How big can one print MF?

[pentaxuser]

Ilford says it in numerous places but is a bit vague about the format. Here they say,

View attachment 392413

And I recall somewhere or other taking that statement and turning it into a PanF 35mm negative can, with proper exposure and development, be enlarged to mural size. But I don't recall where I read that. It may have been a fantastical statement.

Thanks for the reply

pentaxuser

 

[DREW WILEY]

35mm Pan F, "mural sized"? Read my lips : "Billboard", intended for viewing from a quarter mile away. Get real. You might squeeze a decent 16X20 inch print out of 6X7 cm Pan F, or with difficulty 645 format if you have a reading distance print in mind rather than a highway ad. Been there, done that, plenty of times, though I prefer still a little more usable real estate, namely 6x9 format, to get a reasonably crisp print worthy of serious attention rather than just a drive-by experience.

 

[Lachlan Young]

35mm Tri-X and a Rodagon-G will deliver (properly) sharp granularity at 40x (and reveal in merciless detail that D-76 was and is very, very difficult to beat qualitatively and quantitatively). People are worrying themselves silly over the ability to resolve image information, when the sharp transmittance of film characteristics (granularity etc) matters rather more in terms of perception of the image quality out beyond 10-15x. With the right kit at post-production, a 20x off 120 is pretty straightforward to execute whether optically in the darkroom or via scan/ inkjet/ digital exposure to silver halide etc.

CCTV grain magnifiers are worth their weight in gold for this sort of work.

I would get it done since I cannot possibly handle that size of printing.

Both are attainable more-or-less on your doorstep - depending on your budget.

 

[miha]

You might squeeze a decent 16X20 inch print out of 6X7 cm Pan F,

That's perfectly doable with the right technique. No need for Pan F, FP4 in Perceptol are the right candidates, too.

Anyway, what is a "mural"?

 

[xkaes]

35mm Tri-X and a Rodagon-G will deliver (properly) sharp granularity at 40x (and reveal in merciless detail that D-76 was and is very, very difficult to beat qualitatively and quantitatively). People are worrying themselves silly over the ability to resolve image information, when the sharp transmittance of film characteristics (granularity etc) matters rather more in terms of perception of the image quality out beyond 10-15x.

One of my favorite shots is of some sunlit aspen trees in front of billowing clouds in an "orange filter" sky. It's a six foot mural taken with full-frame 35mm Plus-X (D-76) -- 24mm Minolta Rokkor-X. No one seems to waste their time looking for grain.

And then there's Agfapan APX 25 when I really want detail.

 

[fpd2]

Years ago, at the university darkroom I printed Ilford FP4+ from an old Mamiya 645 Super with 80mm glass, on an Ilford Multigrade 20x24. There was some grain, but overall the print was pretty nice and preserved detail. I wouldn't hesitate to have it framed.
For your purpose, I would try drum scanning (maybe with Alex Burke?) or fiddle around the settings of Imacon/Noritsu scanners, because the typical flat lab scan at the highest resolution will still be substantially different than a drum scan in terms of postprocessing. That's my personal experience though, so YMMV.
Good luck and please post some samples.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Anyway, what is a "mural"?

Ancient shorthand for anything bigger than 20x24", sometimes with a side-order of snobbery about 'murals' being seen as essentially commercial wallpaper (or backlit forms thereof). Multi-strip work was a big part of why very seriously powerful horizontal enlargers existed - and Rodagon G/ G-Componons - before they were swept away by Lambdas and the like - which have given way to newer graphics (usually ink-based of one sort or another) machinery.

No need for Pan F, FP4 in Perceptol are the right candidates, too.

Not worth worrying about. This is splitting hairs over something that is rather pointless in the bigger scheme of things - what matters is an enlarging setup that is solid and optically well optimised. People aren't as bothered about granularity (if it is well transmitted) than most amateur-oriented texts demand their readers doctrinally genuflect to. In fact, they often expect good, sharp grain.

Just to further emphasise this, you can make excellent 60" wide prints from archive FP3 negs.

 

[xkaes]

Those coloramas must have been mind-blowing! I'd never heard of them, fantastic!

I only saw one Colorama in person -- at Grand Central Station -- just as you walk in. It literally froze people in their steps. Mind-blowing. It seemed to be sixty feet across. The one I saw was leaping gazelles by Ernst Hans. It was from a 35mm Kodachrome 25 slide.

 

[ic-racer]

How big can one print MF?

About 55 inches wide.

 

[miha]

People aren't as bothered about granularity (if it is well transmitted) than most amateur-oriented texts demand their readers doctrinally genuflect to. In fact, they often expect good, sharp grain.

I had to check the meaning of "genuflect" - I'm a non-native English speaker. Now that I know the meaning, I can say I genuinely agree.

 

[wiltw]

Let's talk a few numbers. With MF taking equipment, it's reasonable to assume a resolution of 70 lp/mm. For a 6x9 negative, that would get you a 10x enlargement and still get a print of 7 lp/mm, which is about the limit a human eye can resolve. That's a bigger print than most darkrooms can process.

+1
It has long been stated (and probably recently forgotten by the newer generations of photographers) that the human eye needs 5 lines-per-millimeter on print at the viewing distance in order for the brain and eye to perceive a print as 'sharp'. So if we started with 70 ll/mm on film, and enlarged to 16x (as had been the past criteria for max 'acceptable' magnification from 135 format) we end up with just under 4.4 ll/mm of resolution. ('acceptable' being a subjective criteria, which accounts for the debatable 5 ll/mm vs 7 ll/mm threshold). While we might see more than 70 ll/mm from an exceptional 135 format lens on Pan F, the 16x threshhold was likely more a result of too large apparent grain than from 'not sharp' resolution of print.

So by both the criteria of 'acceptable' grain size and 'acceptable' resolution to be deemed 'sharp', we end up with 35" x 35" final size from 6x6, at the 'proper viewing distance'.. Increase the viewing distance, and you get acceptable billboard-size images due to the limitations of human vision (one-half minute of arc)

 

[DREW WILEY]

Tri-X grain at 40X, Lachlan? Isn't that like viewing a barn wall blasted with cannon grapeshot through binoculars? (Or perhaps Canon blasted).

Being a little less facetious - Pan F edges actually look a little soft at over-enlargement. If you want the best edge acutance, or the best of its native "wire sharpness", try PMK pyro. But still, there a realistic limit to how far that itself holds up. And frankly, I see no advantage to choosing this particular film for huge prints. It has far less dynamic range than most, and works best only for modest contrast situations.

Long scale plus crisp edge acutance, and extremely fine grain too, in a roll film? - well, that would describe Efke R25, which, boo hoo, is now extinct.

 

[Sirius Glass]

A question is whether a print is worthy of being made. I have some 32"x40" prints made from 35mm negatives. They were printing in a professional commercial darkroom with much higher quality than I could do myself, however only a small number of negatives can be print to that size because some compositions enlarger that much seem to "fall apart" and do not print well.

 

[Don_ih]

You might squeeze a decent 16X20 inch print out of 6X7 cm Pan F

If you can't get a 16x20 print from basically any film, you don't know how to hold a camera steady, how to develop film, or how to use an enlarger - at least one of those.

Or perhaps your idea of what constitutes a good print relies too heavily on using a magnifying glass to look for worms in the beaks of birds in the trees on the mountains in the distance...

 

[Pieter12]

A question is whether a print is worthy of being made. I have some 32"x40" prints made from 35mm negatives. They were printing in a professional commercial darkroom with much higher quality than I could do myself, however only a small number of negatives can be print to that size because some compositions enlarger that much seem to "fall apart" and do not print well.

I believe the question was "can" rather than "should."

 

[Sirius Glass]

I believe the question was "can" rather than "should."

Exactly, however should should be considered.

 

[Paul Howell]

In the mid 70s I and another freelancers did shoots for billboards for the local market. The add agency was in San Francisco but the work was for the Sacramento area, FM and AM radio, a local beer that still being made. I shot with 4X5, both color and black and white, the black and white film was Plus X white, don't recall the color film, it as negative emulsion the printer wanted. The other freelancer used a 6X9 back on a Horseman, at street level I could not see any differences in quality between my 4X5 and other guys' 6X9. Prior to our contracts the printer wanted 8X10.

 

[Pieter12]

In the mid 70s I and another freelancers did shoots for billboards for the local market. The add agency was in San Francisco but the work was for the Sacramento area, FM and AM radio, a local beer that still being made. I shot with 4X5, both color and black and white, the black and white film was Plus X white, don't recall the color film, it as negative emulsion the printer wanted. The other freelancer used a 6X9 back on a Horseman, at street level I could not see any differences in quality between my 4X5 and other guys' 6X9. Prior to our contracts the printer wanted 8X10.

I'll be a bit technical here: I'll assume those were 30-sheet posters, viewed from street level at least 20 feet away. In the 90's, I was the art director for a couple of 30x40" posters that would be displayed where they could be seen at eye level and close distance. It was a studio shoot and I was shocked when the photographer told me he intended to use 35mm Kodachrome 64. I had expected at least medium format. But he was a well-know photographer and I respected his experience and opinion. The posters ended up winning awards.

 

[xkaes]

I guess all those Minox (8x11mm) photographers who regularly make 16x20" prints are simply mistaken:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergeykozlov61/albums/72157690152017422/

 

[DREW WILEY]

Dunno. All I see on that link is a bunch of fuzzy little web images; I'd hate to see them any bigger. My own tack with 35mm film is to play alter-ego to my more routine large format mentality, and make very small poetic prints in which evident grain is fine, but not mandatory.
That might range from blatant, like Delta 3200, to rather crisp, like TMax100 and Pan F. In most cases, these are enlarged to less than 8x10.

But once I get to 120 roll film, I have a different objective. I want the prints - typically 16X20 inches - to get along with actual 4x5 and 8x10 shots enlarged to the same general size. That's a tough act for a tiny 6x7 or 6x9 cm exposure; but I do it all the time, mostly via TMax 100 or Fuji Acros.

As per Don's comment, No, I don't use a magnifying glass to look for worms in the beaks of bird mouths in my pictures. A mosquito maybe,
resting on a flower somewhere way out there in the middle of a 30X40 inch print. It's happened, but accidentally, after I had viewed that print many times. I like to make prints which work in a compositional sense from a reasonable viewing distance of, say, 6 to 10 feet away, but which also contain enough interesting detail to draw the viewer right in up close, and reward them with new things over repeated viewing. A "Gotcha" instant-grab advertising tack is anathema to me; an instant sugar high, and then it's soon all over.

 

[BrianShaw]

I, for one, wouldn’t really know…

 

[loccdor]

How large is this negative?

 

[Pieter12]

How large is this negative?

In post #1, the OP states 6x6.

 

[Paul Howell]

I'll be a bit technical here: I'll assume those were 30-sheet posters, viewed from street level at least 20 feet away. In the 90's, I was the art director for a couple of 30x40" posters that would be displayed where they could be seen at eye level and close distance. It was a studio shoot and I was shocked when the photographer told me he intended to use 35mm Kodachrome 64. I had expected at least medium format. But he was a well-know photographer and I respected his experience and opinion. The posters ended up winning awards.

I don't how many sheets were used, it was done a budget, the ad agency and printer were in San Francisco, the shoots were done in Sacramento, so the talent (DJS) did not need to travel. The agency sent an art director to supervise, my shots were done in a rental studio with a rented 4X5 with my set of lens for my Crown, the other guy shot his assignment with MF outdoors up by Lake Tahoe, that for the beer brewery.

 

[loccdor]

@Pieter12 I meant the image that I posted.