Cold Light Question

[bmac]

I'm fed up with spotting my prints, and would like the added bonus of easier to print highlight, so I am in the market for a cold light for my Omega D2v. Do I need to budget in for a stabilizer?

[Jorge]

In a word, YES. Cold light head output is very irregular depending on the temperature of the tubes making almost impossible to make two prints the same. This is even worse if you use VC paper, so save yourself headaches and paper and get a stabilizer.

[bmac]

Oh yeah, is one or the other brand of lights better for some reason? I believe that the Zone VI one has a life time waranty. And is there a certain type of stabilizer I should be looking at?

Brian

[carlweese]

Don't overlook the possibility of using a colorhead. Used dichro heads aren't too hard to find for the Omega. A dichro gives the same diffused-light advantages as a cold light, without the stability problems. In addition it allows color printing and the dichro color controls will give excellent results with variable contrast papers.

[Jorge]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bmacphoto.com @ Dec 14 2002, 10:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Oh yeah, is one or the other brand of lights better for some reason? I believe that the Zone VI one has a life time waranty. And is there a certain type of stabilizer I should be looking at?

Brian</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
I have a Zone VI, when Picker was selling them you had a life time warranty, not any longer under Calumet. If you do decide to get the Zone VI get the timer with with it and you should be ok.

[Cem]

My experience is different than Jorge&#39;s. I don&#39;t use a stabilizer and i don&#39;t see the need for one in my darkroom. I guess this all depends on a variety of factors: the particular type of head/lamp, temperature and voltage fluctuation. In my opinion, voltage stabilizer is of minimal help, if there is a problem, a better solution is to use one of those compensating Zone VI or Metrolux timers.

[Jorge]

Maybe we should clarify something, a voltage stabilizer wont do you any good. That is the gizmo where you plug electrical apliances etc to prevent fluctuations in voltage, now a cold head stabilizer is inavaluable, the zone VI timer/stabilizer also has a "beeper" or metronome, I can tell just by the lenght of the beeps that sometimes the exposure is longer due to cold tubes, as they warm up the exposures get shorter. So sometimes a second is about 2 seconds, and when hot is about 1/2 second.

So if we are talking about a cold head stabilizer to adjust the printing time it is definitly worth it, a run of the mill voltage stabilizer is of no use, as the tubes will still be either hot or cold and you wont have a way to measure the light output.

[bmac]

So, Jorge, are you talking about the Zone VI Compensating timer then, or something else?

Brian

[Jorge]

Yes, but if you wish to get an Aristo head you can get a metrolux timer. They are expensive though.

[bmac]

Thanks&#33;

Brian