Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

By Wicher van Lambalgen

First, let me introduce myself; I am a mechanical design engineer and amateur photographer living in Potsdam, Germany. I’m 32 years old and have grown up around cameras, as both my parents are enthusiastic photographers. I never stopped shooting film, and only got a digital camera 6 years ago.

Whilst doing my masters in Manchester, I saw an ad from Kamerastore for an engineer to draw spare parts for them. This was my first step into the professional side of photography, albeit as an engineer, not a photographer. Through Kamerastore, I got in contact with Arild, and we started Valoi together.At Valoi I was responsible for the technical design work, concept creation as well as a large portion of sourcing the parts and communication with the suppliers. After my masters I moved to Germany to become head of engineering at Adox. At Adox I was working as chief of engineering, responsible for coordinating the team, organising maintenance schedules, designing new machinery, like the coating machine, as well as restoring the old machines back to life. Time showed that doing both Adox and Valoi, as well as having a normal life, was not possible, so I left Valoi in good spirits. After some time, however, the entrepreneurial bug got me again, and I started thinking about a new project. I guess it’s no surprise to you that it was all about analogue photography again.

From my childhood, I remember that we were printing every roll on 10×15 cm, and the 13×18 format was reserved for the best shots. My father often told me about the magic of being in a darkroom and creating the prints on your own. It’s an artistic extension of the whole photographing process and strongly inspired both my and my father’s approach to analogue photography and exposure.

Even though we had all the gear in the house, we never had the space, time or dedication to set up the darkroom, so this remained an elusive dream for me. Later, when dev + print 10×15 became a lot more expensive and scanners and Instagram made their way into my life, the physical aspect of photography became more and more restricted to the act of developing my BNW films. And I always found something was lacking in that. Why shoot film if the result is digital?

So, while talking with my colleagues and friends and pondering ideas for starting a business, the idea of an enlarger that does not need a darkroom was born. The design process seemed straightforward enough but turned out to be more complicated than expected, as expected.

The aim was to create a device that can:

  • Print and develop without the need for a darkroom
  • Print different formats of film and paper
  • And is affordable enough to take your first steps in printing

The initial idea phase had many additional thoughts: Can I introduce printing of all roll film formats, 135 through  120? Can I print paper sizes from 10×15 to 20×25? Unfortunately, this had to be shrunk to a starter version that can only print 135 film on 10×15 and 13×18 paper.

The next problem was moving parts; if you introduce moving parts, you increase complexity, part count and chances for user error while raising the price. So, I opted for a design with a fixed focus. This mandated the use of a standardised lens, so the search was on for a lens that met both the quality and price criteria of the project. Unfortunately, I found nothing in the market that met the requirements, so I searched for a partner in optical design and manufacturing to create a bespoke lens. I found a fantastic company in the UK that has created a great lens for the project, which is undoubtedly an asset to the company as it opens up so many other possibilities.

The last aspect of the enlarger was the ability to develop the paper in daylight. Initially, there were, of course, exciting and crazy ideas; can we put a 10-pack of paper in the enlarger and develop the sheets 1 by 1? Is it possible to make it daylight loading? But also the unuseful, integrating the paper compartment into the enlarger as a fixed part. In the end, I designed it as an interchangeable cassette + tray which moves the paper from the “exposure compartment” to the “development compartment” in the tray by means of pulling out a second darkslide. This concept was received very well by a group of peers, with the immediate question: does it work in a large format camera? So now the cassettes are compatible with the Graflok system of double film cassettes, and the cassette without tray fits behind the spring-loaded ground glass of a standard large format camera.

I am really humbled by all the excitement and positive feedback I’ve received on this project. I am looking forward to seeing it out there and witnessing what everyone gets up to! We are planning

a Kickstarter to start on the 16th of October and are looking forward to all of your support!

Find the project everywhere:

Our website
On Tiktok 
On Instagram
On Facebook

 

 

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About The Author

By Wicher van Lambalgen
I started photography around the age of 4, with a reusable single use camera type thing (it was red, still have the parts somewhere). I grew up around both my parents shooting film in a time when that was still normal. And we basically never switched to digital. (I didn't have a digital camera until I was already a grown man). I studied Arts, Latin, modern languages, science and horse riding in secundary school, all the while shooting film. For my university studies I chose to pursue mechanical engineering. My most recent degree being a masters from the University of Manchester. I worked as engineer in the design of laser systems, then became head of engineering at Adox fotowerke as well as being a founding member of Valoi in between things. Now I am working on a new project, called Jagglé, which is aimed at making cool products in for analogue photography. The first product we made is a daylight enlarger, aimed at making film photography analogue again, and lowering the threshold to starting in the world of darkroom printing.
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Comments

Zheng Li on Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

Hi Wicher, thanks for developing such an innovative product! I have been contemplating wet prints for a while, but sadly don't have enough space in our little "darkroom"/guest bathroom. Just a few questions regarding developing the prints:

1) Can you develop prints in total daylight like developing film in daylight tanks? Like pouring in developer, then stop bath, and finally fixer? Typical darkroom needs 3-4 large trays, each dedicated to one of the chemicals, and red safety light. I just don't have that kind of space.

2) How many prints can you develop in one go? One sheet, 10 sheets, or somewhere in between?

In addition, I believe your Graflok compatible print cassette will be very attractive for lots of us doing large format photography. Not only we can try paper negatives now, but also we can use 10 sheets of paper negative in one compact holder!
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Wicher van Lambalgen replied:

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

Hi Zheng Li! Thank you for your enthusiasm!! Technically the graflok compatible cassettes are the same as the enlarger compatible cassettes. With the caviat that the (4x6in/10x15cm) version doesn't fit on every 4x5in camera. They develop like a normal daylight tank, so no need for extra trays. You can only develop 1 sheet at the time in a cassette, this is the same for the Camera application and the Enlarger Application. I am still thinking on how to make a 10 sheet self developing cassette, but this is still a work in progress.

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Jeffery Luhn on Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

Wicher,
Thanks for this article. It's an interesting concept! Are there any videos that show you using it?
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Wicher van Lambalgen replied:

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

Hi There! On our Instagram there is a video where I work with the first working prototype in the park, as well as a video where I explain the process in the kitchen ;) W

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Gary Smith on Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

I love my Valoi Easy35 and it's a pleasure to meet you. Dragging out my past, I'm curious what CAD system you're using as I spent 20+ years in the mechanical CAD industry and designed the "assembly" portion of both Solid Edge and Inventor. I'll be curious to see how this new project of yours turns out and once I finish here I'll scope out your website!

Thanks for sharing!
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Wicher van Lambalgen replied:

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

Hi Gary, Thank you! With the original Easy35 I was only involved conceptually ;) For CAD I am at the moment using Fusion360, but this is more for financial reasons... My favorites if you will are Creo and SolidWorks, but I have also worked with Inventor for a few projects, and found it works really well. Thank you for your support!

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Tony Warren on Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

Not an entirely new concept but a superb fusion of ideas and I wish you every success with it. I can see this appealing on the grounds of good monochrome prints which are definitely the Achilles heal of all but the best inkjets. Probably a red windowed viewing port into the processing stage is the only thing that could bring back any of the magic of seeing your print appear in the developer in the darkroom.
Once again, congratulations on an excellent product and on your contributions to Adox, one of my hero companies for helping support the resurgence of film.
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Wicher van Lambalgen replied:

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

Thank you! I know that the magic of seeing your print appear is lost with the current solution, I haven't found a way to bring that back unfortunately

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Tony Warren replied:

Comment posted: 16/09/2024

I doubt you will Wicher - slightly tongue in cheek comment that one.

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Geoff Chaplin on Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

Comment posted: 17/09/2024

Thanks for your work at Adox - they are finishing some great films! I wish you luck with your project, I think it will appeal to the army of film photographers with no possibility of building a darkroom.
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Wicher van Lambalgen replied:

Comment posted: 17/09/2024

Thank you!

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Nigel Gardner on Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

Comment posted: 17/09/2024

Really interesting Post - you have re-invented the DayLab, which I think is wonderful. I used mine for well over 10 years to print mainly Cibchromes - it was designed to print Aga Direct positive colour paper as that was a simple two bath process, but would work wonderfully with Ilford's Cibachrome. As positive papers they needed less filtration adjustment form the off than Colour Negative paper did. Sadly all of my Cibachromes were lost in a house move . But I got the DayLab out this summer and used it to produce some direct positive 5x4s from BW negatives onto Ilford PanF rated at 15ASA which from memory was what Cibachrome was. Not entirely successful but will have another bash when I am home in November - I work in Asia. I posted a picture of my Daylab on IG about 2 weeks ago and few people knew what it was. Chapeau to you - here's mine https://www.instagram.com/p/C_fq6llSzvf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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Wicher van Lambalgen replied:

Comment posted: 17/09/2024

Thank you! Few people made me aware of the DayLab and its various forms. Love that one too!

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David Hill on Jagglé – Introducing my Daylight Enlarger

Comment posted: 18/09/2024

A cool project. I do wonder about the mechanics of the developing tray (how you ensure the emulsion remains immersed), and also about the significance of the wax-dripped skull on the table …
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