Hi Brian,
I am brand new to the forum but not new to photography. I have printed Ciba/now called Ilfochrome for decades and I agree that a properly printed Ilfochrome has a unique quality unmatched by any other process.
Drum Scans are the absolute best if you want a digital workflow. Personally I do not like Light Jet if you mean the Digital exposure on a RA Chemical Process. If you look real close they are not sharp at all. Kind of blurry--no grain.
Lately I switched to large Glossy Varnished Canvas and although they will never match an Ilfochrome the Varnish adds a beautiful depth. I now use a 4X5 Betterlight scanning back on a Sinar. It is wickedly sharp and the color is wonderfull, but you have to use modern Apo Multicoated lenses and you will not want to stop down to the point that lens diffraction sets in.
As a test I scanned a 35mm slide and printed it to 44x66 with an incredible result.
As a note the main reason to use an 8x10 instead of a 4X5 is to reduce grain. This is where a drum scanned image will shine---less grain. My betterlight scans will have more grain to deal with but for the few i need done they are more than satisfactory.
Grant Kernan
Holiday greetings, gentlemen,
I love on the new forum interface when old threads that were posted months (or years) ago get resurected, and fresh opinions are voiced! In the time since I asked the original question, I had two 30X40 inch Chromira prints made for me from drum scans by West Coast Imaging, one from a 4X5 Velvia transparency and the other from an 8X10 one. Although far from a scientific test, I can't tell the difference in resolution between the two- they are both very sharp and detailed. This pretty much settled the issue for me- it may be possible to get a slight edge using 8X10 for very large enlargements, but the differences are minor and other factors can have just as much, if not more, of an effect on print sharpness and overall quality.
Brian Vuillemenot
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