Topic: Durst negative holder nomenclature

[David A-W]

I'm looking for a 6x7 negative holder for a Durst enlarger and am getting bewildered by the nomenclature of the genus.  I use a darkroom that has M605, M670, M805 Durst enlargers, plus De Vere 504s, but it's the Durst I am focussing on at the moment.

I have been looking on on-line auction sites and have come across the following names for Durst negative holders, so far and I don't expect this is exhaustive
- Siroper
- Siriocon
- Siropar
- Sinoneg
- Siroma
- Lidineg
- Mesixneg
- Setoneg
- Nerioneg
- Fesixneg
- Sironeg

It's a minefield, it makes Leica's FOKOS, WINTU, BEHOO and NOOKY look intelligible.

[Francois]

Yeah, Durst names are esoteric to say the least.
My Durst C-35 can take the Mesixneg 35 and Mesixneg 66 holders.
I'm reading on the web right now and the M605 can only handle up to 6x6.
But there is a logic to the madness. If the name ends in "con", it's a condenser unit.
If it ends in "neg", it's a negative holder.
If it ends in "ma", it's a mask that fits in a holder.

For bigger formats, they have a universal film holder with a set of masks that drop in.
The m670 uses a Unineg holder with a Sixma mask.


I know I have an original Durst catalog from the 1980's but it's in the enlarger's box in the furnace room with a ton of stuff in front of it...

[David A-W]

Francois, thanks that is helpful.

The other thing is that they're already rather expensive - £80 - £100, for a negative mask!

Times have changed since people were basically letting you come round and collect their unwanted gear (I got a v.nice LPL enlarger that way years ago).

It looks like my options are:

M805 - Bimacon 80 condensor, Bimaneg holder, Binema 67 inserts

M670 -Vegaset 67 (one on eBay for £338 BIN!) but I think we have some of these bits already.

[Francois]

Durst has always been a luxury brand, so their prices have always been set accordingly.
Because of their higher prices, they have always been less popular, which explains the rarity of their parts.

They are designed in Italy and always came with the finest German glass.
My bottom of the line C-35 came basic with a Rodenstock lens and it's got the most even light distribution of all my enlargers.

To compare, my LPL66 came with an LPL lens that wasn't perfectly matched to the condenser, so there was about a 1 stop difference between the center and the edges. I had to replace the 75mm lens with an 80mm Nikkor in order to fix this, but in the process the bulb became too weak to get decent exposure times. I was up to 4 minutes for an 8x10 at grade 2, so I had to replace the bulb with an LED that's equivalent to 100 watts.... And I probably still have stuff to improve on it.

But the Durst, it was just plug and go.