Lloyd E. Sponenburgh lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
Gunner Asch fired this volley in
:

The Oly digitals have taken over most of the photo load of course..but
I simply have to get prints in my hands now and then...(Grin)

'had a whole -good- darkroom at one time. Simmon-Omega D2 enlarger with
the condensor color head, polycontrast filter set, the whole thing.

Gunner, stuff comes, and stuff goes. To be honest, a high-end pro-
digital can do anything and all things film could, except for
manipulation in the darkroom. And that was "once or nothing", at least
with the film, itself... like 'pushing' a roll, or cold-processing for
higher contrast. At least with digital, if you goof, you can try it
again. Screw up a roll of film, and you went out and shot it again.

Lloyd

As far as enlargers go, I like the Omega Pro Lab, 5 or 6 series, since
they're all pretty much the same. They are machines of truly great design.
They are sturdy, reliable, use simple parts and are easy to adjust and
repair. There are no bull**** extra parts. All the parts that wear out
can be replaced with stuff from any hardware store with a good
selection of parts bin.

The opposite of Omega would be something like Durst. Every part is
specialized or complex because they came out of a socialist country with
machinists nobody could fire. THe minute a product has dozens of types of
fasteners, you know the rest of the product is going to be just as stupid.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Motorola had some truly innovative
engineers who made some fairly incredible products, like their handheld
radio line. I recall some of the Radius series had no screws at all, were
easy to assemble and just as easy to take apart. They were also completely
weather sealed, which was made even easier as they didn't have any screws
to start with. Yes, they were super tough too. Simple is good, and they
really ran with this concept for a while.