[LargeFormat] Enlargers and the New Darkroom

[Charles Thorsten]

> Hello Charlie,
> 
> What sort of device are the Zyco digital translators? Is there a web 
> page for them?
> 
> Cheers,
>         Clive
> 

Hi Clive,

Imagine using an incident lightmeter to measure the light
projected by your enlarger, except it also gives values for
cyan, magenta and yellow.  You set it to read for an
"ideal negative", which would print at Exp.=0, C0,M0,Y0.
You then make your corrections based on these values.

The advantage is that you're measuring the actual light
hitting the paper, rather than simply using the settings on
the enlarger.  Once you have the correct numbers for
that negative, you can print it at any size without having
to re-test.  

I believe Zyco was bought by Minolta a while back, but
I don't think they sell new translators any more.  Eseco-
Speedmaster sells similar translators.  You can look at
their page http://www.eseco-speedmaster.com for more
information.  

By the way, they're not cheap!  I bought mine used for
a good price several years back.  They're more plentiful
used than ZBE closed-loop heads though, so used ones
are more affordable.

Regards,
Charlie