Enlarger: Omega B-22
Do you have an Omega B-22? Did you just recently buy it? You get home, and set it up. You think
this just consists of reattaching the enlarger head to the base. WRONG. Because you look inside
the metal cylinder in the top and realize there are all these LENSES inside! And they're all jostled up
from transport! How to put them back together?It took me two hours, several emails, and looking through newsgroups to figure this out. The condensers
(those lenses inside the metal cylinder) help to diffuse the light coming from the lamp above.
They make the light shine evenly on the easel. These lenses are completely separate
from the actual "lens" lens that focuses the light to sharply view your picture. So, technically
they're not called "lenses". They're called "condensers", even though they are lenses.
I don't know why they're called condensers, when they "diffuse" the light! Anyway....
the condensers go in this order:
Paper side---)(---)---lampThe two bottom condensers will be touching each other, round sides facing each other. That's okay.
That ensures that the light leaving the middle condenser goes directly into the tip of the
bottom condenser. The top-most condenser is round-side up. This is the condenser with a metal ring.
It is suspended a few inches above the two bottom condensers by a metal cylinder with prongs
that goes INSIDE the main cylinder. This top-most condenser is only used with 35 mm negatives.
I dunno why!!