35mm.. largest print size?

damonff · Aug 27, 2013

It depends on your scan size (if you're scanning.) I have made 20x30 prints that look great because I scanned the heck out of my negative.

DREW WILEY · Aug 27, 2013

So what's the scanner add that isn't in the negative to begin with? All the scanner can do is pick up what the film already has, which is exactly the same thing a decent enlarging lens can do. Nothing more, nothing less. You're still starting out with a piece of film the size of a postage stamp, and there's only so much detail it can hold in the first place, no matter what film you choose. Oh, don't take me wrong. I love 35mm photography; but I don't try to make it a wannabee system for what I routinely do with far bigger formats. In fact, I'd rather have a high speed
film with good grainy character. Dogs are dogs and cats are cats. But that's just my way of thinking about it, which you're probably tired of
hearing anyway.

Thomas Bertilsson · Aug 27, 2013

We all want different things, on a scale from slightly to radically different, from our endeavors.

That is why it's a question that raises so much controversy, yet achieves almost nothing.

Some here say 5x7 is max size they print from 35, and I wish I had a darkroom where I could print 20x24 from 35 (but I don't). So I make due with 16x20. I love Tri-X 400, TMax 400, FP4, Agfa APX 100 and 400, Ilford Delta 3200, and TMax 3200. I'm currently working with some Neopan 1600 that looks great at that size.

To each their own. And that's the point.

omaha · Aug 27, 2013

Michael R 1974 said:
Well, that's true. But my point (wow, way off topic) was simply that the bit referenced in post #13 makes no sense, even as a bit.

To me, if there's a fragment of seriousness down inside the bit, it is in how it vividly expresses the literally inhuman capacity that dogs have for truly unconditional love.

Also, your dog will never tell you that you ruined a print by over-enlarging your 35mm slide.

Dogs is amazing.

NedL · Aug 28, 2013

omaha said:
To me, if there's a fragment of seriousness down inside the bit, it is in how it vividly expresses the literally inhuman capacity that dogs have for truly unconditional love.

Also, your dog will never tell you that you ruined a print by over-enlarging your 35mm slide.

Dogs is amazing.

Agreed! Mine gets me out walking with a camera almost every day.

I like 5x7 and 8x10 and have not even tried above 11x14, so I can't add more to this discussion from personal experience, but yesterday I was looking at Tad Nichols' Glen Canyon photos and some of the enlargements have lots of grain visible. It looks beautiful. Not only is it not distracting, but it adds something wonderful. I was looking at the skies and letting the feeling sink in... something to aspire to.

NB23 · Aug 28, 2013

DREW WILEY said:
Bingo... Rollei Ortho.... yeah sure, it's still a blob of mush at 10x enlargement unless you factor in that normal viewing distance nonsense.

The whole "viewing distance" theory lives in a simple newspaper. How many points per letter/inch are needed for a reader to be able to comfortably read a text and understand a picture from a one feet distance? 25 points? 50 points?

Drew, it's all in the viewing distance. You can debate until tomorrow but scientific theory relative to the human eye resolving power will always win.

But I'm also curious... How do you feel always carrying a 40x loupe in your pocket? Gives you some sort of supernatural powers?

Rick A · Aug 28, 2013

I think I will continue to buck the trend of BIG prints, and continue to make small prints. My sales indicate that smaller is better, and my clientell enjoy the intimacy of the sizes they purchase. They purchase based on content, not price and usually comment on how they enjoy being drawn in to view the image.

removed account4 · Aug 28, 2013

hey todd

no worries about the search, most people don't bother with it because if you searched
you would have gotten 500 threads all saying different things and it wouldn't have been specific
for what you are interested in ... 11x14 you probably won't even see grain ...
i'd process the film in instant coffee and fix it in salt though, a photographer's gotta eat.

DREW WILEY · Aug 28, 2013

NB23 - yeah, and photographs reproduced in the newspaper really look great too, don't they. An appropriate comparison. And yes, when I make a 30x40 inch print people DO routinely put their noses right up to it to appreciate all the detail! That's what it's there for. A chihuahua might have the attitude of a rottweiler, but it still isn't a rottweiler. 35mm isn't my wannabee format. 35mm is my 35mm format, my alter-ego
for poetic little spontaneous shots when I want a break from working with the 8x10 camera, or for prowling around in the rain, with the little
camera tucked under my parka. If people get compelling images by blowing up small negatives big, more power to them. But going around
pretending that "normal viewing distance" is some kinda scientific axiom, and otherwise anything but a lame excuse, is simply nonsense.

omaha · Aug 28, 2013

And to think I drifted out of digital to get away from the megapixel wars...

DREW WILEY · Aug 28, 2013

Bad comparison, Omaha ... there's nuthin "mega" about anything 35mm, no matter how many hours the Big Bang Theory geeks crunch numbers. You've got a capture surface the size of a postage stamp. If a big enlargement works, it has to do so on esthetic and interest grounds, which
is certainly feasible given the proper skill and talent. But like the analogy I already gave, a barking chihuaua might scare a burglar away, but
it can never bite like a rottweiler. Sometimes size matters. I don't care how big people choose to enlarge their prints. But I do care how my own prints look, and do find the current fad of galleries and museums promoting big just for the sake of big to be pretty disgusting, if the
only thing going for it is "big". A chihuahua barking louder and louder is still a stupid little chihuahua as far a I'm concerned.

E. von Hoegh · Aug 28, 2013

DREW WILEY said:
Bad comparison, Omaha ... there's nuthin "mega" about anything 35mm, no matter how many hours the Big Bang Theory geeks crunch numbers. You've got a capture surface the size of a postage stamp. If a big enlargement works, it has to do so on esthetic and interest grounds, which
is certainly feasible given the proper skill and talent. But like the analogy I already gave, a barking chihuaua might scare a burglar away, but
it can never bite like a rottweiler. Sometimes size matters. I don't care how big people choose to enlarge their prints. But I do care how my own prints look, and do find the current fad of galleries and museums promoting big just for the sake of big to be pretty disgusting, if the
only thing going for it is "big". A chihuahua barking louder and louder is still a stupid little chihuahua as far a I'm concerned.

Ever notice how the smaller the dog, the more it barks? And the more irritating it's yap is?

Just like the claims you can get good 40x60 inch prints from 35...

Thomas Bertilsson · Aug 28, 2013

There are those here on APUG that make mural prints from 35mm for a living. Whether they are good or not is subjective, but they must be 'good' to somebody, because are willing pay for it, no?

It's kind of arrogant to state that a 40x60 inch print from a 35mm negative is no good just because you don't like it. All you can say is that you don't think it's a good print.

John Wiegerink · Aug 28, 2013

Omaha, I think Drew has you by the gonads on this one. BIGGER is better if all else is equal. Good lens, flat film plane, no vibrations etc. I remember my father-in-law bought into the Kodak disc camera thing and then wondered why his pictures and mine didn't match. I shot the same event with a Nikon f2as and he just could not figure out why his shots(small prints) looked so terrible. In fact he wanted to take the camera back to the store for another one. I should have let him, but he would have just got another disc camera anyway. Finally I made him go get his negative disc and explained the process of enlargement to him. Didn't matter none since he kept the disc camera. When he passed my mother-in-law blessed me with it. It's like trying to make a silk purse out of that old sows ear. Now, you'll get a purse, but it isn't going to be that pretty. Don't get me wrong about 35mm. A good lens, slooow film and proper technique will give you results that are mighty fine, but if you step up the surface area of your film with a fine lens and good film it's just that much better. I know that 35mm lenses will out resolve medium format, but size still matters. You can let go now Drew. JohnW

DREW WILEY · Aug 28, 2013

I won't let go grrr-Rottweiler style, John, but will simply concede the manner in which I am totally wrong. There is someone right down the
street here that makes their living doing giant images from small cameras, just like Thomas just mentioned. In fact, the most influential photographic image in history was a poorly focussed 35mm shot routinely printed twenty feet wide or more. It's called the Marlboro Man.
And "normal viewing distance" was in fact factored in, not in terms of pixel counts or dye cloud patterns, but in terms of MPH. ... no sense
getting prematurely killed on the road when the lung cancer would do it anyway...

E. von Hoegh · Aug 28, 2013

Thomas Bertilsson said:
There are those here on APUG that make mural prints from 35mm for a living. Whether they are good or not is subjective, but they must be 'good' to somebody, because are willing pay for it, no?

It's kind of arrogant to state that a 40x60 inch print from a 35mm negative is no good just because you don't like it. All you can say is that you don't think it's a good print.

As Drew pointed out, huge prints can be made from 35 that stand on their own merits. Those merits won't be grainlessness and apparent sharpness at close viewing distances. I've seen them and while I'm not a fan of huge prints (where do you put them? 16x20, once it's matted, is hard to place in rooms in the average size house) they work well.
I'm referring to the blanket claims that you can enlarge a negative for ever.

When I see a print, I like to walk up and look into it - I want the detail to increase as I get closer, revealing more and sometimes even becoming a different photograph.

Edit - And, I'd like to add that it was not until I got an 8x10 and used it for a while that I finally appreciated just how good 35 can be. But I know which I'll use to make that 40x50 inch print. That's 5x from 8x10, about as far as I'd go for a really sharp print.

John Wiegerink · Aug 28, 2013

Thomas Bertilsson said:
There are those here on APUG that make mural prints from 35mm for a living. Whether they are good or not is subjective, but they must be 'good' to somebody, because are willing pay for it, no?

It's kind of arrogant to state that a 40x60 inch print from a 35mm negative is no good just because you don't like it. All you can say is that you don't think it's a good print.

Tom, you are right in what you say and who/whom are we to set the standards for what's acceptable quality and what's not when it comes to film size - print size ratio. It's a little like painting, in that some folks like paintings that are similar to real life, while others like impressionistic/modern art. Me, I love the Norman Rockwell style because I grew up with the Saturday Evening Post. Now for photography - Life Magazine for B&W and National Geographic for color. Both used mainly 35mm in my era and it looked just fine to my eyes. JohnW

hacked - sepiareverb · Aug 28, 2013

DREW WILEY said:
Want a big print? Get a big camera.

Or, a taller enlarger. No right answer here, but he did ask about a big print from 35mm, and Rolle Ortho has given me great 20x24" prints that allow one to get close "and find the detail to increase".

Blob of mush? I don;t find that.

But then I don't carry around a 40X loupe. I've actually found that looking at a 35mm negative and an 8x10 negative on HP5+ run in HC-110 with a loupe (only 10x, bad me) to show that all my 35mm lenses resolve better than any of my 810 covering Nikkors.

I guess I need a better loupe.

Thomas Bertilsson · Aug 28, 2013

E. von Hoegh said:
As Drew pointed out, huge prints can be made from 35 that stand on their own merits. Those merits won't be grainlessness and apparent sharpness at close viewing distances. I've seen them and while I'm not a fan of huge prints (where do you put them? 16x20, once it's matted, is hard to place in rooms in the average size house) they work well.
I'm referring to the blanket claims that you can enlarge a negative for ever.

When I see a print, I like to walk up and look into it - I want the detail to increase as I get closer, revealing more and sometimes even becoming a different photograph.

Edit - And, I'd like to add that it was not until I got an 8x10 and used it for a while that I finally appreciated just how good 35 can be. But I know which I'll use to make that 40x50 inch print. That's 5x from 8x10, about as far as I'd go for a really sharp print.

I think that stories told by a photographer are told the way they are because it's how they like to work. I've seen enough photography exhibits where 12x20 contact prints are mixed with giant enlargements to know that the mix of pictures is not by print quality, but by context, content, significance, theme, history, beauty, or emotion.
The camera seems to me to be the very least important part of the chain.

I'm a firm believer in doing our utmost, as photographers and printers, to present our work in the very best way we can.
When the size of the negative changes, the print becomes different. No argument there. But what is good and what is not is strictly opinion. And therein lies my qualm with the topic. By getting involved in so much discussion over something that is, in the end, fairly insignificant to the importance of a photograph, and to accomplish virtually nothing, is amusing and disappointing at the same time, disappointing maybe because of the lack of ability to see things the way others do.

DREW WILEY · Aug 28, 2013

You might find a white cane more useful than a loupe.

John Wiegerink · Aug 28, 2013

DREW WILEY said:
You might find a white cane more useful than a loupe.

Do you mean the kind with the red tip?

Dan Henderson · Aug 28, 2013

DREW WILEY · Aug 28, 2013

... yeah, I was being mean. I do have a good friend who loves working with micro-grained b&w films in 35mm and blowing them up to 20x24.
The biggest problem is not getting acceptable grain and "OK" detail, but the fact that one inevitably has to contend with a lot of visible blemishes in untextured areas. Grain can look OK, blimps and snails in the sky, no-no. And I am referring to coating issues and not dust spots -tiny things which would be virtually invisible when made printed from larger sized film, but persistently annoying with that degree of magnification. The other inevitable problem is that when fine grain is your priority, you generally have to sacrifice something else, esp tonality. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

John Wiegerink · Aug 28, 2013

Drew,
That's why I only shoot 35mm for fun and private stuff. Medium and large format is more to my liking with respect to spotting and retouching. I'm not saying you get a free ride with more square inches of film, but you do get a little easier ride. Actually my Sigma DSLR's and Canon 5D have taken the place of most of my 35mm shooting. Am I allowed to say that here???? Well, I just did anyway. JohnW

nworth · Aug 28, 2013

What's your viewing distance? The human eye can resolve about one minute of arc. Go figure it out. But, of coarse, your negative may not be that good. Many 35mm shots are handheld, which leads to shake, and the lens-film combination has limited resolution, often about 80 lines per mm. You need to figure that into the equation. But then, many scenes look just fine at less resolution. So just how fine does the sharpness have to be? It depends on the subject, the viewing distance, and the viewing environment.

35mm.. largest print size?

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