Film speed and Xpan

MP Guy

Just another face in the crowd
Staff member
Local time
12:27 AM
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
2,702
I have noticed quite a few people are shooting 400 + with their xpans. I rarely shoot high speed film and was wondering how large you can elnlarge your xpan shots before seeing too much grain?
 
400 asa

400 asa

Hi Jorge,
I am new to the forum but I thought I would reply to your posting.
I have always used Neopan 400 and like you I scan on a Multi - Pro.
Last year I had an exhibition with 300x900(1000)mm prints produced on 2100 and the quality was excellent.
I find I use 400 to compensate for the slow lenses ( I use 30/45/90 ).
I have been in negotiation with Hasselblad about a book I am working on and have asked the questions several times - can we have a faster lens, can we have a longer lens and the biggy can we have a digital body or back.
Personaly I the the Mk 2 was a step towards the D goal and with the Fuji technology available it should not be a problem.
Maybe 2 chips or1 chip with lens extension which would gives us a 135 out of the 90 and then a wider lens to cover the chip..
I have used the x since the begining of 2000 and changed from Leica to them.
Problems - I had a problem with film feed on my first body ( sorted) and the rangefinder has gone out twice which maybe due to my handling.
I like the unclutered viefinder and I keep the frame set 35 and expand my view as and when.
I also use Voightlander T which is a small marvel - seperate very bright viefinder, seperate long base rangefinder, acurate metering and so cheap (£90) its criminal. I only have 2 lenses the 12mm and a 35 pancake.
On the oposite scale i use 2 DSLRS.
I work commercialy but mainly on my own exhibition work.
Support kit is 3 Apples Macs, Epson 2100/1160/1290/c80, Epson 3200 scanner. Scan Multi Pro and other bits.
Well I have rambled on enough - Great forum
All the best
David
 
Re: 400 asa

Re: 400 asa

David said:
Hi Jorge,
I have been in negotiation with Hasselblad about a book I am working on and have asked the questions several times - can we have a faster lens, can we have a longer lens and the biggy can we have a digital body or back.

So what is your take on a Digi back or Digital Xpan?
 
With 400 I routinely get 20x24 prints, which are use for double pages on wedding albums, and they look very nice, that however may depend on your particular definition of "too much grain", anything smaller than that looks great.

With NPZ you can also blow them to that size but you start seing the grain, with 3200 rated at 1250 (normal for me) then you have to like the grain look.

Digital Xpan?

That will be an H5 with a very wide angle :D
 
My questions to HB were never answered and my thoughts/speculations are in a great part desire based on the movements with Epson Cosina/Voigtlander and the forthcomming Leica digital movements.
The link to Fuji aka the H1 and firstly the xpan would perhaps logicaly spawn a dxpan and I am sure the research people in both companies have a weather eye on decling stills cameras sales, decling film sales and the progression in quality of the D products.
20 years ago I used a Quantel paintbox and laser drum scanner costing well over £250.000 ($450,000 ) to produce results I now produce on an Apple Mac/Minolta Scan Multi Pro costing under £3000 ($5500).
Thats progression.
David
 
Well as you probably know you can enlarge up to almost three times more than you would with a 35mm - because of the neg size...so I suppose the answer to your question is dependant on what you mean by 'grain'. Personally grain is an integral part of the image structure for me- a variable if you like sometimes you want little or grain sometimes you want heaps...If I want no grain I use my 1DS.
 
Might be useful to just go by comparative enlargment size... Considering the quality of an 8x12 print from standard 35mm, you'd get the same quality from an XPan at 8x21.7
 
Although I'm not an XPan user, I do MF 6x6 at 400ISO exclusively. I find that even parorama format crops from these (approximately same dimensions as XPan neg) give the same sense of tonality. So I'd figure that for a full size XPan neg 400ISO would work well.

I'd be hesitant though to use 400ISO if you frequently switch between panorama and regular (36x24) sized negs. There are some very nice 160ISO films that fill the gap between 100 and 400 ISO.
 
Back
Top