My big prints from MF

<p>I had been wondering how big I could print from my 6x6 negs, and finally now have some personal experience with it. I had the negs scanned on a Nikon 9000. Black and white, can't remember what film, but ISO 100, though I think the exposure was off as the scans are pretty grainy for this speed. Had them printed direct on aluminum, at 1.5m X 1.2m (meters) which is about 60x40 inches. It looks great. Really it does. Only a picky photographer might complain about sharpness or grain close up, and I wouldn't care if they did. And, this was the worst of the 3 negs I was considering having printed. All in all I'm super impressed and wouldn't hesitate to go even bigger with a better negative.</p>

<p>In the late 1970's I shot a series of close up portraits with a Tele-Rolleiflex (6x6). The film was Kodak Panatomic-X (asa 32) and the prints were made into 60" squares. These were printed by a pro lab in NYC onto single grade Kodak paper. When these were shown, the viewers were only able to get within 5 feet of the prints. Most of the photographers that saw these prints, assumed that large format gear was used.</p>

<p>The secret is to carefully focus, stop down a bit, use the fastest shutter speed possible, use a tripod, use slow film, and have the negs carefully enlarged.</p>

<p>In my wedding days, I routinely blew 645 negs up to 20, 30 or 40" prints. The Portra 400NC, always looked great too. The key here is again viewing distance. Most of these prints went on walls in large rooms, and were viewed from 5-20 feet away.</p>

<p>You'd be surprised how big your prints can be in MF. As stated, viewing distance is the decider or the limit. But in comparrison to other smaller formats, you'll find MF 6x7 very sufficiant to impress only short of LF negs, especially using the T grain films which have hardly any grain in comparrison to the older emulsions of TriX.<br>

There was a time when grain was the in thing... perhaps it still is in certain pictures but newer T grain films make it difficult to get the eye pleasing effect. I was using a home made 2 part developer in the 70s that increased grain because I loved the texture n feeling it gave my work. Now seeing these same pictures on my walls 40 years later just reinforces my decision to try it again. I am currently considering reformuating my old develoer just to give it another go. <br>

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<p>The largest photographic print I ever had made from an ISO 160 color negative 6x 6cm negative was 60 inches by 60 inches. At that size if you walked up to it you could see grain structure. </p>

<p>To a large extent you will impose some limitation on how large a specific image can be enlarged through your technique and lens quality. Use a tripod, mirror lockup, and a cable release along with a high quality lens. An equally high quality enlarger (heavy duty Durst) and enlarging lens wil lalso help. if scanning the negative or transparency, the method of scanning and the expertise of the person doing the scan and the processing will be major factors.</p>

<p>After using MF -mostly slides in my case as the base for prints for a dozen years it surprises me not one bit that you can make a large print from a good original well scanned. The largest I've had made is 40" square from drum scans. At that size there is no grain visible and the prints don't depend on viewing distance for thair appearance of sharpness- so certainly if you can afford the luxury of a minimum viewing distance , then there is clearly more to go for in terms of size.<br>

The only slight surprise for me was the choice of scanner. I used to have a Coolscan 9000, and used it extensively for prints to 18" sq and in extremis a little beyond. However when setting out to make prints a bit bigger I tended to be happier with a drum scan or an Imacon.</p>

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<p>Not only can there be considerably more information in the best 35mm and MF negs than can be gleaned in a 4,000 dpi scan, but scans in the realm of 2800-4000 dpi can accentuate grain of a certain size to a very noticeable degree (grain aliasing) to the point where folks think they're looking at all the detail there is at the grain level.<br>

The newer T-grain and nano-tech emulsions do help with the second issue. Unfortunately very few scanners are available at a reasonable price that scan beyond 4K dpi for MF to help with the first.<br>

Incidentally, just now I've got a 32X48" print of a mountain lion on display in a local natural history museum exhibit that holds up to eyeball-to-eyeball scrutiny. This was from a cropped 35mm film original, on Astia 100F using a lens that could resolve ~100 lp/mm, and required an 8,000 dpi PMT drum scan (I'd had 3 prior scans of the same image, 5000 dpi or greater, which did not pass muster).<br>

My back of the envelope calculation suggests that at 60" from 2-1/4 your 4000 dpi Nikon LS-9000 scan was outputting just 147 dpi to the printer or RIP before interpolation. If you were happy with this, great, so be it. But you might also be pleasantly surprised to find out just how much better a really big print can look when a truly great negative warrants an 8K dpi PMT drum scan.</p>

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<p>Hi.<br>

The largest print i had made was 40 inches by 40 inches, from 6x6, Fuji velvia 100F, scanned on an Imacon, printed on a Durst Lambda.<br>

It looked sharp from close by and there was absolutely no grain visible.<br>

This was the shot:</p>

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<p>Honestly I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with the Nikon scan. I think most of the info going from 2000 to 4000 dpi was wasted. That depended a bit on the negative, though. While it would be nice to get 300 dpi for a huge print IMO it's overkill. When you stand in the room and look at the picture it looks fantastic!</p><div></div>

<p>In general, if the original capture is basically sharp and in focus, most people looking at actual prints will regard as sufficiently sharp / detailed, and low enough in grain / noise, prints <em>much</em> bigger than what tech-heads say is the limit of acceptable. Even most photographers looking at prints (as opposed to pixel peeping or playing with math) will have basically the same reaction: they will be surprised how good a very big print looks.</p>

<p>This is true for 6x6, or 35mm, or digital. A few years ago I got two 24 x 30 inch prints made, one from a professional scan of a 6x6 frame (with crop--the same enlargement of the whole frame would have been about 37 x 37 in / 94 x 94 cm) and one from a 6 MP DSLR (with a slight crop--the same enlargement of the whole frame would have been about 25 x 38 inches / 64 x 96 cm). The group whose operation was the subject of both prints was very happy. Yeah, the print from the 6x6 looked better, but at normal viewing distances both looked surprisingly (to me at the time) good.</p>

<p>And no, I don't think it's because the film really has more detail. Look at the MTF response curves in the film manufacturers' data sheets. With normal-contrast subjects, the most detail-capturing transparency films like Velvia 50 fall to 50% MTF response at about 45 lp/mm, which is about 2300 ppi; and the the most detail-capturing color negative films fall to 50% MTF response at about 70 lp/mm, which is about 3600 ppi. Unless you are using T-Max 100 (with top lenses, a heavy tripod, etc.), if your scan captures a <em>true</em> 4000 ppi (or your optical enlargement is equivalent), there will be very, very few shots where you're leaving much real detail uncaptured.</p>

<p>What I do think is that the eye doesn't need detail / sharpness at the limits of human vision to perceive something as sharp / detailed. At the close-in viewing distance of 18 inches / 46 cm, which I regard as normal for prints up to 8x10 inches and close-in for larger prints, theoretically perfect human vision might be able to see detail as fine as about 380 ppi. But remember the old standard for depth of field? It's 100 to 200 ppi. In other words, your eyes won't <em>normally</em> see something as unsharp or undetailed until it is <em>way</em> less sharp / detailed than the theoretical limits of your vision.</p>

<p>Or at least, that's my opinion, experience, and $0.02.</p>