Best camera for large scale prints

[Kmanl]

Hi there, just wondering if anyone had any suggestions of the best cameras for large scale prints. I am looking a shooting and printing large prints around 1m x1m for examples sake. Thanks

 

[kli]

Hasseblad X1D.

You may want to state a budget and overall usage if you want useful recommendations.

 

[ESfishdoc]

Hi there, just wondering if anyone had any suggestions of the best cameras for large scale prints. I am looking a shooting and printing large prints around 1m x1m for examples sake. Thanks

Good - Better - Best

Best: Medium format as mentioned above.. the Phase One System comes to mind:

Applications

Discover Phase One's suite of geospatial applications, providing advanced tools for accurate mapping and surveying to enhance your projects.

www.phaseone.com

50K plus should get you right in the "best".

If you really didn't mean the best...

Better : Full frame DSLR... camera and lens(es) can be had for say 3-5K depending on what you settle for.

Good: Any high quality camera: If you saw the billboard size i phone photographs you know that with the right software and printer any size photo can be brought up a huge size.

An Epson P8000 can print your 1m X 1m images for 5K.

Lots of options.

Richard

 

[tedolf]

About 16mp. Once you hit that you are pretty much printing at one pixel per print dot at standard printing resolutions for various size prints.

Look at an advertisement on the side of a bus. Get up close and you can see the dots. Of course, no one looks at the side of a bus that way. They normally stand back about 1.5 x the diagonal dimension of the print. So, printing resolution usually drops as prints get larger than about 11" x 14".

Notice that 16mp has nothing to do with the size of the sensor or the format.

tEdolph

 

[PhotoTeach2]

First of all 300dpi is consider the highest resolution the eye can resolve so that is the "goal".

So to get 300dpi @ 1m x 1m ... you would need about 116mpx.

So a Sony A7RII or MF (Hasselblad) could be options if you have lots of money and unlimited budget.

HOWEVER ... That is not necessary ...

There is an opinion that if you can produce 300dpi on 8"x10" you can produce ANY size because larger prints are not "closely" viewed.

And you can do 300dpi from 8mpx.

So anything higher than 8mpx can work, (as the example above about "buses" or "billboards" that can look terrible viewed close-up, but normally viewed from greater distances.

So what you really need depends on your viewing distance.

 

[Janoch]

Pffft... just get as many pixels, as you can afford!

Can't really have too many...

 

[tedolf]

Pffft... just get as many pixels, as you can afford!

Can't really have too many...

Too many pixels on a too small substrate reduces high ISO performance. There is a balance between pixel density, resolution and high ISO performance.

That is why 14mp 1/2.3" sensors look so bad over ISO 400.

Tedolph

 

[Janoch]

Isn't it an awful long time ago since 14 million pixels were considered being "many"?

I was more in the line of 36 to +50 Mp, which automatically excludes the smallest sensors... if you go for the newest IQ 100 Mp, it has a pixel sensity a'la the D800.

Which isn't the worst sensor for printing big, btw.... imho and all that...

 

[FingerPainter]

If these prints will be viewed from no closer than the diagonal dimension of the print (about 1.4m), than 16MP should be sufficient. More MP would not produce worse quality, but might not be needed and will require more memory storage, and take longer to process or transmit.

If they are going to be viewed from 20 - 30 cm away, e.g. like a map, then get the most MP you can afford.

In between those two extremes, 24MP might be good for a half meter minimum viewing distance

 

[donaldsc]

Toyo-View 8x10 810MII Folding Metal Field Camera


Don

 

[PhotoTeach2]

Isn't it an awful long time ago since 14 million pixels were considered being "many"?

I was more in the line of 36 to +50 Mp, which automatically excludes the smallest sensors... if you go for the newest IQ 100 Mp, it has a pixel sensity a'la the D800.

Which isn't the worst sensor for printing big, btw.... imho and all that...

Back in the '80's/'90's, was printing 20"x30" posters from Water Ski Championships and Auto-Shows.

I printed from 35mm film ... (Fuji REALA) ... and estimated that it would take 16mpx to equal them.

At the time, ('94), digital was still only about 300kpx, (.3mpx), and I seriously if digital technology could EVER advance to 16mpx. (I "doubted" it.)

So my intention then was NOT to move into digital until that (illusionary and un-imaginary) 16mpx was ever reached.

Well, the first 16mpx was $16,000 so I lowered my acceptance and bought my first digital @ 8mpx, (Konica-Minolta A2).

As I had earlier explained above ... I calculated the 8mpx could produce 300dpi @ 8"x10" and thus bigger posters would be viewed at greater distances.

 

[SMOKENMIRRORS]

Hi there, just wondering if anyone had any suggestions of the best cameras for large scale prints. I am looking a shooting and printing large prints around 1m x1m for examples sake. Thanks

Take a look at this camera, I'm in a similar situation but need a camera that does more than just for prints but if I only needed a camera for prints this is what I would buy. No expert like some of these members here but have been researching for a couple months. I am sure there are other capable cameras in other brands but I already have some of Canon L glass so staying with the brand.

The price on this camera is really great for what you are getting for your intended purposes. Next Canon Camera for that imo would be a 5DMark4 or an R5, jmo, again just talking Canon brand.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1119027-REG/canon_0582c002_eos_5ds_r_dslr.html

 

[D Cox]

I think anything with 24 Megapixels or more will be good enough, even an entry model such as the Sony A6100 or A6000, provided you use a first class lens at a medium aperture.

Your technique has to be very good too, of course.

 

[stretchman]

My guess is that after 4 years the O.P. has found the right camera. Probably, if the O.P. is like the rest of us, they updated at least once to an even newer camera.

 

[Graham Meale]

I have on my wall three large prints (6 by 9 decimetres) that I took in 2004 on a six megapixel camera. They're perfectly sharp — although I confess I upsampled and performed a little chicanery before printing.

I'm not suggesting you plump for six megapixels ... just sayin'.

But I've no doubt that any modern camera with twenty megapixels or more would do the job.

Edit: just saw the original date of this thread. Why do people exhume old threads?!

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