Digital BW, The Print

on 8/2/01 11:26 PM, mwesley250@... at mwesley250@...
wrote:

> I have tried some 360's with a digital camera and they are really
> cool until I printed them out on an 8.5 X 11 sheet. BIG let down.
> Even going up to 13 X 19 would do very little good.
> 
> Inkjets are perfect for this if you have the right paper. There is no
> good way to easily do this in the darkroom. How long is a 35mm Spin
> Shot neg?

About 7 or 8 inches I think.

Yes, the panos don't work at all well at small sizes. To a certain extent
wider the lens the easier they are to print because the aspect ratio of a
360 shot is proportional to focal length. A 360 shot with a 35 is long and
thin, with a 17 it is not quite so long and thin but the perspective is
extreme, which is fine for some subjects.

> This is on my to do list. I don't know if my computer could handle it
> but I would like to try stitching some 85MB scans of 6X7 negs. What
> software are you using for your stiching?

I was fantasizing about stitching together 4x5 negs shot with a 90mm lens.
You would need about nine or ten for a 360 degree panorama. You could then,
with current technology, output a 2' x 12' print of astounding resolution.
The file size would be scary of course... 200 Mb for a flat 8-bit grayscale,
600 Mb for color... but by no means impossible to handle.

Even a print half this size would be amazing with 4x5 quality.

I have been experimenting with various kinds of software. The only method
that is really acceptable IMO is to use Helmut Dersch's panotools to do all
the optimisation and remapping, output tiffs and layer these together
manually in Photoshop. There are no compromises with this method, and it can
handle anything you throw at it.
-- 
John Brownlow

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com

ICQ: 109343205