A brief introduction to the new member of my dark shed.
Since I built my darkroom, , I started with 1 enlarger when I was given an old Durst M 600 enlarger, which was a good companion for its time. But I wanted another to have a permanent setup for medium format.
During the summer, I managed to transport my old Opemus 6 from my childhood home to Nottingham, UK, and it worked well for me. I wanted to expand a bit on it and started to look for color heads compatible.
Search for the head
I did check a few sites. And quickly realized that people were mostly selling full setups – head + enlarger together. Hmm, mostly out of my price range. I really do not need another body of an enlarger, considering I already have one that works perfectly fine. In fact, my existing enlarger is quite reliable and serves my needs well for the projects I’m currently working on. So, I set up the search on eBay for just the head, hoping to find a more affordable option that would complement my current setup without being redundant, and patiently waited for a good deal to appear that would meet my budget and requirements.
New addition to my dark shed
I had a search saved on eBay for Meopta Color 3 head. And honestly, I did not want to pay much for it 🙂 I think it took 6 months for the right offer to come up. This one was for the Head and Axomat 5 with board (and also the 50 mm ITOREX lens, which was not listed ). Sold by the charity shop, priced as not tested for £30. I took a risk and pulled the trigger. As you can imagine, it was packed in a massive box, but it arrived safely and was not damaged…
It looks great and first test suggests that all works as it should. New enlarger replaced old Durst and now sitting comfortably next to its bigger brother.
So far, I have not had a chance to print anything. Stay tuned. Very soon I’m planning to print some family BW shots, which will be a great subject for the test of this new addition to my dark shed.
Do you have any experience or suggestions for Meopta Color3? Will be nice to hear from you . Do not hesitate and let me know below !