Prints from M8....

B

BigSteveG

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So what are larger prints that M8 owners have made (or had made) and at what ISO are they effective? The reason I bring this up is that my biggest gripe against digital is that people tend not to print the images. They end up sitting on a hard drive or even worse, get trashed.
 
I'm glad to hear people are making large prints shot w/ this camera. I don't really care to invest in an expensive printer. But every time I see nice B&W shot taken w/ M8 the gas starts welling up inside. There was a great shot today in the "featured" pics. Gorgeous child in magical lighting. That member really used his M8 in a very proper way. I hope he made nice large prints of that shot.
 
I just got my M8 today - so far, it's an interesting camera - I would think, if you are using high quality lenses, you can get some pretty big prints from this camera. 12x18 should be a no brainer; and you could go to 24x36 - as long as the noise is low (i.e. low ISO) and you're using a lens with good resolving power.

Cheers,
Dave
 
I've been printing 16x24 (Epson 7800) from my M8 which barely pushes the limit of this camera (lens is a ZM 35/2 Biogon). No hint of degradation at this image size. I have to agree with Dave based upon my 2-week experience with the M8 and around a dozen prints, 24x36 should be no problem.

What I have found is that there is a definite advantage to up-rezzing in C1 Pro compared to PS Bicubic Smoother 10% step interpolation. So if a priori you know you are going to rip a big print, I would recommend up-rezzing in the RAW processor. I have not yet tried GF so would be interested if anyone has compared the three techniques (i.e. GF vs RAW vs PS BCS 10% increments)
 
I am using an Epson R2400 and proof at 6x9, final prints at 11x4, but often with a generous boarder. I would love to go larger and have never really taxed the M8's capabilities in this regard. I view printing as critically important as I have little confidence in the long term longevity of my 101010101001001 ones and zeros. I know all the arguments and do back-up pretty faithfully to multiple hard-drives, but the tendency of digital to fail utterly when it does fail has me spooked. Add on top of that proprietary RAW formats, tiny companies in shifting technological landscapes . . . give me pigment (or silver halides) on a nice firm paper base any day. My pitiful mewlings as a college student 20 years ago are in an impossible-to-read format, stored on an obsolete-sized floppy somewhere . . . thank god. But for current photo output will mainly have meaning when seen from the future if you know what I mean.

Ben Marks
 
I have been printing 30x40's from my m8 + 35mm summarit on our Durst Thetas. They are simply amazing, both color and B&W.

Too much fun!

Jeff
 
Benjamin Marks said:
My pitiful mewlings as a college student 20 years ago are in an impossible-to-read format, stored on an obsolete-sized floppy somewhere . . . thank god. But for current photo output will mainly have meaning when seen from the future if you know what I mean.

Ben Marks
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True, but this is mainly because you probably didn't deem them worth of being kept up to date. You could have saved them in a different format as time went by, taking them off floppies when you last had a floppy-equipped computer, and so on. I trust that as time goes by, we will have options to batch save our RAWs and .psd in the newer-whatever, it will just be a matter of will; plus, even if some RAW formats might disappear, in the ever-fast moving digital world, I trust Adobe to be around for a long time - I think .psd, dng, TIFF, will be around for quite a while. Maybe more than I will :D

Nikon (the other digital I use besides M8) has had its RAW converters backward-compatible so far and opening all NEFs from current and past cameras, and I figure it will keep doing so; ACR reads pretty much anything; Adobe DNG converter converts pretty much anything as well. Let's not forget that negatives and prints are not indestructible and eternal as well, and are "less backup-able" than digital too. I trust (maybe too optimistically) that with a wise backup policy (off-site multiple backups, for instance) and a wise RAW update policy if and when needed, my digital pics will be around for quite some time. Now, wether that would be worth or not, is a completely different matter... :D
 
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You touched on a good point here Vieri; one thing most forget when comparing archive longevity is that although film (most likely -we dont know yet) outlasts digital burns, it is at a disadvantage: digital medium copies without any loss whatsoever. Film does not. So if you keep saving your archived every 10 years or so, you will outlast the original film comparatively.
As a storage format, it is superior in that respect...never mind also being able to store the archives in more than one location (home, office etc.)
 
georgef said:
You touched on a good point here Vieri; one thing most forget when comparing archive longevity is that although film (most likely -we dont know yet) outlasts digital burns, it is at a disadvantage: digital medium copies without any loss whatsoever. Film does not. So if you keep saving your archived every 10 years or so, you will outlast the original film comparatively.
As a storage format, it is superior in that respect...never mind also being able to store the archives in more than one location (home, office etc.)
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This might have some truth in this, but we have some pretty good prints from the early 1900's. Are you confident our digital files will survive that long? I am not! Much as I love digital I still shoot black and white film pretty much every month as a record of my growing children. I suppose if one really wanted to be sure then one could digitally scan film as well!

Richard
 
Congrats to Dave on his new tool. I'm thinking the Konica Hexanon lineup would be a lot fun w/ the M8. Are there any examples of this proposed mating of titans? It has me intrigued. I'm just trying not to obsess on it.
 
I complete believe it! 30x40's hold up just fine. I have had way too much fun with the camera and the printers. They print at a native 254DPI, but send files with around 150DPI do great.
 
BigSteveG said:
Congrats to Dave on his new tool. I'm thinking the Konica Hexanon lineup would be a lot fun w/ the M8. Are there any examples of this proposed mating of titans? It has me intrigued. I'm just trying not to obsess on it.
Click to expand...

When I was looking for a 28 mm lens, I compared the Konica 28 to the new 28 Elmarit Asph. The Konica was not even close in image quality, resolution, contrast, or saturation. could have saved a bundle, but I went to the Leica lens instead. the 28 Elmarit Asph is a fantastic lens in my book, and the price is right also.

Gene
 
Big prints

Big prints

A 10 meg. camera with a Leica lens should be able to make a 30 in. print. This is a 16 x 20 print, shot at 640, low light.
2417408937_8b1a4af218.jpg
 
success 12x18's from 640 and 1250 iso on some of that fancy pantsy epson exhibition paper...and they look pretty decent.
 
For the Leica day about a month ago, Dale Labs (my local Leica dealer and good friend) printed a few 30"x40"s... They ranged from ISO 160 to 1250 and I loved how they turned out... Maybe someone that attended can chime in.

Cheers,
 
this is all highly speculative, I have seen 35mm scans that were blown up 1.5x1 meter and was perfectly fine for the application. That said when I made a few prints from shots I took with an m8 and zeiss 50 planar I was a little disappointed to see the 5D and canon 50 1.4 easily keeping pace if not surpassing it in some areas. This is one of the biggest things that has held me back on this camera, I print large a lot, 40x30, 50x50 inch exhibition quality and so on. To see the wonderful camera and stunning lens being kept pace with 300 and a bit dollars worth of plastic from canon and a 5D which is not exactly astronomical in price anymore.....well....we buy leicas with our hearts and canon's with our heads. Regardless of all that, good enough for 99% of us here is the answer.
 
Avotius, if you are printing that large, you really need a Mamiya 7, or better yet, a Fotoman. I've recently been playing with an IQSmart 3 and it is the equal of a good drum scan with significantly less hassle.

I have recently been using my Arca Swiss and 90/4.5 Grandagon-N for street work. It is amazing....people certainly take notice, but seem to care less. I simply pick my "supporting street elements" and wait for something interesting to happen. I've had some people so intrigued with the "old style" camera, they have asked for their picture to be taken. Mind you, shooting 4x5 street has it's drawbacks. When your under the dark cloth, you're at the mercy of every nut job out there. So when working the view camera, my wife accompanies me for security reasons.
 
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