Need to make large print (8' x 3')

[Zach23]

Ok so I somehow got this job that might be a little over my head but I'm going to kill it anyways!!!! :thumb

The need it to make a print for outside a Venue of about 8ft by 3ft at its largest. I think I can go down to 150 dpi but would prefer to keep it as high as possible. For gear I have 30ds and know they aren't going to cut it. Looking at renting a 5 d mark 2 (21mp) but by my calculations the biggest that will give me is about 3.5 feet on its longest side. I started researching medium and large format cameras but don't know a whole lot about them. The other thing is the shots will be live concerts so I will not have the luxury of a controlled environment. Which makes shooting a large format extremely difficult if not impossible. I have a budget and can pretty much get whatever I need however I would really like to stick to the 5d if possible as I am familiar with canon and have the lenses already. Does anyone have any recomendations on gear or editing techniques or printing to up res to accomplish this?

Thanks so much!
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[mercphoto]

Ok so I somehow got this job that might be a little over my head but I'm going to kill it anyways!!!! :thumb

The need it to make a print for outside a Venue of about 8ft by 3ft at its largest. I think I can go down to 150 dpi but would prefer to keep it as high as possible. For gear I have 30ds and know they aren't going to cut it. Looking at renting a 5 d mark 2 (21mp) but by my calculations the biggest that will give me is about 3.5 feet on its longest side. I started researching medium and large format cameras but don't know a whole lot about them. The other thing is the shots will be live concerts so I will not have the luxury of a controlled environment. Which makes shooting a large format extremely difficult if not impossible. I have a budget and can pretty much get whatever I need however I would really like to stick to the 5d if possible as I am familiar with canon and have the lenses already. Does anyone have any recomendations on gear or editing techniques or printing to up res to accomplish this?

Thanks so much!
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What is the viewing distance? And is this really going to be a print? As in on photo quality paper? Or is this going to be on a vinyl banner? I've done something even larger than this on a vinyl banner with an average viewing distance greater than 20 feet with 8MP images. I did up-rez within Photoshop to about 200dpi but obviously that's not the same as starting with tons of pixels.

I wouldn't worry if I was you. Nobody will be close enough to an image of that size to peep the pixels.

[ziggy53]

I moved this to Technique because this is really about the qualities needed to print large images.

Zach, are you saying that you are being asked to document live concerts with instantaneous captures and they wish to display these images at 8ft x 3ft?

Do you have a definitive contract stipulating the requirements and expectations? If so, what are those requirements and expectations?

[JohnBiggs]

Genuine Fractals can handle this. However they recommend 100dpi for Event Signs.

Scroll down this page for a cool size calculator. There is an Event Sign Button to recalc at 100DPI

http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2

[pathfinder]

A 30D is an 8.2 Mpxl camera (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/CanonEOS30D/page2.asp) with 3504 by 2336 image size in pixels.

At 100 ppi for an event sign , 8 feet x 12 in/ft x 100 pixels /inch = 9600 pixels

9600 / 3504 original pixels = 2.75 times the original image size. This is easily doable with Genuine Fractals 6 if the original pixels are first class.


At 300 ppi for a fine art image, 8 feet x 12 in/foot x 300 pixels/inch = 28,800 pixels

28,800 pixels/ 3504 = 8.22 times the original image file - this gets harder to do unless the original file is stunningly perfect, and even then probably won't fly.


Since the ]5DMkII files (http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08091705canon_5dmarkII.asp) are 5616 x 3744 they would need uprezzing also.


Genuine Fractals has a graphic calculator on this page (http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2) as John linked above!