big enlargements from 35mm film

[nickandre]

you forget that 400 asa consumer negative film is MUCH grainier than slide films, especially velvia 50. You'll get sharper images with larger film.

 

[JBrunner]

I think it was Ansel Adams who said "Hang the big print over the piano".

 

[rossawilson1]

you forget that 400 asa consumer negative film is MUCH grainier than slide films, especially velvia 50. You'll get sharper images with larger film.

Who forget that:confused:

No one is debating larger negatives = sharper more grainless prints.

Velvia 50 holds up as well as my 30x40" 645 print when printed at 16x12" from 35mm (nay larger!). But 400 iso film holds up well enough at 16x12 too.

 

[Poohblah]

Exactly! It's the content that counts and people seem to miss that fine detail. Far too many of us are preoccupied with resolution, sharpness, grain and whatever. I recently visited an exhibition and I saw some beautiful photographs with golf ball size grain. Whether It looks good or not depends on the subject.

I realized this a while ago in a discussion on another forum concerning grain. A man who photographs artifacts for a museum was adamantly anti-grain. Of course, his line of work requires that he record his subjects as exactly and meticulously as possible. But for most prints, all that seems to matter is how they look hanging on the wall.

 

[Stephen Frizza]

whoever says you cant enlarge film to 24x36" from 35mm because it breaks down must come to my lab. I will prove you very wrong. All that is required is good lenses, a good photographer with good film and a good lab to make the output work. Having said that from 35mm most professional clients here never liked prints larger than 12x16.....

~Steve
the Lighthouse Lab

 

[keithwms]

So, there is a very basic point that is usually forgotten in these recurring discussions of format X can print to size Y:

Viewers don't miss what isn't there.

Now if you hang a 36" print from 35mm next to a 36" print from 4x5", oh hell yeah you will see a difference! So? How often do you do that? Indeed I have seen gorgeous ethnographic posters from 35mm slide that left me missing nothing. Instead, they left me feeling "wow, great perspective, great timing." That is the undeniable strength of 35mm: you can buzz around, handheld, and find interesting perspectives very quickly. If the content is interesting then you won't miss what fine detail isn't there. Guaranteed.

We need to be honest with ourselves that as photographers we (usually) register a lot more high-frequency detail in a scene than any viewer will. We notice things that they typically won't. What grabs people is visual interest- composition. Low frequency stuff. Not resolution.

As someone who uses every format from 35mm to 8x10, I just don't understand this business of trying to make 35mm compete with 8x10 or vice versa. Totally different tools. I mean, tweezers are more precise tool than garden shears. So?

I have never once ...not even once!.. heard anybody say, "gee, too bad that wasn't taken on a larger format." Not even once, I tell you! (Now, I may well think that to myself, sure. Plenty of things I wish I'd shot differently. But that is the compulsive nature of the photographer. And the photographer and the print-viewer are two very different groups of people.)

Enough

 

[Anscojohn]

A. Adams once wrote that a totally acceptable (to him) 8x10 inch print could be made from a 35mm film like Pan-X souped in a developer like D-23.

 

[rossawilson1]

You said it Keith!

 

[Joe Grodis]

Good question.... The limit for me is the limit of the lab. However... I have done 20" x 30" prints with a dinky Kodak Retina IIa (B & W) that came out rather nice to my surprise. Good Glass and good film with take you really really far.


-Joe

 

[Crayguns]

(For wat it's worth dept.) Years ago I made some 20x30 posters from 35mm Panatomic-X. One had to be about two feet away before the grain was noticible. Criticle focus through an SRT-101 veiwfinder was the biggest problem. As usual, subject/composition a very determining factor.

 

[Jason Mekeel]

I once enlarged a fuji 1600 neopan 35mm B&W negative to 11x14 no sweat, and it looked great. However I should note that I also printed with the rough edge of the negative carrier so it was not a borderless print.

 

[df cardwell]

A. Adams once wrote that a totally acceptable (to him) 8x10 inch print could be made from a 35mm film like Pan-X souped in a developer like D-23.

He also could make a helluva 16x20 from Tri X.

 

[Poohblah]

Adams could make a helluva an enlargement with damn near anything because his negatives are (usually) near-flawless to start with. The man's a genius of style to boot.

 

[jerry lebens]

I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned the skill of the printer. By the time prints are going over a certain size, it requires a different order of craft to get the best results.

I once interviewed Mike Spry for B&W. It was an open secret that Mike was the guy that all the other pro printers in London would subcontract, to make their big enlargements. He was widely acknowledged as one of the best printers and at the time, if you saw a big print in an exhibition produced in London, you could pretty much guarantee that Mike had printed it. I have almost 30 years of darkroom experience, but Mike's printing skills left me feeling pretty inadequate - he could turn out a 52" wide FB print, by hand, in about the same time it takes me to do a 20 x 16 and with less apparent effort.

Similarly, as with most pro printers, it didn't really seem to matter how good or bad the negative was - the results were invariably excellent. I've watched him turn out astonishingly sharp, beautifully toned, super enlargements from negatives that I'd be struggling to print well at 5 x 7.

Jerry

 

[Joe Grodis]

I do 20" x 30" prints often with great results. I'm sure the limit would be so large you wouldn't be able to find paper large enough. I do 20 x 30 a lot because that's the largest my lab can print for me. I'd bet that my Nikon F5 with low ISO and a Nikkor 50 mm prime could do 20 feet by 30 feet with little trouble and look good considering the size. I think at the 400 ISO and above is when resolution degrades rapidly.


-Joe

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

I try and make 35mm look like LF because I am cheap and lazy. I've a dozen prime lenses from 15mm to 600mm for the Nikons, I shudder to think the cost and bulk of the equivalent for the 8x10. And then there is the weight. And the cost, 8x10 film going for $5/sheet. And the effort of bushwhacking an 8x10 rig up the side of a mountain.

OTOH there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that competes with the quality of an 8x10 or larger contact print.

IMO, 35mm starts to fall apart at the 5x7 size. Sounds small but it is a 5x enlargement, same as making a 20x24" from a 4x5 negative.

There is reason to do LF with a 35mm film, and it is fun to see just how far one can go.

 

[gainer]

If you can make an 8x10 print that shows the picture you want to present at a viewing distance of 13 inches, you can enlarge it as much as you want. If you get close enough to see distracting grain or lack of resolution, you will lose the picture.

 

[Martin Aislabie]

I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned the skill of the printer. By the time prints are going over a certain size, it requires a different order of craft to get the best results.

Jerry

Jerry, you are so right

The thing is - most of us don't send our negs off to be printed by more competent printers - so we never know what we are missing

It seems to me that great printers are born not made

We mere mortals just have to plod along and do the best we can

Martin

 

[jfish]

I printed William Klein's 2002 Paris (maison europeenne de la photographie... http://www.designboom.com/portrait/klein.html) and Madrid (don't remember the venue) show (for the release of Paris + Klein book...http://www.mep-fr.org/us/actu/actu_kl.htm) and made 4' x 7ish' (whatever full frame 35mm can fit on 4' wide mural paper) and while grainy, it worked. So it depends on the end use.

 

[uwphotoer]

I'm making 16x20 cibachromes from Kodachrome 64, still can't see the grain..... nice prints.

 

[Simplicius]

( Experience warning and preamble- today was my second every time printing Fibre - I love it already) I just printed today borderless 12x16 from 35mm negs on Ilford Semi-matte Warmtone with Warmtone Developer. super sharp and no grain really apparent. one was FP4+ in Xtol Stock , no grain visible other negs were Fomapan 200 in Xtol Stock slight grain visible but only slightly and finally HP5+ in Ilfosol3 (1:14) again no grain visible. i was so surprised, in fact I ran out of enlarger height. It is also down the the lens though I swopped out my usual nikkor for a meopta and the fall off was apparent in sharpness.

The Darkroom Guru Pete Smyth in Gallery of Photography when I was asking advice said Warmtone Paper and warmtone developer actually would reduce visible grain.

off for a sleepless night worrying about drydown effect

 

[MFP]

If you have a sharp enough lens, say a Canon L series, you can certainly go farther than 8x10. With slide 35mm film, 20x30 should even work, as through drum scanning, slide film is said to have the equivalence of between 20-25 megapixels(to use taboo words in APUG).

 

[Poohblah]

I think I've really matured enlarging-wise since I originally posted this. Currently the biggest thing annoying me about enlarging 35mm film is that I find myself continually having to make compromises because 35mm frames are 2x3 ratio but standard paper sizes are 4x5 ratio. I really want to buy a 645 format camera to cut down on the necessary cropping (and for a few other reasons) but I have no money, and really wide angle lenses for 645 systems (i.e. 40mm or wider) tend to be rather expensive.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

30x45cm is as high as I can nowadays financially and visually afford from RVP/RDP III 35mm. I'm very careful with lenswork, and all trannies go through critical focus evaluation before commiting to enlargement.

BIG cibachromes / prints are possible, of course, but for artists such as myself, financial murder — remembering that matting and framing come next to finish up. Production cost: $330 print/matt/frame per print, then sold for $880.00 (my cibas are master printed; firm has combined 80 years experience with exhibition quality ciba printing).

I reckon much bigger poster size prints can be easily be run off C41; I last did that about a decade ago on T-Max P3200: a vintage T-Model Ford under a latticework verandah, deliberately made grainy for an old-worlde affect and sepia-toned. It was much bigger than my current cibas. It was sold to the owner of the private hotel where the shot was made. That wasn't done by a pro-lab, but a humble Kodak Print Shop in a major shopping centre.

Consider the quality of your lens(es) when planning enlargements. Oddly, I've seen some terrible enlargements from large format trannies, the major fault being astigmatism, poor focus or dirty lenses or just lousy printing. Try experimenting, too: no harm in blowing all boundaries and printing a small part of a neg/tranny to a huge for an abstract /surreal effect.

 

[nworth]

I try and make 35mm look like LF because I am cheap and lazy. I've a dozen prime lenses from 15mm to 600mm for the Nikons, I shudder to think the cost and bulk of the equivalent for the 8x10. And then there is the weight. And the cost, 8x10 film going for $5/sheet. And the effort of bushwhacking an 8x10 rig up the side of a mountain.
....

So do I, and, alas, I fail. I'm afraid there is just no substitute for square inches. But I can generally get a good 8X10 and an occasional 11X14. Even with very good lenses, you are generally limited to around 85 line per mm at the negative (or maybe a bit less) with just about any equipment. With 35 mm that means that you begin to really notice the optical defects at around an 8X10 enlargement. Bigger negative do proportionally better. That's just the way it is. Sometimes you get a shot where you don't notice the problems so much, and you can get away with a bit bigger print - but not usually. 8X10 is not bad.