New Intrepid enlarger for 35mm and 120
Last Updated on September 6, 2022
The new Intrepid 35mm and 120 enlarger is probably the product that many film and darkroom lovers have been waiting for.
Intrepid is a company that began as a start-up whose main objective was the development and manufacture of darkroom enlargers. They managed to triple and more, the sum of money on Kickstarter. From $ 30,000 to more than $ 100,000 is the amount they managed to raise for their employer’s manufacturing.
The Intrepid enlarger has greatly revitalized the idea of the darkroom that was once considered the basis of photography. Under various campaigns to raise the funds necessary for the development of their products, they achieved great success in the development of the Intrepid camera and the Intrepid 4 × 5 format extender.
In this new campaign Intrepid announced that the formats of 35 mm and 6 × 9 will reach its already established line of products. The qualities that this darkroom enlarger has is above all its size, since it is very small unlike a traditional employer. What this means for the photographic world is that as very compact tools we can revitalize the idea of the darkroom, making it possible for any photographer to experiment with their own black and white paper prints.
Although they started with larger formats, Y is a fact that the medium and 135 formats would have been a bit more difficult to reach as it is a very large niche. And generally projects for these formats are no longer so well received by the public that consumes them. Since the last few years we have seen many companies focused on this format with their crown-founding campaigns, fail. But given the reputation they have achieved with their previous projects, they have managed to win the public’s trust.
The interesting thing about this enlarger is that it does not only fulfill the function of printing on paper, but it can also be used to scan negatives. Since the parts that compose it are ideal for this purpose as well. Because let’s not forget that basically in recent years as far as analog photography is concerned, printing on paper has been replaced by the digitization of photographs obtained in films.
Intrepid enlarger components
The Intrepid compact enlarger is made up of five essential parts, the strip where the film to be scanned or the paper to be printed is positioned, the tripod feet that support the head and the lens (in turn made up of the light cabinet and the foldable tube), and what makes up the brain of this system is the timer that also fulfills other functions such as CMY color balance control, the parameters of advancing and pausing the exposure. And finally, a necessary function for any hardware dedicated to fulfilling a function that is to include a USB port for updating its own firmware.
It should be mentioned that the enlarger now does not include the lens itself in its kit, but we must buy a conventional 50 mm enlarger lens for its corresponding use. If our objective is not to scan 35 mm then it is advisable to use a 70 to 90 mm lens, the thread used for this purpose is the M39, which is the default mount that all classic employers have. Also of course it does not come with chemicals or with trays or other types of utensils necessary in a basic darkroom.
The kits offered by Intrepid generally come in packs for the formats corresponding to the required one. Which can be 120, 35 mm, 6×4, 6×6, 6×7 and 6×9. What essentially varies in each kit, are the carriers and the strip used to measure the dimensions of the paper used in the same.
The approximate prices for each kit range from $ 300 to $ 350, depending on the kit we require.
In the following link on its home page you will find more details about each kit and the prices that each one has in addition to the components contained in each kit.
We will also include below a video that seems relevant to us among many others that you can find on YouTube that analyze this product in depth and rescue the highlights of it.
