Last fall met a photographer (unfortunately I forgot to exchange Emails) who was shooting with his 8x10. We got talking and had a great conversation. He told me that he makes 8x10 contact prints from his negatives. At the time he was using a Schneider Kreuznach Super Symmar HM 210mm f/5.6 MC... that was the first time that I had ever seen a Super Symmar HM in person. We got to be talking about lenses and he said that he used the Super Symmar HM to get the "sharpest possible contact prints".
Got me thinking recently... I shoot 8x10 with a 250mm Fuji W. Would the Silver contact prints that he made with his Super Symmar HM be any sharper than than the ones made with my 250mm Fuji W lens at the same apertures? Surely the developers and development techniques we both use would influence the apparent sharpness of the negatives. The LF negatives that I process in Daifine A+B certainly have to differ from the ones that FORUM member Steve Sherman developes with his Minimal Agitation technique. And what about contact prints on hand coated Platinum/Palladium paper... Consulted the Platinum/Palladium print books that I have collected, and couldn't find a comparison of image resolution of fiber based Silver prints verses hand coated Platinum/Palladium. Personally have subjectively experienced very different apparent visual image resolutions when printing Platinum/Palladium depending on the paper I was using.
Also have read that the "rough rule of thumb is that the viewing distance should be 1.5 to 2 times the diagonal length" of the print... So the viewing distance should be between 18 to 24 inches. My 70 year old eyes aren't the best, but with glasses, my vision is 20/20. I have put a contact silver print next to an inkjet print of the same image and honestly I can't see the difference unless I get up really, really close to the prints which from personal experience is generally frowned upon in Museums.
I might note that years ago I was at the Eastman House and actually handling some of Eugene Smith's final prints. You didn't need a X5 loupe to see that some of them weren't all that sharp and I swear he spotted some of them with India ink.... are some of us too hung up on image resolutions rather than on the actual image captured in the photograph?
comments very welcome...
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