"correct" print sizes for different formats.

[seany65]

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone has any info on the "correct" print sizes for various formats that cause the least amount of forced cropping?

I've not got a darkroom and I don't want the labs to scan the films onto cd, so that leaves me with basic prints that I can look at to decide if any are decent enough to enlarge further. I'm alright understanding 35mm film and 6x9, it's a ratio of 3x2, so 6x4 inch enprints will allow no cropping (other than the carrier frame), but I need a bit of help with:

110 film- is 5x4 inch the nearest to a "no-crop" size?

6x4.5 negs?

I'd also like to know the 'proper' enlargement sizes of those films? eg. a 35mm neg will enlarge onto 12x8 nicely, but would 6x4.5 go onto 10x8 nicley?

any help would be much appreciated.

 

[markjwyatt]

...

6x4.5 negs?
...t would 6x4.5 go onto 10x8 nicley?

...

6x4.5 = 3x4 --> ~ 8 x 10 2/3, maybe 8.5x11 is the closest "standard" size (slightly cropped-> should be 8.25 x 11 for no crop)

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

I wish I could help but I don't know the "normal" paper sizes where you live and so on. It's something I get a bit hot under the collar about because a few camera makers are also printer makers and they don't seem to understand at all.

Regards, David

 

[seany65]

Thanks for the replies.

@mark: The lab I've found don't do prints as small as 3x4 from 120, so it'd have to be 6x8 inches for "enprints" for 6x4.5 cm, which would cost £18.99. That is cheaper than max spielmans £30 charge, I didn't ask the print size for that price!

@David: I always thought the "normal" paper sizes were the same everywhere, and was originally based on the "full plate" size of 10x8? Of course, Ol' Ossie Barnack had to throw a spanner in the works with his 35mm 3:2 ratio negatives, lol. This made the paper makers to go 12x8 and 6x4. I never understood why anyone does prints at 7x5? The lab I've found do reprints at 7.5x5 and 9x6 so that's good.

It does seem odd that there does seem to be a disparity between negative sizes and some print sizes.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

It would also depend if your lab is making digital prints or analog prints ... the paper sizes differ.

 

[rfaspen]

I don't think I'm of much help here either. Like most others, I did 4x5 (and 5x5) proofs from 6x6 negatives. Often made 8x10, 5x7 cropped prints from 35 negs, and 8x12 if I wanted the "full frame". Those 6x7 negatives translated very nicely into 4x5 proofs.

But....prints from 110? -- Yikes!!! Um, maybe 1.5 x 2.25-inch prints? 😀🙄

I read somewhere that Leica was about to introduce a 110 camera sometime during the 70's/80's and a very astute employee gently suggested that it might not meet the standards expected of the company name [Leica]. The camera never went to market -- whew! disaster averted. That said, I still have a couple 110 cameras that were interesting designs. Of course, 110 has nothing on 16mm "micro" or "spy" cameras -- of which I have a few. I don't think I have saved a single print from those teeny tiny negatives.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

No darkroom, but prints? I also have no darkroom, but two enlargers. One for regular prints, another for larger prints, negatives.
I also have 175$ then new V500 scanner and it saves a lot of time and money to determine if I want to print or not.

But lately, I prefer 8x10. I look at my negatives with loupe and it is enough to decide if I wan't to print it or not. Then I do work prints.
I learned by studying Winogrand. And those who studied from him.
Basically, Winogrand has working prints (8x10 or larger) and only of requested he would do fine print.
For exhibition or for sale.

6x4 and 5x7 are miniature prints. They don't reveal all of the details even from 135 negative. 8x10 does. How I'm going to decide, show it to see if it worth to be printed fine if 4x6 and 5x7 are next to contact prints.

And here is no need to worry about crop with 8x10. I print full frame if has to be full frame.



As for which negative size, which print size... It is too individual.
I made prints from Minox to 4x5 and to me it is waste of time and money.
I have seen Winogrand, Kolar, Zimbel prints of different sizes. And to me they were good enough and they are from 135 film format.

 

[Godfrey]

Image area and paper size are different things, unless you want edge to edge borderless prints. Print (either darkroom or wet lab) with wide enough borders and you can make a good looking print from any format neg or digital onto any size paper.

For instance: Minox subminiature negatives are 8x11 mm format, very close to 3:4 proportion. I normally print them as about 6x8 inch image area onto 8.5x11 size paper. 35mm or FF digital are a 2:3 proportion format, so I print them 9x13.5 inch image area onto 11x17 inch paper.

For even borders, either crop the total image area or cut the paper to suit. But even borders are boring... 🙂

G

 

[seany65]

Thanks to all for the further replies.

I don't know whether they just use digital printing (which they must use for when customers upload pics to them for printing) or have analogue machines for printing from negs. I presume its just digital. On the other hand, they do say that the way they print causes a millimetre or two to be cut off the neg even with borderless prints, so that sounds like an analogue system to me.

Prints from 110 are quite decent when at 5x4, even from film that's been out of date for a decade, so I presume in date film could give better results.

A Leica 110? That would've been ridiculously expensive unless it was made by Minolta, even then it would've too dear for what it was. But with it being analogue, I doubt it would've dented their reputation too much, unlike the impression I get with some of their digital M's.

At present, I'm only interested in prints as "proofs" to see if the pic is good enough to enlarge to a size where it can be seen properly.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Normal enalrger negative holder doesn't cut the frame.
But I have seen it with scanner film holders.
Diffrence between darkroom print and else could be obvios, often, as well.

 

[David Hughes]

Thanks for the replies.

Snip...

@David: I always thought the "normal" paper sizes were the same everywhere, and was originally based on the "full plate" size of 10x8? Of course, Ol' Ossie Barnack had to throw a spanner in the works with his 35mm 3:2 ratio negatives, lol. This made the paper makers to go 12x8 and 6x4. I never understood why anyone does prints at 7x5? The lab I've found do reprints at 7.5x5 and 9x6 so that's good.

It does seem odd that there does seem to be a disparity between negative sizes and some print sizes.

What's really crazy is that the machines used in a lot of labs could turn out 5" x 7½" from my Contax Tix, which was APS, but not from 35mm film. And the technician from Fuji who was sorting it out one day couldn't say why...

And then there's A4 paper for digital colour printers which wastes a little but is nearly 8" x 12"...

Having said that I'll add that I once went through an old 1910-ish catalogue to sort out the paper sizes to make some mock contact prints (from 128 film) but could not see how most of the papers matched the negatives. So nothing has changed.

Regards, David

 

[Godfrey]

What's really crazy is that the machines used in a lot of labs could turn out 5" x 7½" from my Contax Tix, which was APS, but not from 35mm film. And the technician from Fuji who was sorting it out one day couldn't say why...

And then there's A4 paper for digital colour printers which wastes a little but is nearly 8" x 12"...

Having said that I'll add that I once went through an old 1910-ish catalogue to sort out the paper sizes to make some mock contact prints (from 128 film) but could not see how most of the papers matched the negatives. So nothing has changed.

Regards, David

I worked in a photofinishing lab for a couple of years in the early 1980s. The printing machines had a limited range of adjustability for enlargement, so how large or how small relative to the format you could get was a matter of what lenses and adjustments the shop felt were appropriate. Many shops did not adjust the machines themselves at all: they had service agreements with the vendor to do all of that.

Typically, from the manufacturer of the machine, the negative carriers were set to cut in about 1.5mm from the edges of the negative to ensure that you weren't printing the rebate (which most customers objected to and would typically cause a re-do on an order) and borderless prints cut in another half a mm or more. This made it much easier and faster for the machine operator to align the negative and not get any rebate or film edge in the print.

The ANSI sequence paper sizing standards (2 1/4 x 3 1/4, 3 1/4 x 4 1/4, 4x5, 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, etc) and the metric sequence paper standards (A2, A3, etc) have both been around a long time now. They've never been an exact match to most photographic negative formats: print sizing and negative format standards have two very different histories.

G

 

[narsuitus]

110 film- is 5x4 inch the nearest to a "no-crop" size?

110 film produces a 13x17mm image.

The 110 image has an aspect ratio of 1.308 (17 divided by 13 = 1.308)

The aspect ratio of the following standard print sizes are close to 1.308 but all require some cropping:
4x5 inches 1.25
8x10 inches 1.25
16x20 inches 1.25
11x14 inches 1.273
8.5 x 11 inches 1.294 (closest to a "no-crop" size)
5 x 7 inches 1.4
3.5 x 5 inches 1.429

 

[David Hughes]

Thank, Godfrey, that ties up with something I vaguely or wrongly remember to the effect that the view in SLR's was based on the frame of a slide or enlargement.


As for the DIN etc range of paper sizes there's also A3+ which is 13" x 19" and gives a 12x18 with a ½" margin all round. To add to the fun, 4 x 6 and A6 are used as though they are the same size and they just ain't but the paper works if you don't mind a fudge.


A5 is usefull for not quite 6" by about 8¼" and in borderless portrait mode gives a usefull blank margin at the bottom (like A4 in landscape mode) for captions, titles etc.


Having said all that I still wish they'd thought it through when digital cameras and inkjet printers were being planned. Especially when you consider the advantages for enlarging the A seies of papers. "Full Frame" of 24 by 34mm would fit the A papers nicely...


Regards, David

 

[FujiLove]

110 film produces a 13x17mm image.

The 110 image has an aspect ratio of 1.308 (17 divided by 13 = 1.308)

The aspect ratio of the following standard print sizes are close to 1.308 but all require some cropping:
4x5 inches 1.25
8x10 inches 1.25
16x20 inches 1.25
11x14 inches 1.273
8.5 x 11 inches 1.294 (closest to a "no-crop" size)
5 x 7 inches 1.4
3.5 x 5 inches 1.429

And when you're printing in the darkroom you need to factor in your easel's border. The smallest border on my easel is 4mm, which is significant when you print 4x5 or 5x7.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Doesn't selecting the aspect ratio that works best with the particular image being printed then trimming excess using a paper cutter eliminate all this discussion and result in better looking prints? Is all of this discussion just a solution looking for a problem? I have printed for a long time, first in a wet darkroom and now digitally and never worried about any of this.

 

[David Hughes]

Doesn't selecting the aspect ratio that works best with the particular image being printed then trimming excess using a paper cutter eliminate all this discussion and result in better looking prints? Is all of this discussion just a solution looking for a problem? I have printed for a long time, first in a wet darkroom and now digitally and never worried about any of this.

We are just approaching from another direction; I am trimming my picture, before printing, to match the paper and then I can fill the sheet; mostly because I like borderless prints.

So we are both doing a little extra work to match the paper's aspect ratio to the negative's aspect ratio.

Regards, David

 

[seany65]

Thanks for the further replies.

Ko.Fe.: I always believed negative carriers always cut a bit off and that's why slr makers viewfinders almost never showed 100% of the image, so that the user wouldn't include more in the pic than they were going to get!😱

narsuitus: So that's how you work out the ratios? I'd just been finding the nearest common denominator and then seeing how many there were in each side, eg. 110 is 17x13, and the 17 has 8x2mm and the 13 has 6x2mm and then reduced that to 4:3.😱

Thanks for the list of print sizes. I'd have said 5x7 was closer to 2:3 than 1.4, as if you just add 1/2in. to the 7, that would be 2x2.5ins x 3x2.5 ins, for an actual ratio of 2:3.😱

(Unless 1.4 is another way of saying "nearly 2:3).😱

Seems I know even less than I thought I did.😱