Making large-scale prints: film vs digital

[aaronseymour]

I am wondering how digital compares to film for making large-scale prints -- ie 1-1.5m wide. Obviously when you blow 35mm up to this size you see grain, but that can become part of the aesthetic and doesn't necessarily look bad. With say an EOS 20D would pixels and noise start to become visible at this size? Or would one be better to burn a transparency from the digital file and print from that?

Thanks,

[Maureen Souza]

I have printed photos up to 20 inches long and 13 inches wide without any problem and that was with my A80!!! I haven't done anything larger than a 12x16" with my 20D but it was crystal clear as a bell. I don't think you'll have any trouble if you keep your ISO down.

[DocFrankenstein]

I think you'll want LF or at least MF for that...

What's the viewing distance?

[aaronseymour]

Thanks for your replies. Perhaps I should make my question clearer. Take a look here:
www.aaronseymour.com/grain_01.jpg

This is a grainy photo. However, the grain is part of it's aesthetic as it's a performing arts production shot. You could blow this up quite happily to poster size. If you blow up a low-res digital pic to poster size you would see the individual pixels and after this point no more information would be available (and it would look crap, not beautiful and grainy). You could keep blowing up a film image indefinitely and still get more 'information' -- a function of something being analogue (the definition of analoue really).

So, I guess the question is, how large can one make a print from a Digital Camera -- say an 20D before it just looks pixely and soft? And is there a way around this, say burning a trannie and printing from that?

Thanks again...

[UncleDoug]

Thanks for your replies. Perhaps I should make my question clearer. Take a look here:
www.aaronseymour.com/grain_01.jpg

This is a grainy photo. However, the grain is part of it's aesthetic as it's a performing arts production shot. You could blow this up quite happily to poster size. If you blow up a low-res digital pic to poster size you would see the individual pixels and after this point no more information would be available (and it would look crap, not beautiful and grainy). You could keep blowing up a film image indefinitely and still get more 'information' -- a function of something being analogue (the definition of analoue really).

So, I guess the question is, how large can one make a print from a Digital Camera -- say an 20D before it just looks pixely and soft? And is there a way around this, say burning a trannie and printing from that?

Thanks again...


Go HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 8.2mp or so of the 20D will do you justice to 40''x60'' no problem. I forget what this translates to in metres.
We print stuff like this all the time. If you put a loupe to the print, it won't look pretty, but neither will a medium format tranny - scanned and printed to 40x40.
You'd have to jump to the 4x5 or better yet 8x10 to hold detail like that.
It IS all about viewing distance and personal aesthetic.

About the grain/pixles thing....

It is all aesthetics.
Some like grain others abhore it.
Some like the, what I call, artifical sharpness of digital images, others hate it.

When it comes to "information" contained in an image they both have limits, as per ones aesthetic, and the physical ability of the capture medium.
For instance, I prefer not to drum scan film at resolutions higher than 5500spi on our Heidelberg Tango drum scanner. For one, higher than this captures too much grain for my liking. Beyond this point you begin to resolve the actual structure of the grain crystals. Which can leade to some nasty issues in post processing.

To me, if you create a 645 chrome from your 20D image you are taking a big step backwards. You are introducing grain into a grainless image. You are introducing an intermediate step into the process, which will degrade the image.

Stick to what you have, print it big!
Have the printer you are using print you a 4'' deep test strip at the size you are wanting to go to see what the results are.
ANY and I mean ANY time I have doubts about how an image will come out I almost insist on the customer getting a test strip printed to double check things.