Large silver gelatin enlargements - still possible?

Qebs · Nov 19, 2020

Hey, sorry to bother you folks, but the DeVille Bobinor, in the promo video, it says 15cm is lost.
I'm thinking this is the case from the clips to connect the negative paper to the rollers/tubes.

Is this true? or is this only true for fiber based papers?

Hoping to to print big in the future (when I setup my studio/darkroom).

Thank so much in advance for your time and help.
Take care!
Kevin H.

Lachlan Young · Nov 19, 2020

Qebs said:
Hey, sorry to bother you folks, but the DeVille Bobinor, in the promo video, it says 15cm is lost.
I'm thinking this is the case from the clips to connect the negative paper to the rollers/tubes.

Is this true? or is this only true for fiber based papers?

Yes, reckon on losing up to 15cm on both ends - RC, FB all need that margin. It's mainly because of the distance from the clips to the solution. No big deal overall. Compared to any other mechanised processing system, the efficiency of the rest of the machine more than makes up for a small amount of wastage of paper.

bardamu · Apr 20, 2022

any more reviews on the Deville Boninoir? Am considering buying one but still scared by 15 liters for each bath

AgX · Apr 20, 2022

Unless you just wipe the paper with the baths you will need a certain volume in any case.

Consider that in a tray for sheets of paper you too have a large volume per sheet area. One may argue that with sheets you typically process several in a volume, whereas in a mural you might process only one.
But a certain volume needs to be there as buffer, so that just wiping the paper with a sponge might not be the optimum.

You might consider a DIY solution optimized for lowest bath volume, or modifying a Bobinoir.

bardamu · Apr 20, 2022

I am indeed considering a drum I made out of a very large pipe, have caps also. it should work with a couple liters or less, but it weighs a ton and I need to find a decent way to rotate it and empty/fill it

AgX · Apr 20, 2022

But in a rotary pipe you must find a way to ensure that all the rolled up paper is well rinsed with the bath and not covering itself. This is no issue in a wind/rewind approach.

NB23 · Apr 20, 2022

msage said:
Yes, the only limiting factor is how big paper you can get.

If you ask me, the limiting factor would be how to wash the paper. Especially FB, how would one effectively Wash a 2x3 meters sheet of paper for 1 hour in running water? And without kinking it?

AgX · Apr 20, 2022

At Wind/Rewind processing

The Bobinoir even can get motorized. For those who want water running through the trough, they offer a dedicated washing trough.

NortheastPhotographic · Apr 20, 2022

The question really is, whether you should, not if you could.

IMHO these huge optical enlargements are crazy to do these days. They're difficult to make for one, and expensive....but you might say well for some work it's important. Okay well so you do your show of your 10' print and then what? I guess someone might buy it and then it's their problem. I hope they want a mural on their wall for a long long time. Otherwise it has to be stored properly and doesn't fit in any place that's convenient... Problems upon problems.

I think 20x24 or 30x40 are very nice sizes that can be achieved in most darkrooms. They're striking to look at in a room and aren't a massive PITA. When you do want to go huge they make printers for that purpose. No-one who knows anything can honestly say the current batch of pigment printers are producing substandard images. Heck imagine a piezography optimized 44" Epson and what you could do with it. It's probably easier to make a 40x50 digital negative and produce a carbon print than optical silver print!

AgX · Apr 20, 2022

Your reply is blasphemy...

Concerning huge prints as such, they are loved by some in the art world here. And there still are people with walls to present them.

NortheastPhotographic · Apr 20, 2022

AgX said:
Your reply is blasphemy...

Concerning huge prints as such, they are loved by some in the art world here. And there still are people with walls to present them.

I do understand that this might be an unpopular opinion. It might be colored by the fact that i was having some mixed results doing RA4 in my ATL2500 recently and then got our Eversmart Supreme II. The ESII scans are better than anything I was printing by far... I still love printing silver gelatin of course but I no longer see a scan as a compromise.

M Carter · Apr 20, 2022

Y'know, if someone wants to print very large, pointing out that "20x24 looks just fine" or whatever isn't much help. Few of us are doing anything with film for very sane reasons after all. Pointing out how difficult it is, that's helpful - seems a lot of kids these days get their first enlarger and think "I'm gonna do wall sized prints next! Now, what's a contrast filter??" Maybe some will pull it off, there's a young guy on Reddit working his way up to large-ish wall projection.

I'm up to about 30x40" now with great results, but man, it took testing and thinking and lucking out on a 150 "G" lens, engineering an adjustable and alignable vertical easel and a large tray. My goal is to be able to print in the 72" range, but I'm doing emulsion on canvas, so I'll just need a Very Big Tray (TM) with motorized agitation that's plumbed to buckets and drains. I have the space (barely) and it's all certainly doable. Is there a market for it? Won't know til I try I suppose.

NortheastPhotographic · Apr 20, 2022

Y'know, if someone wants to print very large, pointing out that "20x24 looks just fine" or whatever isn't much help.

Yeah but this is the 3rd page of the thread and the question has been answered. I'm just putting it out there that it's kind of a wild thing to try to do and IMHO not worth the challenge in the end.

Might be because I feel like I came up in the 'do it bigger' era of photography. There was a saying back in school that went something like "if you can't do it in B&W, do it in color, if it doesn't work in color, do it huge! If it doesn't work huge, do it naked."

ic-racer · Apr 20, 2022

I do agree a massive inkjet print as useless. What artist could claim to be it's creator? The engineer that designed the printer?
People that are going to badmouth and or discredit the master printers on the forum here should be reported to the moderators.

NortheastPhotographic · Apr 20, 2022

ic-racer said:
I do agree a massive inkjet print as useless. What artist could claim to be it's creator? The engineer that designed the printer?
People that are going to badmouth and or discredit the master printers on the forum here should be reported to the moderators.

A polaroid SX-70 has far less input than an Epson pigment printer. Should all Polaroids be considered wholly a product of the manufacturer? How about direct positive paper? Or heck even slide film. Does my catalog of Ektachrome rolls owe itself entirely to Kodak?

Lachlan Young · Apr 20, 2022

bardamu said:
any more reviews on the Deville Boninoir? Am considering buying one but still scared by 15 liters for each bath

Which is very little compared to most continuous drive machines. If you get the setup with the powered washer trough you can effectively handle very large prints within only a few square metres - though you'll want a suitable flat wall to unroll the print on for viewing/ squeegeeing etc.

NortheastPhotographic said:
IMHO these huge optical enlargements are crazy to do these days. They're difficult to make for one, and expensive

With the right enlarger properly set up for low vibration transmission (not hard to do well), lenses designed for mural work (they make a critical difference) & appropriate work environments the only slightly difficult bit is handling the paper (unless you find a now frustratingly rare paper dispenser) single-handed.

NortheastPhotographic said:
When you do want to go huge they make printers for that purpose. No-one who knows anything can honestly say the current batch of pigment printers are producing substandard images. Heck imagine a piezography optimized 44" Epson and what you could do with it. It's probably easier to make a 40x50 digital negative and produce a carbon print than optical silver print!

It's mostly budgetary realities, not really meaningful qualitative comparisons - and when tight budgets are involved, inkjet is qualitatively more than good enough. Print sizes went up as cheaper means of production appeared - and everyone associated Contemporary Photography with some sort of galumphing gigantism in galleries - or infinite wallpapering banalities for McMansions (not that the old mural production world did any better - their bread and butter was backlit ads and the like). Silver gel murals from negs do look better, but they cost a bit more & you may get messier in the process. Sometimes the dividing line is how much retouching would be necessary.

NortheastPhotographic said:
The ESII scans are better than anything I was printing by far... I still love printing silver gelatin of course but I no longer see a scan as a compromise

A top end neg scan & a really good darkroom print should be not be worse than each other, but will inherently show some visual differences, enough for you to form visual preferences based on aesthetic taste - not influenced by failure of the equipment/ operator to hit baseline technical standards.

gone · Apr 20, 2022

NortheastPhotographic said:
IMHO these huge optical enlargements are crazy to do these days. They're difficult to make for one, and expensive....but you might say well for some work it's important. Okay well so you do your show of your 10' print and then what?

I agree, and that doesn't even get to the issue of where are you supposed to focus your view of the print? I've seen my share of huge enlargements, some from pano cameras and some not. They're a PITA to exhibit and the chances of a sale is practically nil unless maybe a hospital or bank might be interested.

At some point you have to either make some money from photography, or at least cut down on unnecessary expenses. These huge enlargements look like a money pit.

bluechromis · Apr 20, 2022

This is a bit off topic, but I heard a story from an older photo teacher that at some time in the past they made gigantic photo images for billboard signs. He claimed they would spread out some kind of huge photo-sensitive sheet in a dark warehouse and make an image. He said they developed it by spraying developing solutions on it with hoses. He didn't say how the image was formed, a giant enlarger in the ceiling? I'd be curious to know if there is anything to this story.

AgX · Apr 21, 2022

Lachlan Young said:
... though you'll want a suitable flat wall to unroll the print on for viewing/ squeegeeing etc.

What about squeegeeing already at the Bobinoir at the spindle? But, if it should work one still needs a wall to hang for drying. (Unless one designs a roller dryer...)

AgX · Apr 21, 2022

momus said:
At some point you have to either make some money from photography, or at least cut down on unnecessary expenses. These huge enlargements look like a money pit.

When a renown german photolab, specialized in working for the art world, went into insolvency a few years ago and was restructured on a smaller base, it was their murals-enlarger lab, together with their large size inkjet printers that were taken over.

NortheastPhotographic · Apr 21, 2022

Lachlan Young said:
A top end neg scan & a really good darkroom print should be not be worse than each other, but will inherently show some visual differences, enough for you to form visual preferences based on aesthetic taste - not influenced by failure of the equipment/ operator to hit baseline technical standards.

I totally agree. In fact when looking at RA4 prints they still have a sense of depth that I don't see from pigment. It's like the detail in the print is just waiting to be revealed if only you could look closer. Pigment prints don't typically give me this sense. On the other hand though, I find them superior in every other way. The papers are fantastic, the depth of color and contrast is wonderful. They're highly detailed and 'probably' 'maybe' 'we hope' 'they say' more long lasting. I'm doing a lot of B&W printing these days and color pigment printing.

The best printer I know is probably Micheal Strickland and from what I can tell all his images go through a digitization stage via his Tango. Then they go through whatever is required to turn them into color carbon prints. Are they pure analog? No. Are they pure digital, definitely not... But they're knock down gorgeous I know that for sure.

M Carter · Apr 21, 2022

NortheastPhotographic said:
Yeah but this is the 3rd page of the thread and the question has been answered. I'm just putting it out there that it's kind of a wild thing to try to do and IMHO not worth the challenge in the end.

Might be because I feel like I came up in the 'do it bigger' era of photography. There was a saying back in school that went something like "if you can't do it in B&W, do it in color, if it doesn't work in color, do it huge! If it doesn't work huge, do it naked."

Haha, that's the way it goes around here, five-year old threads that lurch back to life and so on!

But I get ya - as I mentioned earlier, I'm taking a somewhat risky path (as far as time and materials and infrastructure costs, not like I need a mortgage but eventually a couple+ grand when it's all said and done) to get up to the five or six foot range. But I feel there's a market for what I'm specifically doing, and I'm incorporated as a photographer/video guy so at least I can write that cash off as an R&D expense.

And... seeing how I lie awake figuring out "now how can I accomplish this", I might as well go ahead and do it. The perils of an overactive brain I suppose.

Lachlan Young · Apr 21, 2022

AgX said:
What about squeegeeing already at the Bobinoir at the spindle? But, if it should work one still needs a wall to hang for drying. (Unless one designs a roller dryer...)

There's various ways of handling it - and it does help to have a sink the size of the print or bigger for easier unrolling off the Bobinoir. For drying, FB really wants to be taped under tension - unless you have a 40x60" vacuum dry mount press. Roller driers that size do exist, but are mostly rather firmly attached to the processing machines they are built into.

AgX said:
it was their murals-enlarger lab,

I believe the 25x25cm Homrich enlarger came from Andreas Gursky's parents' photography business.

albada · Apr 22, 2022

NB23 said:
If you ask me, the limiting factor would be how to wash the paper. Especially FB, how would one effectively Wash a 2x3 meters sheet of paper for 1 hour in running water? And without kinking it?

Put it in your neighbor's pool while he's at work.
Or in a cheap inflatable pool in your back yard.

jnamia · Apr 23, 2022

NortheastPhotographic said:
The question really is, whether you should, not if you could.

IMHO these huge optical enlargements are crazy to do these days. They're difficult to make for one, and expensive....but you might say well for some work it's important. Okay well so you do your show of your 10' print and then what? I guess someone might buy it and then it's their problem. I hope they want a mural on their wall for a long long time. Otherwise it has to be stored properly and doesn't fit in any place that's convenient... Problems upon problems.

I think 20x24 or 30x40 are very nice sizes that can be achieved in most darkrooms. They're striking to look at in a room and aren't a massive PITA. When you do want to go huge they make printers for that purpose. No-one who knows anything can honestly say the current batch of pigment printers are producing substandard images. Heck imagine a piezography optimized 44" Epson and what you could do with it. It's probably easier to make a 40x50 digital negative and produce a carbon print than optical silver print!

interesting take !
35 years ago I had a conversation with a former photography teacher when I was assisting him on a job. we were talking about print size and all that fun stuff, and he said that photographers were forced to print gigantic prints because they are in competition with people making huge paintings &c, plus .. they could people go ga-ga for giant prints photographers love to say they have prints that are huge, and it's pretty impressive how well people can do this stuff. my problem is like you detail, I don't have a flat file for storage,to print or have thing printed that big and there is the money-thing. I've done it "by demand" and the biggest I've had things printed is 3 feet by 8 feet, but I'm more of a miniaturist by contrast, easy to store and make miniature prints, and a lot less expensive to present, easy to store in a shoe box or make things into a hand held book. There was a color photographer in LA about 10 years ago ( maybe 15? ) who turned his trailer into a giant camera and he had a you tube video of him developing his extra large gigantic prints in big tubes. I can't remember his name but I think he is / was represented by the VonLintel Gallery at one point. equally impressive are the rock star wet platists who regularly make 20x24 wet plates, some even were on Kia Ads on TV... have you tube and Vimeo movies about their adventures, &c. I think we live in great times for photographers, lots to do and lots of ways to print big or small and express oneself, and if we want to print larger there is always a lab one can hire to do it for us (as long as we have the warehouse to store them in!)

Large silver gelatin enlargements - still possible?

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