20 x 30 inch prints from D700

[Caledonia]

<p>I have printed many and sold quite a few at 20"x30" from a D300 dx sensor using Genuine fractals and I am delighted with the Quality.</p>

[lesterphoto]

<p>I've had images I shot with my D700 appear on billboards. Here is one sample.</p><div></div>

[e_thp]

<p>There are a lot of good answers and I hope you read all of them and are comforted by the combined wisdom and expertise available to you. I also hope you make your own decisions after doing a bit of your own research ;-)<br>

With proper technique your camera and lenses should perform very well.</p>

<p>Here's my story, one I tell everytime this discussion comes up.<br>

<br />I used to work for a major portrait studio and regularly sold 20x24 and 30x40 prints and canvasses to many fine and beautiful customers using a 5 megapixel camera with a zoom on a teleconverter. On jpg.<br>

I had ZERO complaints or returns because of image quality, it wasn't even an issue.<br>

You show up looking good and I will take a large number of your dollars for a very nice image of you.</p>

<p>It's easily done. Go take some great pics! :Ð</p>

[paul.droluk]

<p>A lot will depend on subject matter. For portraits and subject matter where fine detail is not of primary importance (<em>sunset shots, etc.</em>), 20x30 from the D700 is not a problem. However if your subject matter requires the reproduction of copious fine detail, often the case with landscapes, then 20x30 would be pushing things.</p>

[cwphoto]

<p>I just received a 20x30 which is excellent in my opinion. Made with D700 & 16-35 f4 Nikon. Tripod of course & mirror lock-up. A landscape of Pa Grand Canyon. Sycamores 800' below show sharp trunks.</p><div></div>

[mark liddell]

<p><i>"The D700 can produce outstanding 20" x 30" prints, however I would not use the default ISO 200. I have better results with mine by using LO1.0 (ISO 100)."</i></p><br>

<p>

The base ISO of the D700 is 200 which is where an sensor works best, shooting at LO0.1 is exactly the same as overexposing by 1 stop and pulling it back in post, it's no a real ISO setting since the warning in the manual about lost dynamic range.</p>

 

<p>Shoot it at 200 unless you NEED a slower shutter speed for some reason and have no ND filters</p>

[twmeyer]

<p>I've printed a D700 image (made with a 85mm 1.8 tripod mounted, strobe and daylight, 1/40th @ f5.6) to a 28x40 (cropped off the long dimension only). Eyelashes were countable and finely rendered.<br>

Also used 180ppi for that print as anything higher is discarded by printer software. It's absurd to view a large print with a loupe, you are assessing the printer's sharpness and/or paper's dot gain at that scale, not camera/lens resolving power... t</p>

[john_caradimas]

<p>I had the same reaction when I first switch to shooting raw, from jpgs. My pictures looked kind of soft. Then I was told that raw needs to be sharpened, so now I always apply some sharpening to my images, as I import them in Aperture 3.</p>

<p>I can't offer any advice about 20x30s though, never print at that size.</p>

[stevenseelig]

<p>Hi John,<br>

I am curious as to what you do for sharpening in Aperture 3. My understanding is the RAW converter in A3 applies sharpening so you must be doing something more. </p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>I regularly print to A3 from a D700, with no sign of the image quality falling apart. OK, 12" by 16" isn't 20"x30" but it's less than a factor of 2 difference, and I wouldn't be looking at a 20x30 as closely as I would at an A3. Even at A3 size, the D700 cruelly reveals any misfocus, camera movement, lack of lens quality and anything else other than perfect technique.</p>

<p>Prime lenses and pro-quality zooms can be easily picked out from lesser optics with this camera, so a lack of pixels is obviously not the limiting factor. After all, an increase from 12 to 24 megapixels actually only gives a theoretical increase in resolution of 1.4 times, from around 60 to 84 lppmm. And there aren't many lenses available capable of giving that sort of resolution from corner to corner of the frame.</p>

<p>I'm not sure why the OP is really asking this question <em>after</em> they've bought the camera. Surely the time to ask would have been <em>before </em>making the purchase? Also the issue is easily resolved by printing a section of a D700 image to the equivalent of 20 x 30. Print about a quarter of the frame to A4 and surely you've got your answer? Or half of the frame to A3.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>Further to the above, my technique did not improve by a quantum leap when I switched from film to digital, but the quality of my prints did! I will state quite boldly that the results I get from a D700 easily equal what I was routinely getting from medium format cameras using film, and far exceed what I could achieve with 35mm film. 20" by 30" prints look soft when you stick your nose against them, fact of life! Learn to live with it.</p>

[dan_south]

Curt W - beautiful photo!

[stan_dvorak1]

<p>In response to Rodeo Joe, I would like to say that, no I am not going to be viewing my 20 X 30" prints up close. What broght me to ask the origional question was as I was viewing my images on my laptop and decided to use the lupe to see at what point I lost resolution. I was curious if I could theoretically make prints this large with the D700. I have successfully mage prints as large as 16 X 24" from 35 mm negs from ISO 100 film. I was very pleased with the results. I do a lot of International travel whereby I go trekking in places like the Himalaya, the Andes of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina and I want to avoid the hastle of subjecting film to possible e-xray damage( never any problem ). Digital solves this problem. I want to make prints as large to sell to my clients.<br>

I want to thanks everyone for their comments and suggestion.</p>

[wolf_rainer_schmalfuss]

<p>I've ordered excellent prints 20 x 30" made with my Bridgekameras SONY HX-1 and FUJIFILM Finepix HS10! For this prints size, an D700 ist not required!</p><div></div>

[wolf_rainer_schmalfuss]

<p>Another 20 x 30" image, made with the Fuji Finepix HS10!</p>