Large Format Imaging, how large is large?

Orig­i­nal­ly Post­ed: Jan­u­ary 9, 2023
Updat­ed: May 8, 2023

Introduction

When I talk about ‘large for­mat’ imag­ing, I get numer­ous ques­tions about:

  • How Large is Large?

That prompt­ed me to write this post.

Let’s start by look­ing at three exam­ples pre­sentable via the web; all images range in the 250–600 Megapix­el size (I do have pic­tures that are 1–4 Gigapix­els in size; how­ev­er, these exam­ples are more aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleasing).

I include the com­plete image and slices of the image at 100% zoom to demon­strate the res­o­lu­tion of these large-for­mat photographs.

Haleakala Crater

This image is still a work in progress; how­ev­er, it illus­trates the size of the picture.

The first image is the pho­to­graph zoomed all the way out to see the entire scene.

Image Details:

  • 66 frames over 3 rows
  • Stitched size of 34,111 x 13,494 pix­els or 460 Megapixels
  • Large enough that print­ing with a stan­dard out­put of 300DPI, the print will mea­sure 113 x 45 inch­es (big enough to print an awe­some print on my Epson 9900).

The 2nd image (big yel­low box) is a sam­ple of the image at 50% zoom.

This image is still a work in progress; how­ev­er, it illus­trates the size of the image.  The first image is the pho­to­graph zoomed all the way out to see the entire scene.

Image Details:

  • 66 frames over 3 rows
  • Stitched size of 34,111 x 13,494 pix­els or 460 Megapixels
  • Large enough that print­ing with a com­mon out­put of 300DPI, the print will mea­sure 113 x 45 inch­es (big enough to print an awe­some print on my Epson 9900).

The 2nd image (big yel­low box) is a sam­ple of the image at 50% zoom.

The final 2 images are the source file’s 1:1 (100%) zooms.

Notice the ful­ly bloom­ing Sil­ver­Sword in the 1st image? and the hik­ers tak­ing a break in the 2nd image?

When I print­ed this image orig­i­nal­ly on a 24-inch Epson the print was 24 x 60 inch­es @ 570DPI source out­put, and I had to place my face sev­er­al inch­es from the sur­face to see the hik­ers and the SilverSword.

Click on the images to see them larg­er in the light­box.  Due to com­pres­sion for the web­site, they are not as sharp as the soure images, how­ev­er they con­vey the details in mas­ter image.

The Beehive — Winter

As with many of my large for­mat images, the Bee­hive in Win­ter is high res­o­lu­tion enough to yield sev­er­al sur­pris­es when view­ing it at full res­o­lu­tion for the first time.

The full-width image.

Now, the obser­va­tion hut at the top of the mountain.

I have hiked to this hut numer­ous times, and the view from the top of the moun­tain is spectacular.

That said, I was sur­prised when I saw it in this image. I would nev­er have imag­ined cap­tur­ing enough detail to resolve peo­ple stand­ing in the hut (assum­ing they were there on this cold and snowy day).

Canadian Pond Hockey

Final­ly, the best exam­ple is one of my favourites.

Cana­di­an Pond Hock­ey is a high-res­o­lu­tion, large-for­mat image tak­en with my Gigapan.

As with the oth­er exam­ples, the clar­i­ty of this image when print­ed at 44 x 110 inch­es, even with your face almost touch­ing the print, is impres­sive, some­thing that can­not be gen­uine­ly real­ized on the web.

Full-width image.

Conclusion

I hope this post helps demon­strate the over­all res­o­lu­tion of these large-for­mat images and aids in answer­ing how large is large.

I can state with fact that hav­ing print­ed many of these images in 24 x 65 inch­es and 44 x 110+ inch­es fine art prints; the web­site can­not do jus­tice to the high res­o­lu­tion that the source images capture.

That said, I need to note that I pur­sue high-res­o­lu­tion pho­tog­ra­phy from a fine art point of view and not from a “tech­ni­cal arms race” to make the high-res­o­lu­tion image pos­si­ble for high-res­o­lu­tion sake.

I may be a geek at heart; how­ev­er, the artist in me takes over when I chase these high-res­o­lu­tion images.

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