40x60'' prints from 35 mm.

[nicholai]

Last year, i went to visit Oliver Rolf from Platinum, and he showed me an image, that i would guess its around 30x40" made from a half-frame negative. I loved it, and of course it was taken with an Olympus Pen. He would make a point that as long as the camera and lens is good enough, it will not matter. I cannot say this for sure, but i would even believe it was made with Tri-X, he has an affinity for that film. Not without reason of course. Not to mention that because of the distance you will need to properly view these images, you will not notice anything at all.

(and if you do your math, 30x40 is half 40x60, so thats the exact same "resolution" you will be getting from a full-frame neg enlarged to 40x60)

 

[darkosaric]

While not absolutely definitive, it seems the probability is truly very high that that was shot on 35mm Kodachrome.

Yes, it was Kodachrome, and it was taken with 105mm f2.5 nikkor. Last year I was in Rome on McCurry exhibition and I saw hose huge prints from 35mm: when you look from distance of 3 meters and more - they look just fine.

 

[gleaf]

Used to shoot windmills, architecture etc. with 35mm KB-14 and print to 20x24 no problem. (Nikon F with 135 mm F 3.5. )

 

[markbarendt]

Yes, it was Kodachrome, and it was taken with 105mm f2.5 nikkor. Last year I was in Rome on McCurry exhibition and I saw hose huge prints from 35mm: when you look from distance of 3 meters and more - they look just fine.

I have that lens.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I have seen bigger prints than that made from 35mm from great scanners. Optically it would be difficult but doable. In general when I read something can't be done I usually think the person stating it doesn't know how, so assumes it can't be done, or believes all the crap that is written on the internet. To say that a large negative is needed for a large print is completely ignoring the most important aspect of any image which is the content. I once saw one of Capa's D-Day images printed to 8 feet or so. Still amazing!

 

[erikg]

Back in the day we would make bigger prints than that from 35mm, but the standard practice was to make an inter negative first, 8x10. Did some sports pics for a newspaper lobby that were 12 feet tall. Viewing distance is everything. This was at a commercial lab. I think that is the true value of analog, even when it "breaks down" (grainy etc) it often does so in a beautiful way. When you reach the limit of a digital file the break down is much less attractive. In my opinion of course.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

35mm to 18 ft by 60 ft

Early in the process of getting started with digital technology at Kodak, I made an 8" wide digital internegative used to make Neil's actual Cheetah Colorama; it was the only way the final display print actually looked like the Kodachrome original. The traditional internegative film approach made a print that lacked the 'true' Kodachrome look . See http://www.montanusphotography.com/neil_montanus_bio/coloramas.htm or http://bit.ly/QQ2xYQ

 

[MattKing]

Thankyou, Prof_Pixel for the Neil Montanus link.

I've always been fascinated with the Coloramas, but have depended mainly on the Kodak website for examples. Your link is fascinating.

 

[removed account4]

Thankyou, Prof_Pixel for the Neil Montanus link.

I've always been fascinated with the Coloramas, but have depended mainly on the Kodak website for examples. Your link is fascinating.

+1

i had never heard of a colorama before
that was a fun video !
thanks!
john

 

[Alan Klein]

Here's what Grand central Station looked like with a Colorama picture. I remember a few myself when I went through the Station years ago. Very impressive. Don't recall thinking or noticing grain but you're standing pretty far away.
http://www.kazak.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Colorama-View-Grand-Central-Park.jpg

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

I have seen bigger prints than that made from 35mm from great scanners. Optically it would be difficult but doable. In general when I read something can't be done I usually think the person stating it doesn't know how, so assumes it can't be done, or believes all the crap that is written on the internet.

All that is really needed is a good clean digital file which captures all the sharpness and detail of the original. It doesn't even need to be that big, as the RIPs can "inflate" a file to the correct dimensions almost without flaw. It's amazing.

Also, the implication that one of the world's truly great photographers would try to pawn off substandard prints on unsuspecting rubes is rather insulting, isn't it?

 

[richard ide]

All you really need is a good clean negative and someone who knows what to do with it. Your end enlargement will contain detail from the negative and not a few million pixels which a computer decides to insert which were never in the original to start with. Digital imaging it is but it is not photography.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Making a print that big from anything shy of an immaculate 8x10 sheet of film is equivalent to hitting
a moth with your windshield going 85 mph. It's a pretentious fad going ape right now in galleries and public venues at us totally dependent upon the "normal viewing distance" myth. If anything deserves to
be blown up big, it should have truly dramatic social consequences, and hey, that ole fuzzy shot of the
Marlboro Man has been blown up twenty feed wide many thousands of times, and has indeed probably
killed more people than any other photograph in history, so I guess it would count. And now vintage
works are being blown up by generations who have no knowledge of what the original photographer
might have intended - no respect for either their own style or era. Disgusting! But just give it a few more years and every esthetic lemming out there will be blindly following some other silly trend, which
will probably consist of Minox contact prints next time around!

 

[Prof_Pixel]

AYour end enlargement will contain detail from the negative and not a few million pixels which a computer decides to insert which were never in the original to start with. Digital imaging it is but it is not photography.

LOL... I've never seen an original image scene in real life that was made up of film grain. Both film and digital simply sample real life scenes.

BTW, many digital images today contain far more than simply 'a few million pixels".

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Here's what Grand central Station looked like with a Colorama picture. I remember a few myself when I went through the Station years ago. Very impressive. Don't recall thinking or noticing grain but you're standing pretty far away.

I've seen the actual Colorama display images 'up close and personal', and believe me, the grain was large!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Of course 35mm could be blown up directly. That's what blazingly hot mural enlargers were for; and there was even a franchise in a number of cities with a tower outside the bldg which looked like a grain
silo, and was basically a huge vertical enlarger. Pro labs used big horizontal enlargers. But the correct
way to do it was to enlarge your small image onto an 8x1 to 12x16 interneg or dupe chrome first, depending. Nowadays I could just walk into the CBS Outdoor Adv Co down the street and they'd scan
something and put it on either a traditional or digital billboard. That kind of thing is disgusting enough
cluttering our outdoor space. I don't know why anyone would want it indoors too.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

But just give it a few more years and every esthetic lemming out there will be blindly following some other silly trend, which will probably consist of Minox contact prints next time around!

LOL.

In my tiny little photo corner of the world, it is really difficult to say no when somebody wants the equivalent of a 4.5x3 foot print from one of my 35mm negatives. I don't sell much work, especially recently, but was approached by somebody who wanted a print from one 35mm negative as three vertical pieces, each 1.5 x 3 feet, where all three sections together work out to be 60x36" panel, with the same crop as my original 18x12" print, except for the 3inch space between each section... I ended up telling him no, even though it was a good opportunity. Perhaps I should have sold it that way, to make some money back from this vocation, but silly me thought my integrity was more important. I'll probably regret it.

I can understand why McCurry wouldn't mind selling a 60x40 print. As long as he gets paid for it and he doesn't mind having his pictures exist in that size, good for him!

 

[semi-ambivalent]

Dear fastw,

Very often large prints are used where the viewer stands farther away. I doubt seriously that anyone could appreciate a 40"x60" print with their nosed bumping against it. ;>) Further, the loss of detail and print coarseness can actually enhance the image.

My point is simply that there is essentially no limit if the result works for the application.

Neal Wydra

In my furniture schlepping/college days I saw plenty homes in places like Vail, CO where you'd need 60x40 just so the image wouldn't get lost above the fireplace.

s-a

 

[markbarendt]

In my furniture schlepping/college days I saw plenty homes in places like Vail, CO where you'd need 60x40 just so the image wouldn't get lost above the fireplace.

s-a

There are a lot of houses like that these days.

 

[Roger Cole]

Viewing distance is not necessarily a myth. For really gigantic prints that are meant to hang on the wall of a big auditorium or transit station or whatever, of course you are going to be seeing them from farther away, so it makes sense that they can have grain up close.

I sometimes think maybe we should speak more in terms of angular view than actual size, but I'm sure that would be confusing.

For prints meant to hang on home walls or gallery walls or such, sure you can make a 40x60 print from 35mm. You can also hang an outboard engine on a bathtub and call it a motorboat and if you plug the drain carefully it will probably even work, after a fashion.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The old Colorama prints were way up high. Now you walk into an airport and there are huge prints everywhere which look like fuzzballs.
Leave it to Avedon to start that accursed crossover from advertising genre into "fine art". Now its on steroids. Yeah... these neo-rich shale
oil types are building huge ugly sheetrock boxes and need big photographs to match their collection of Elvis rugs. Or you've got these Vegas and Miami types who hired the same architect as designed the movie set of Scarface, and they want some big loud atrocity to match the
color of ribbons on their poodles. But the average joe can just walk into an Ikea and plop down a couple hundred bucks for a huge photographic image, and it will probably look more professional than anything Peter Lik sells for fifteen grand.

 

[MattKing]

You can also hang an outboard engine on a bathtub and call it a motorboat and if you plug the drain carefully it will probably even work, after a fashion.

Or you could even race the bathtub: http://www.nanaimo-info.com/gpage13.html

 

[viridari]

Perhaps a stupid newbie question, but where does one find paper that big? I've not run into it in my travels yet.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

The maximum size Ilfochrome Classic prints I produced from 35mm (transparency) was 46x30.5cm. Beyond this, the optical fall-off is too pronounced.
I wouldn't besmirch Rowell's substantial body of work that still gets people running for the cameras trying to imitate him. His records of the landscape were inspiring, and often imperfect, but he was the right person there at the right time and made the name and product for others to look up to.

 

[richard ide]

Ilford produces B & W paper up to 56" wide in rolls. Kodak produces colour paper up to 72".