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Thread: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

  1. #1

    Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    I just shot some Tmax 100 BW, full body portraits in a small studio, f/11 or f/16. My power pack is currently 400 watts.

    Too much stuff out of focus.

    I'm wondering if any of you have shot at 400 with 4x5 and blown up large (40 x 60) and have great results (as opposed to shooting at 100)

    thanks, (curious on color experiences as well as BW)

  2. #2
    retrogrouchy
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    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    Depends how good you want it to look and which film you use. The answer is very different for Fomapan 400 and Tmax 400

    I find that, in Xtol at least, TMY2 looks pretty good out to about 7x or 8x enlargement. HP5 starts to suffer around 5x, as does Fomapan 100. IMHO. If you're printing at 40x60, TMX will definitely look smoother than TMY but you may well decide that the small increase in grain is worth it to obtain the extra DOF, especially if you shoot it at EI800.

    You might also want to consider more-efficient light modifiers or moving them closer to the subject.

    As for colour, I find Portra 400 to be visibly coarser than TMY2. Not by much though. Portra 160 is lovely if you have the light; Ektar I wouldn't shoot portraits with because you get carrot-face.

  3. #3

    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    Poly, for color I've only used Fuji RDP 100 and it came out great.

    tmy2 is tri x 400?, what is 7x 8 enlargement in inches? What about Tmax 100 vs Tmax 400?

    Hp5 is Ilford? so don't not blow up as good as Kodak? then why use it?

    Good idea about shooting at 800, can go from f/ 8 to, 22 just by using different film, but when go big, and push, wonder if that will look bad? compared to straight tmax 100?

    I'm shooting no diffusers for these projects.

  4. #4

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    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    Are you shooting people or stationary things? I like to shoot BIG stuff, outdoors. I'm taking barns, elevators, railroad birdges. They don't move much. Some are not only big, they are far away. I have about 10,000ws but that's sometimes not enough. What I do is lock everything down tight on a tripod, and then make more than one pop on the flash. In effect, x3 pops gives me 30,000ws for example. Don't forget that light increases/decreases by square. I.e. to go from f5.6 to f8, you double the power. To go from f5.6 to f11, you quadruple.

  5. #5

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    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    I've shot ISO 400 films for decades- either TX or HP5 to get a little extra speed for filters, small F-stop, et. They seem fine to me.

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  6. #6

    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    If you want clean as in no noise 40x60's use some form of digital, this is film we are talking about here and it has grain, even Tmax 100 at 60" would show grain although a lot less than most films. I have seen really powerful 40x60's from 35mm Tri-X from the likes of Eugene Richards, Salgado and Nachtwey that because of how good the actual photograph is, the grain did not matter.

    I'm not saying you should shoot 35mm Delta 3200 and blow it up to 40x60 but TMY2 ( Tmax 400 ) should look great at 40x60 from a 4x5 neg....if the content of the photo dominates the reason it is that big, not the materials used. The grain of film is like grain in wood, why hide it when you could embrace it and make a powerful photograph on it?

    Also, are you doing digi-prints or real darkroom prints, there is a marked difference in how the grain gets treated depending on that.

  7. #7

    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Langham View Post
    I've shot ISO 400 films for decades- either TX or HP5 to get a little extra speed for filters, small F-stop, et. They seem fine to me.
    At 40 x 60"?
    That is the thrust of the question...

  8. #8

    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    THANKS, shooting people, and unfortunately people with grain does blow up as cool as landscape does, but this is good info.. thanks.

  9. #9

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    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    Keep in mind the usual thing, that the bigger the print, the farther away the viewer is likely to be. If you stare at your 40x60 print from two feet away, it may look a little rough, but from a proper viewing distance of 15 or 20 feet, it may look just fine.

  10. #10
    8x10, 5x7, 4x5, et al Leigh's Avatar
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    Re: Can 400 iso film blow up real big, real well?

    400 will never be as good as 100, no matter what you do.

    You know that.

    It starts out better.

    Any manipulation you do to improve 400 can do the same with 100.

    - Leigh
    If you believe you can, or you believe you can't... you're right.

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