AN INEXPENSIVE PHOTO ENLARGER

Image Gallery Materials and equipment for an enlarger include aluminum foil, plate glass, a cable release, a 35mm camera, a tripod, a cardboard box, a light bulb, and a light fixture with cord.

You can expand your photographic horizons — to increase the pleasure you can get from your hobby or the profit you can earn from you home business — by building...

By Janice Fryling

Not long ago, a friend (and fellow photo hobbyist) told me, with no little pride, that he'd designed and built a low-cost homemade enlarger. I congratulated him on his ingenuity but — I confess — assumed that the device was likely an interesting plaything rather than a practical piece of photographic equipment. Therefore, when it came time for me to have an enlarger, I promptly made the rounds of my area's photo supply stores to see what such establishments had to offer.

It soon became clear that I'd have to do one heck of an enlarging job on my budget before I'd be able to purchase one of the expensive pieces of equipment. I was, as the saying goes, between a rock and a hard place. So (extremely grateful that I'd kept my doubts about his creation to myself) I called my picture-taking buddy and asked him to tell me how he'd built his enlarger.

Well, to make a long story short, I wound up assembling five of the devices before I felt I'd really developed the design to its full potential. The fifth enlarger, though, worked like a charm . . . and as an added bonus, I believe I learned enough in the course of putting my rejects together to tell you how to produce a "perfect" blow-up-maker on your first attempt!

HERE WE GO

Before you begin work on your homemade enlarger, gather the components shown in the accompanying photo: your 35mm camera and a tripod (most such cameras come equipped with a 50mm lens, which will allow you to make 8" X 10" and larger prints .. . a "macro", or close-up, lens will give you the capability of making smaller prints, as well), a box of aluminum foil, a scrap of plate glass, a cable release, a corrugated cardboard box of about 4-1/2" X 4-1/2" X 10", a roll of gray duct tape, an enlarging bulb (you can buy one at almost any photo shop), and a translucent plastic milk carton (a piece of which will be built into the enlarger as a filter, to prevent "hot spots" from marring your photos).