The New Enlarger.

I just finished assembling the Zone VI enlarger I bought last weekend.  Assembly was simple it was just the size and weight of the monster that  made it difficult.  I could lift my D-2 by myself but this one is too much for me.  I think the base is a bit of overkill it's 32x32" compared to my Omega D-2 which was 26x18". 

I was planning on building a table to support the base completely since it overhangs by about 6 inches but it feels pretty solid and I don't believe in making huge pictures so for the time being it is stable.  This system also comes along with the timer and rheostat controls for the dual lighting system which also uses up space.  I could mount the timer vertically but the rheostat takes up a lot of space. I have one lens board for it which accomodates most of my lenses, but negative carriers may be a bit of problem.  It only came with a 35mm carrier, and currently on e-bay there is a lot of competition for another negative carrier for 120 film where the bidding is currently over a hundred bucks so I may have to improvise.  I checked out the compensating timer and tested it against my gra-lab timer and it does compensate for light output.  If I set the lights at maximum output and set the zone vi timer for 30 exposure units, this works out to 15 seconds on my Gra-lab timer.  If I dial down the light controls to half of that 30 exposure units equal 30 seconds.  Hopefully tomorrow I can run some test prints but I am going to have to move my Omega D-2 to have some workspace.