimated light source but the minimisation of dust spots on the negative and the longer tonal range that a diffusion enlarger offers. OK, it's probably just Leitz marketing speak but it does seem to work.

Of course, there are still things that have to be given careful consideration regardless of the enlarger you're using. Sometimes, deciding between times on a test strip when there isn't a great deal of difference between adjacent tones can be a bit like deciding if you like that green emulsion you're thinking of using on your livingroom wall diluted with 27% white or 28%. But, basically, printing is an easy business unless you voluntarily head off down a street called One Click Printing Avenue only to find it's a dead end.