Angus,
Thanks for your message. To put things in some perspective and corroborating what you've mentioned, I did a little hunting and noticed that Jeff Wall still shoots with his 4x5 Linhof Master Technika and Sinar X and still manages to blow up his 4x5 images wayyy more than 10X (40"x50") without any stitching. In the following short documentary you can see him using his Sinar X:
https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-t...ouver-segment/ He seems to have no trouble scanning and printing these negatives either as enormous prints or lightboxes.
Also, I know first hand that Andreas Gursky mainly used a Linhof Master Technika and Technikardan 45S for most of his work through the 90s, right through to 2008, even more so than his 5x7 camera. (And, contrary to popular belief, he never used an 8x10 for the simple fact that he found enough quality with his 4x5 and 5x7 cameras.) One of his most important works is Salerno (
https://www.andreasgursky.com/en/works/1990/salerno-1), which has an image size of exactly 51" x 65¼". He said in a inteview with Jeff Wall - ironically enough - that he managed to take exactly four shots of the Italian port city of Salerno with his 4x5 camera before the encroaching shadows at the borders of the image ruined the photo. This work was created in 1990 and there was definitely no stitching going on. Stitching and digital editing came later for Gursky, starting around 1992.
And thank you for mentioning XTOL! I had no idea what that was until you mentioned it. I googled it and saw that it could be tremendously helpful. Developing and printing are the two areas that I have absolutely no mastery of. As much as I would really like to, I don't even develop my own film since my living quarters is pretty cramped. (I have 4 roommates!) Once I'm able to get a place of my own is when I'll throw myself fully into film development and learn everything I can about it.
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