Big 35mm prints

[pipefish]

Hi guys,

I just watched 'War Photographer' featuring James Natchwey. I was quite amazed to see that his BW printer could enlarge his 35mm negs to an incredible 1m+ (estimation only lah) size. What was also very educational was to see how his printer burned, dodged, developed etc the huge roll of paper. Those prints were later used in his exhibition in an art gallery. It looked like he was using Kodak film (probably a 400 speed film).

Any of you have any experience producing such large prints? I always thought you would have to resort to MF or LF to get a reasonable large print.



Alan

 

[kex]

Hi guys,

I just watched 'War Photographer' featuring James Natchwey. I was quite amazed to see that his BW printer could enlarge his 35mm negs to an incredible 1m+ (estimation only lah) size. What was also very educational was to see how his printer burned, dodged, developed etc the huge roll of paper. Those prints were later used in his exhibition in an art gallery. It looked like he was using Kodak film (probably a 400 speed film).

Any of you have any experience producing such large prints? I always thought you would have to resort to MF or LF to get a reasonable large print.



Alan

hello alan,

where did u watch the film ?interested to see the show leh

the biggest i print is 16x20" from my 35mm which is also a 400 Tmax

result i would say is pretty good,provided u view it from a comfortable distance like 40" away.

For the same enlargement using 6x7,viewing it closer also no problem,the whole tone is more "power" or saturated and smoother.

i always try to keep my enlargement to a limit of 4x for the best result which can be scrutinized closely without any loss of quality.

 

[waileong]

You can read Erwin Puts or others regarding enlargement sizes.

Basically, Erwin says that 35 mm is ideal as the normal circle of confusion is just right, so that even if you enlarged to 1 m, the image when viewed at the right distance looks just ok. Of course, if you step right up to it, you'll just see big dots. But if you view a 1m image from 1m away, I think it looks just fine.

What is difficult about 35 mm is that the neg is so small there's no room to crop if you want to enlarge much beyond 10x15. With MF/LF you can still crop before enlarging.

I can enlarge my 35mm prints to 16x and project my slides to 40x. Even when I go up to the projector screen, my Provia 100 images look just delicious.

Wai Leong
===

hello alan,

where did u watch the film ?interested to see the show leh

the biggest i print is 16x20" from my 35mm which is also a 400 Tmax

result i would say is pretty good,provided u view it from a comfortable distance like 40" away.

For the same enlargement using 6x7,viewing it closer also no problem,the whole tone is more "power" or saturated and smoother.

i always try to keep my enlargement to a limit of 4x for the best result which can be scrutinized closely without any loss of quality.

 

[pipefish]

Kex, I have the DVD. Let me know if you want to borrow it.

Waileong, I partly agree. My colour slides (typically ISO 100) enlarge well. But my 35mm BW negs max out around 16x12, at most 16x20 (shot with M asph glass and properly focussed/exposed). I haven't seen James Natchwey's silver prints in real life though, maybe they look gross at closer than normal viewing distance. When I went to a photo exhibition featuring his photos in Beijing, they used digital prints.

Another case in point, my favourite photographer, Trent Parke, only sells analog BW prints up to slightly larger than 12R. His really big prints are only available as digital prints. You can see his beautiful pics if you do a net search, he's represented by the Stills Gallery in Australia.

Lastly, I have seen Robert Frank's photos in London. They are not so pretty even at small sizes.

Alan