Max Rez Possible: Wet Plate vs SG Vs Inkjet vs Lambda vs?

[Tin Can]

What is the actual maximum resolution possible of image presentation at 16X20" and above?

Wet Plate is 'grainless'?

Color chromes have 'clouds'?

8K monitors

Silver Gelatin

and any other possible image presentation

I posted this here as I don't know where to put it.

[goamules]

I've always heard Daguerreotypes and Wetplates are very high resolution. In mine, I can't see any grain. Their "grain size" is basically what a molecule of silver nitrate is. It's why astronomers used wetplate collodion to photograph the stars for a long time.

The Library of Congress has scanned a lot of Civil War wetplates. This one https://www.loc.gov/item/2018666338/ by Gardner.

[Two23]

In the close up you can count the individual strings on the guitar.


Kent in SD

[Jac@stafford.net]

The close-crop shows Speaker Paul Ryan!

[Louis Pacilla]

The close-crop shows Speaker Paul Ryan!

That's funny Jack and he sure does resemble Paul R.

[Tin Can]

So am I correct, that the posted Wet Plate file is a TIF with 88 mb at 8x10 with 750 pixels per inch?

That must be far less than actual resolution of the Wet Plate.

Some of those guy really moved around, some were very still.

[Tin Can]

I am looking for comparisons over time, not just the acknowledged leader such as Wet Plate.

Do we shoot and print line pairs and compare?

I don't know!

[Pere Casals]

I am looking for comparisons over time, not just the acknowledged leader such as Wet Plate.

Do we shoot and print line pairs and compare?

I don't know!

Randy, here you have some discussion about that:

http://hubicka.blogspot.com/2016/03/...graphs-in.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20181224...graphs-in.html

This is not an scientific paper at all but it contains an interesting point of view.

It's a bit difficult to say a numeric value for XIX century plates because lenses of the era were not always good in the corners, but many 1880s plates are beyond 100 MPix, this is outresolving much 2018 ultimate digital gear.

[Bill L.]

Mark a Osterman is doing a workshop on using wet-plate for microscopic photographs . Essentially microdots.
https://www.eastman.org/event/worksh...ro-photographs

Bill

[goamules]

Pere, those are some very interesting links to studies. While I've always heard the Petzval was unsurpassed for sharpness until probably the 1970s, the study is based on "estimates" and "predictions" for historic lenses: "Determining lens quality without exact information is problematic, but reasonable estimates can be made using a collection of pertinent information on camera formats (lens size) and lens history. Since historic cameras and lenses are seldom evaluated using MTF technology, most of the information is based on 50 years of photographic experience and research."

They show a line graphic showing a nice, clean upward curve in resolution (combining film type and lens type of the era) from the early Dag era til today. That seems a little suspect to me. Most Line Per MM and PPI tables of lens types are estimates', which is surprising considering the quality of the report analysis in general. In one place the writer says the center of historic LF lenses is a quite high LPM, but because it goes down at the edges, he "averages" the overall LPM way downward. Everyone knew a Petzval is very sharp in the center, they normally just used the center. I want to know how sharp a Petzval is in the normal coverage area (center), based on testing. Because I suspect a good Petzval shot on Daguerreotype or Wetplate, took many decades to be surpassed for resolution.