De-Vere 504DS Enlarger

[troutmask]

has anybody had any experience of using this new enlarger which can output digital files on to true photographic paper.
I would be very interested to know from experienced darkroom workers how well it captures the limited range of tones availble from a digital image.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I have a friend who ordered a print from a digital file made with this enlarger by San Miguel Photo Lab, and he was happy with it, but I haven't seen the print, and he's never done traditional darkroom work. If you wanted to order a print from them to see what it looks like, their website is www.bestlab.com.

I think the big limitation with this technology is enlargement potential, since the "virtual negative" has a fixed number of pixels.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Oops.... Looks like San Miguel has discontinued that service. They are now referring people to--

http://www.fiberbaseprints.com/

Maximum enlargement size: 20x24".

[troutmask]

Oops.... Looks like San Miguel has discontinued that service. They are now referring people to--

http://www.fiberbaseprints.com/

Maximum enlargement size: 20x24".

Any ne know of an UK based lab with one?

[wirehead]

Hrm.

Interesting.

We may have to do a comparison between Elevator's lambda digital FB and these people's De-Vere digital FB..

[David A. Goldfarb]

I saw the new version of this enlarger at PMA in Las Vegas earlier this year. Resolution is significantly improved, and 20x24" prints on gelatin silver and Ilfochrome looked pretty good, with no obvious raster pattern.

One thing that was curious was that prints from digital originals still had a kind of "digital look," which I think was mainly characterized by having no grain and the long DOF of a very small format like APS-C. This obviously could work well for some things, but can also look a little plasticky.

Precision Photo in NYC (www.precisionphotos.com) has two of these enlargers mostly for headshot work. This seems like the perfect use for them, since headshots are usually printed in quantities of 100 or more and combine text and image.

[percepts]

assuming the pixel array is 5000 x 3200 then a 300dpi print would be 16.6 inches by 10.66 inches. As the print becomes smaller the resolution increases. As the print becomes bigger the resolution decreases. Hence the quoted average of 300dpi. But the claim that 20x24 is doable means only 208dpi max.

Whether that is good enough is debatable depending on your criteria of high quality. Also note that that because the pixels are rectangles, the machine moves the array during exposure to blur the pixel boundaries so you don't see any pixelation. Does that in result in the same resolution capability as film and especially medium and large format film. I don't think so.

The previous pixel array was clearly not up to it. This one looks to be much better, but is it good enough for larger prints?

When the pixel array is doubled again, then it may be worth looking at again. On the other hand, if you are only printing 8x10's then it may well suffice.

[bob carnie]

We would require a unflattend tiff . our printer runs a 400ppi and we would be willing to print up to 30x40 fibre base print. Of course both files would be exactly the same so we can do a apples to apples comparison.

Hrm.

Interesting.

We may have to do a comparison between Elevator's lambda digital FB and these people's De-Vere digital FB..

[David A. Goldfarb]

There was no obvious pixel pattern on the prints I saw, but I didn't have a loupe with me. Another attraction of the DeVere system is that you can use it with any paper you like, just like a regular enlarger.

[percepts]

You won't (or at least shouldn't) see a pixel pattern for the reason I gave in previous post. The pixel array is auto shifted several times during the exposure so that pixels are blurred into each other. DeVere claim this does not affect apparent sharpness. Call me dumb (and I'm sure some will) but if you need to shift the array so you can't see the boundaries then it implies that resolution is not sufficently high that pixel merging needs to take place.
The fact that you could see pixel boundaries and now you can't means there is going to be some loss of resolution at those boundaries. i.e. it can never produce resolution as high as film.
The real question is whether the resolution it produces is good enough for you. I think at 20x24 it won't be. At 16x10 it will be borderline at best and smaller than that it may be acceptable.
All depends on your own standards of what is acceptable.