M10 maximum print size

[BjarniM]

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Cheers.

Is there anyone in this forum who can tell me - from their own experience - what the biggest size of print is, which they have printed to from a M10?

I know I can get an estimate from 'pixels to centimeters calculators', but this might not necessarily tell the whole (and exact) story, I would guess.

Will 60x90 centimeters be doable without a loss in quality from the M10's sensor?

Thanks in advance.

[Jon Warwick]

IMHO it depends quite a bit on what the image is about. When uprezzing, things like a landscape with very very fine natural detail can look less convincing (and hence is a greater challenge for print upsizing) than, say, a close up of someone’s face where the eye lashes are the main feature and you don’t want to overly record skin detail anyhow.

Very loosely, I tend to think 50% “longer” than native print size is acceptable for quite a few subjects, so assuming the print output is 300dpi, that would be 30” for a 24mp sensor.  By extension I felt I could get c 40-45” prints off my SL2 pretty reliably, helped further by the superior SL prime lenses.

[Simone_DF]

 

[BjarniM]

3 hours ago, Al Brown said:

(...)
It is also important where and how you upsample the image to your determined size.

Can you please explain this further?

[Jeff S]

Print as big as you want provided technique is sound and the viewing distance is appropriate for your intent.  That’s how billboards are created.  Even the M8 was capable of huge prints (search old threads).

Jeff

 

[arriestocracy]

Printing gurus used to say the best viewing distance of a printed photo is the diagonal distance of that print. My experience agrees with the conclusion.

My biggest print to date has been a picture taken with Fujifilm X-pro2 with 24mp at 84cm at the long end. The print was made at 180 ppi on fine art-grade paper and inkjet printer, the best quality available to me. If you view from a close distance, say a foot away from the print, yeah, I’ll say that’s probably the largest output dimension I’m comfortable with a 24mp photo. But at normal viewing distance, all the details you might want are there. Your preference may vary.

[cirke]

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On 12/3/2021 at 7:44 AM, arriestocracy said:

Printing gurus used to say the best viewing distance of a printed photo is the diagonal distance of that print.

And according to Kodak if you stay at the diagonal distance you only need 8mp  , for a 24cm print or 10 meters print it will be the same

[adan]

Yep, for sane use, prints can be 75 pixels per cm (180 ppi) and look fine. 80 cm x 53 cm overall print size from a "regular" M10 at ISOs below 1000-1600.

Heck, I saw very good Sebastiao Salgado Leica prints from Tri-X film that were 200 cm x 133 cm - in a gallery setting where one could stick one's nose on them (if not caught and ejected ).

[Herr Barnack]

On 12/4/2021 at 2:43 PM, adan said:

Yep, for sane use, prints can be 75 pixels per cm (180 ppi) and look fine. 80 cm x 53 cm overall print size from a "regular" M10 at ISOs below 1000-1600.

Heck, I saw very good Sebastiao Salgado Leica prints from Tri-X film that were 200 cm x 133 cm - in a gallery setting where one could stick one's nose on them (if not caught and ejected ).

78x52 inches from a 35mm negative?  With exhibit worthy image quality?? 

Makes me wonder what printing process was used.

 

 

 

[adan]

1 hour ago, Herr Barnack said:

78x52 inches from a 35mm negative?  With exhibit worthy image quality?? 

Makes me wonder what printing process was used.

Some people consider that "exhibit worthy quality" has more to do with the content and meaning of the image than the megapickles or the delicacy of the grain.

https://www.museedelhomme.fr/en/programme/expositions-galerie-lhomme/declarations-photo-exhibition-sebastiao-salgado-3975

Salgado is a photojournalist, who worked his way up through a couple of picture agencies in the 1970s (Sygma/Gamma) and then joined Magnum. He famously took some of the signature photos of the Ronald Reagan shooting in 1981.

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/sebastiao-salgado-would-be-assassin-of-president-reagan-after-failed-assassination-attempt-washington-d-dot-c

Which means he was used to the idea that his pictures would be originally distributed on newsprint (i.e. high-grade toilet paper), and thus had to depend on something other than "image quality" to do their job.

The prints I saw (in 1995 or so) were from Other Americas, his 1980s film-Leica documentary work in Latin America. They were grainy and gritty  - the same pix are grainy and gritty even at 6"x9" in the book. It is his style (I understand that he even processes his now-digital shots with a custom-engineered "Tri-X grain" simulation - for consistency with his film work.)

https://www.arcanabooks.com/catalog/book/024867/

I don't know what film processing was used (he used a Paris film lab, it seems). Did not look especially different from standard TX in D76 - slightly grainer, if anything.

I don't know which printing technology he used - I assumed massive horizontal enlarger exposing huge silver-paper sheets taped to a wall, through a big lens. Could have been early LightJet exposures, though, from a film scan. But a decade before inkjet got its act together.

Pretty standard gear for a decent commercial photo lab 1920-2000 (although Heiland Electronic has now got a new version)

https://heilandelectronic.de/enlarger/lang:en

Edited December 6, 2021 by adan

[Herr Barnack]

Quote

Some people consider that "exhibit worthy quality" has more to do with the content and meaning of the image than the megapickles or the delicacy of the grain...

...and some people consider all the above to be critical factors when making exhibit quality prints. 😎

Edited December 6, 2021 by Herr Barnack