April 1950 ad showing how the light in the Hobbyist is spread evenly by design
Toronto. A few days ago I did a post on a February, 1950 ad for Kodak’s enlarger – the Hobbyist. Two months after that ad, Kodak did another one on the Hobbyist, this time explaining the way the Hobbyist ensured even lighting and encouraged the use of fluorescent ‘circular’ bulb illumination in enlargers.
While the idea of a circular fluorescent bulb was promoted for a few years, the idea of using fluorescent rather than incandescent lighting in enlargers never really took off.
In fact, I was unaware of the virtues and alternatives offered by the use of a fluorescent bulb. To me, all fluorescent bulbs were a pain as they caused static detected by many short-wave radios, including mine.
I did experiment on using a circular Fluorescent light source by adding it sandwiched between two aluminum pie plates to an old Federal enlarger with no light head. No great shakes – too dim for my taste. A hearty thanks to my good friend, George Dunbar, for this ad and follow up on the Hobbyist.
NOTE. The title is a riff on British author Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 book, “Brideshead Revisited“.
