What is the biggest size print from a good 35mm photo ?

Size only matters with respect to viewing distance. Billboards can be printed at 20 dpi. Make an enlargement the size of a billboard, it'll look great from 1/4 mile away.

I've made 16x20 enlargements from fine-grained film that withstand close scrutiny. But I've made 8x10 enlargements from grainy film than look like they're printed with Elmer's glue and sand. But, you know, sometimes you feel like nut, sometimes you don't.

I could probably make a larger, cleaner enlargement from a 4x5 negative made of an 8x10 print from a 35mm negative - and I'd have the advantage of being able to do all the dodging and burning while making the 8x10. Or touch it up with a pencil or ink. Or draw moustaches on faces.

Atget contacted his negatives, but a few years ago I projected some of his images in a lecture theatre and at 40 feet across they look even more amazing.

I once went to an exhibition of the British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition at the Natural History Museum in London, probably in the late 90s. Most prints were from 35mm transparency, a lot of velvia I seem to remember. The prints were displayed as transparencies on back-lit boxes (not sure of the technology to do that back then), but most were around the 16"x20" size and most were really very good. Obviously these were done to very high specifications, and I assume were very expensive to do. My test for scale is 'would I have it on my wall?' in which case for me, 12"x16" is as big as I would be happy to go, but obviously for a good quality negative/transparency, and a good lab, and lots of cash, you could probably push it to 16"x20". You can of course go much much bigger, just stand further away...

xtolsniffer said:

I have printed from 35mm, 6x6, 6x7 and 6x9 in the darkroom and had similar printed in colour commercially. My own experience is that generally up to 10x8 you won't see any difference between MF and 35mm in most film types unless you have them side by side, then MF will win but it's subtle. At 12"x16" you can print monochrome to very high quality. Yes MF will appear to be more well-defined but the grain in monochrome can add to the image, I rarely find it detracts so the differences are more based on aesthetics rather than 'quality'. For colour print film such as Portra, 35mm CAN go to 12"x16" but you have to tolerate grain, it it can detract from an image, MF is much better at this size, but 10"x8" is still comparable between the formats. For E6, particularly Velvia, you can see a difference side by side between 35mm and MF at 12"x16" but if you see a big print from 35mm on its own then you would be hard-pressed to say whether it was 35mm or not. So it depends on many many factors. I have had a 35mm velvia transparency go to 5m long on a cafe wall and at a distance it looks great. At that size, I doubt if a 6x7 transparency would have been a significant improvement. They would have both turned to mush if you looked up close.

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So if my average print size is 8×12", 35mm doesn't look TOO bad ?
For B&W, high resolution 35mm copy film might be able to go to 16×12" without almost any grain (Technical Pan or Adox CMS 20 II)

Does 645 (cropped size from 6×6) already make a big difference from 35mm to be worth (in a print) ?
A lot of people say 645 looks "too small", but I'm not giving up on considering It.

Ryan Oliveira said:

So if my average print size is 8×12", 35mm doesn't look TOO bad ?
For B&W, high resolution 35mm copy film might be able to go to 16×12" without almost any grain (Technical Pan or Adox CMS 20 II)

Does 645 (cropped size from 6×6) already make a big difference from 35mm to be worth (in a print) ?
A lot of people say 645 looks "too small", but I'm not giving up on considering It.

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One way of thinking about it are the number of line-pairs per mm of detail on a print as seen by the eye...long the criteria of a 'sharp print' from the days before digital, was the criteria that a print contain 5 line-pairs per millimeter...a print with less would be judged to be 'not sharp'. If a lens measured to be 'excellent' or 84 line-pairs per millimeter, if it were magnified by 16.9x to make a 16" tall print, it has 4.97 line-pairs per millimeter as delivered by the print...close enough to the 5 ll/mm criteria identified earlier. With the Tri-X of 40 years ago, its grain was large enough that 16.9x enlargement made the grain very noticeable viewing it from 10" as many people were tempted to do although the proper viewing distance for a print that size was really about 20" away.
Since 645 neg only needs about 9.5 enlargement to fill 16" tall print, its grain size is magnified about half as much (linearly) as the 135 neg, so assuming it has the same level of 'sharp' it is better from the standpoint of lesser visibility of grain. Additionally, as the same subject occupies about 3.2x the film area, it has 3.2x the number of film grains or color clouds to depict the same subject, so 645 is also known for better tonality and gradation of tones/colors.

In the 1970's - 1980's typically b&w negative photo book data suggested 11x14, but the final appearance of any print is up to you.

I've seen some huge prints done on xp2, which was partially touted as giving bigger print options, that were great, others that sucked eggs.

It boils down to what is visually pleasing to you, the space it will be in, if for a show, and the viewing distance, which for art work, needs to be at two times the diagonal length of the image, and then some so you can first observe it at a distance, then walk into the viewing distance, where it's seen as a whole, then, slowly move up to the image, without starting out with a particular section in mind and your brain should focus in on what it sees a noteworthy, for good or bad.

Cheers and Godspeed to all.

16 x 20. Then tone it.

Arthurwg said:

16 x 20. Then tone it.

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+1