Large format still photography with the Red?

[Brandon Kraemer]

Anyone using the Red as a still camera to do large scale print work? What are the limitations in the printed resolution (dpi/ppi) when shooting 4K? Can frame grabs hold up to doing duratrans or billboard type printing?

Thanks in advance.

 

[michael zaletel]

Megan Fox Esquire JUNE 2009 Cover shot with Red:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/megan-fox-images-0609

-michael zaletel
(shooter)

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

Thanks for the replies. I am familiar with this shoot and the magazine cover, but I am wondering about large format print medium... where is the falloff for print resolution. Mag covers are "A5" I believe. What about formats much larger like printed banners, billboards, large duratrans (like you see in airports), etc...

I guess this is more of a question for folks used to doing this kind of stuff a lot. Any other ideas welcome.

bk

 

[Brent J. Craig]

Can frame grabs hold up to doing duratrans or billboard type printing?

The active part of the sensor is about 11.4 megapixels, although the optical low-pass filter may degrade the perceived sharpness to something less than that.

I have made translites from photos shot on a D70 (6 Megapixels). I up-rezed them by combining a few frames and pixel-shifting, then using Genuine Fractals to enlarge the file further. The quality was definitely good enough to use as a background for shooting.

As for billboards, have you ever seen billboard printing up close? They use huge globs of ink. They are probably around 25 dpi.

 

[Henk van den Doel]

We've had some frames printed two meters wide and these look really good.

 

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Hey Brandon,

I've blown up a shot to be printed on a 6 foot poster mounted onto board and it looks flawless. I can't even see the pixels. Billboards are really low-res because you can't tell the difference when you're driving 70mph looking at something.

I've done a few other print outs of some shots to smaller posters and they look great too.

PM me. I'll send you some grabs to play with.

 

[JosephArthur]

Anyone using the Red as a still camera to do large scale print work? What are the limitations in the printed resolution (dpi/ppi) when shooting 4K? Can frame grabs hold up to doing duratrans or billboard type printing?

Thanks in advance.

For large scale printing such as billboards, the resolution is not as important as the dot spread when printing. (use a loupe on a printed newspaper and you will see the color spread moiré pattern -happens intentially for large scale prints in the old days because of distance and eye perception).. Depending on certain types of media or paper on the billboard normally it really is not all that high resolution (like I'm really going to carry a loupe driving 90 mph on a freeway to check, but its true cause i used to be an offset printer before i became a graphic designer).

For postersize, I did a test print at Kinkos (even before my final decision on the Red camera). For a Architectural Plotter printer at Kinkos-fedex it will do greyscale, so no problem. For a medium scale poster 36x28 you cant tell too much. This is off a HP 900ps. - So I would say go ahead.

For a large wall size like a red carpet photo shoot backdrop (http://www.stepandrepeat.com) sure go for it.. cause you would be taking a picure of a printed picture.