John, Reflections off the internal surfaces between the negative carrier and the lens will lower the contrast of an enlarging system. Condensor enlargers send their light straight through the neg to the lens and avoid too much spill onto the inner surfaces below the neg carrier (except for Callier Effect scattering in the case of traditional b&w). Diffusion enlargers send a lot of light obliquely through the neg or tranny, and this light can set up reflections, causing flare, if the surfaces inside the image forming area are too smooth or not otherwise adequately light absorbant. As I described in the post you quoted, some enlargers are good in this regard and some are poor. If they are poor they will lose contrast because of flare, and that should be rectified because flaring light carries no useful image information. The quality and cleanliness of the enlarging lens make a difference, too.
regards, Anthony Farr ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Munro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Anthony Farr wrote: > "I was thinking about colour, too, and described Callier Effect to show > that the choice of enlarger type (condensor vs diffusion) is relevant > only to b&w printing...." > > > Hmm, if what Anthony said is true, I don't understand why my cibachrome > print produced from my condenser enlarger head (and gelatin filters) > appears sharper and definitely has more contrast than my print made from > my diffusion color head? > > The enlarger is a Beseler CB7 utilizing Beseler heads and the one > kodachrome is the positive for both prints. (I make prints from > fujichrome and ektachrome also, and the resulting prints are the same > quality as from kodachrome.) > > Please enlighten me. > >
