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Thread: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

  1. #1

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    Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    My wife is an installation artist (as well as a printmaker, painter, etc etc and photographer) She is having an exhibition in the local public gallery this coming winter and the curator wants along with and in part instead of her installation large prints of the shadows from her installation. She wants 60 by 90 inch prints. I think she needs 8 or 10 prints. We (as in me the helper and she the presser of the shutter) are planning on using a 69 back on the 4X5 She Hao view camera and a 90 Caltar lens to shot the images and scan them with Nikon CS 8000 using Scanscience fluid scan.



    See if the image gets attached. Trying to show what she will be photographing and enlarging to the 60 by 90 size. the printing will either be done by herself at a self directed workshop or else sent to Toronto for Elevator to print. The workshop works out slightly less expensive and she will be in intensive learning for two weeks on digital printing and we both could use the knowledge and saves money on shipping the final product.

    My question is given that it is of shadows which of these two films would be our best options Velvia 50 transparacey film or Portra 106 NC negative film?
    Last edited by redrockcoulee; 20-Sep-2009 at 16:21. Reason: trying to include the image

  2. #2
    Preston Birdwell
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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    You will get a greater dynamic range with the color neg, and hence, a bit better gradation of tone, especially in the low values, where Velveeta tends to block up. If you'd like to use a transparency film, Astia 100F works nicely. It's less contrasty than Velvia, the color is more neutral, and it has a wider dynamic range, as well.

    The downside of shooting color neg, is that you'd be forced to scan allthe film in order to pick the best. With a transparency film, of course, you'd see the best ones right away on the light table.

    Just thought I'd mention it, but those are mighty big prints to be made from a 6x9!

    Sounds like an interesting project.

    -Preston
    Preston-Columbia CA

    "If you want nice fresh oats, you have to pay a fair price. If you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse; that comes a little cheaper."

  3. #3
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    Boy, those are big prints. If you need to use 120 film, perhaps because of the Nikon scanner, you might consider turning the back vertical. Then take shots using front and rear shift, overlapping each frame by about 1/3, using perhaps 3 or 4 frames for the entire image. Scan each frame and combine the scans in Photoshop. You better have a powerful computer to handle the huge files. You will have to be careful about running out of coverage with that lens. You might want to use a longer lens if you use this approach.

    Another option would be to pivot the camera around the entrance pupil of the lens and stitch the shots using Photoshop or any of the stitching programs, such as Autopano pro.

    A third option would be to do the same thing with 4x5 but have the negs drum scanned, using either the shift method or the pivot method.

    You would probably want to use Astia (or any super-fine grained film.) If you're in a studio, shooting slide film should be no problem, as you can control the dynamic range of the image through lighting.

    A fourth option would be to use a 3d panoramic head, such as the larger Nodal Ninja, and shoot a very high res mosaic, i.e. overlapping frames in a checkerboard pattern, using a dSlr. In that case, you wouldn't need to do any scanning. You could also use a very high quality lens, for example a lens that is diffraction limited at, say, F4, as opposed to a large format lenses limit at F16 or F22. For example, I recently shot an old brick wall with many years of painted advertisements on it using a Dslr and a homemade 3d panoramic head. The image will print at 6 feet long at 360 dpi with no interpolation.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
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  4. #4

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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    There are my wife's images, normally I print from the 4X5 or the Hasselblad onto a 8X10 paper with large white borders around them

    Stitching may not work as the images are of shadows created by her installation and the shadows are made onto and through large paper banners she has made and are slowly moving in the air (Dana never makes things easy). The curator based her opinion of large images on some 24 X 36 images made from jpegs from a D1X.

    We do have access to a V750 scanner with fluid scanning but not sure about holders. If stitching I think using the Hasselblad might be easier and if the subject was stationary have access to a manfrotto panaromic head but the slow movement will be the problem. The only 8X10 have access to is an Arca Swiss but it has not been used for over a decade so not sure about it or its lenses and I do think there are film holders for it. Other camera choices are the Hasselblad, a 5X7 Seneca Improved and a Nikon D3.

    Would a scanned 4X5 or 5X7 on a Epson V750 be better than a 69 on a Nikon 8000? In some ways the grainness works with these images but we do want them to look decent and not like billboards as the gallery is not that big and people will view them up relatively close. The one advantage is that there will be low light levels so the shadows from the installation work as well. If colour was not important I would use the 4X5 Technical Pan as still have over 60 sheets of it and developer but nothing in life is easy is it? I think for her budget that drum scans may be out of the question unfortuantely and the other disadvange is 4X5 negative film and any thing larger than 4X5 must be sent out of town for processing.

    Thanks for all the comments so far.

  5. #5
    Peter De Smidt's Avatar
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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    Subject movement will also be a problem for 4x5 and 8x10, given their typically long exposure times with natural light. (These are going to be lit with natural light, right?) If you could use flash, which would freeze the motion, the Seneca might be the best choice, as it's aspect ratio is the same as 6x9, but the film is much bigger. You could always rent a lens if needed.

    Stitching with movement would be a huge pain. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to use the D3 and take multiple shots at every frame of the stitch, the idea being to pick the ones that match up best. This could be really tedious.
    “You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
    ― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know

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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    Quote Originally Posted by Peter J. De Smidt View Post
    Subject movement will also be a problem for 4x5 and 8x10, given their typically long exposure times with natural light. (These are going to be lit with natural light, right?) If you could use flash, which would freeze the motion, the Seneca might be the best choice, as it's aspect ratio is the same as 6x9, but the film is much bigger. You could always rent a lens if needed.

    Stitching with movement would be a huge pain. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to use the D3 and take multiple shots at every frame of the stitch, the idea being to pick the ones that match up best. This could be really tedious.
    Not natural light. Last time she used halogen lights. The set up is she has made items that hang from the ceiling like a mobile and then shines lights through banners made of tissue paper and the resultant shadow is on another banner of tissue paper. It is those shadows that she needs to photograph.

    The D3 idea sounds like she will not need by help with the stiching, I do not have her patience

  7. #7

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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    Another example of her past work this one shows what the banners themselves look like

  8. #8

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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    Quote Originally Posted by redrockcoulee View Post

    Would a scanned 4X5 or 5X7 on a Epson V750 be better than a 69 on a Nikon 8000?

    Hard to say because the final quality will depend on both how well the fillm is scanned and on how the file is worked. My inclination is that you would do about as well with 6X9cm scanning with the Nikon 8000 as with 4X5 scanning with the Epson V750. 5X7 will probably give a bump in image quality, even scanning with the V750.


    Sandy King

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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    What about fractals?

  10. #10
    Glenn Mellen
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    Re: Choice of film for scanning for very large prints

    I do believe such large prints can indeed be made from a 6x9 transparency easy enough as long as one is extremely careful with an editing done on the image.

    However, I do not believe such size prints can be attained with any quality at all using an Epson V750 scanner. Would suggest having images drum scanned at high resolution, and will need a very powerful computer in order to post-process the very large files.

    Would also suggest using Astia transparency... it's the smallest grain color transparency film available (smaller grain than Velvia 50).

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