How big do you print?

[MkII]

Hi,
I'm planning to print large from 6x6 pinhole negatives (almost certainly using a scanner and digital printing on silver gelatin paper). How large would you go? I'm guessing that the lack of sharpness in the image will mean that I can go much larger than with a lensed image as the softness can't get any more pronounced ('worse'?). I'm thinking 20"x20" to start with...
Thanks, Mark

 

[Slixtiesix]

20"x20" usually is no big deal for 6x6, although I don´t have any experience with pinhole photography...

 

[MDR]

The bigger you go the farther away the viewer has to stand. Viewing Distance. 40"x40" or even more is possible it just has to work with the subject. Pinhole is soft but the softness can work in your favor. You have to try it out furthermore I hate to say it but at bigger enlargement digital can be better than analogue. Unsharp masking etc.. might help in reducing the softness.

As I've said before it has to work with your image. Sugimotos twice infinity images are super soft but they work.

Dominik

 

[summicron1]

Hi,
I'm planning to print large from 6x6 pinhole negatives (almost certainly using a scanner and digital printing on silver gelatin paper). How large would you go? I'm guessing that the lack of sharpness in the image will mean that I can go much larger than with a lensed image as the softness can't get any more pronounced ('worse'?). I'm thinking 20"x20" to start with...
Thanks, Mark

i use a zeroimage 2000 pinhole camera and get excellent 10 by 10 enlargements -- for bigger ones people will stand back farther, so they'll look just as good.

It is the strength of the image, not individual sharpness, that will make the difference.

 

[BMbikerider]

12 x 16 is as big as I can go with a bit more used to crop the image. To be honest anything bigger just gets too big to handle easily.

 

[removed account4]

hi mark

guillaume zuili prints his 35mm pinhole negatives
using traditional means HUGE ( something like 30x40 )
i don't think you will have any problem with yours at 20x20

sharpness an issue ? just stand back a little bit

good luck !
john

 

[adelorenzo]

I have a 30x40 inkjet print from 645 negative at the framer right now. It was not scanned at super high resolution (only around 4000 dpi) and looks great, other than the fact I'm going to need a truck to deliver it to the client. You have a long way to go with a 6x6 negative.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

The larger you print from pinhole cameras, the less clear the image will be in practice. This means the viewer will need to stand quite some distance away to view the image without squinting. While my 6x7 images are routinely printed to 81cm height or width (I can go much, much larger, but cost restrains forbid that), my pinhole prints are used as "wall fillers" and printed at 20x20cm square and dibonded. This is a neat compromise that shows the subtle imaging beauty of the pinhole form (lousy focus but excellent image definition). The largest I could print before the novelty of viewing pinhole prints is affected would be 40x40cm (or proportionally measured for 6x7 or 6x9, the other formats the camera supports). All this is beside the point that I print to fill small wall spaces and dibonding provides great flexibility in moving them around and allowing viewers to remove prints from the wall and actually handle them and examine them close up.

 

[MkII]

Helpful comments, thanks. So all I need to know now is the size of the room, the strength of my images and the contents of my wallet. I know one out of three so far...