35mm print sizes

Ben johns

Ben johns

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ive been scanning 35mm negatives at 4800 dpi which gives me a 28megapixel file mainly so I have as big a file as i can, i wont print that big, its more so i only have to scan once. Whats the biggest print that 35mm can be printed at/highest dpi to scan 35mm? Zooming into the files they do lose resolution so they obviously cant be printed as if they are 28megapixel. Im only asking as i uploaded one file to ilford and the website said i could print it at 30"x30" which seems way too big to me, ive uploaded files from my a6000 and it wouldnt let it go as high as that. So im thinking that scanning at 4800 dpi is producing a file that technically is 28megapixel but doesnt have the resolution of a 28megapixel file.
 
Depends on the viewing distance as you could have a massive poster on the side of the road viewed at a distance.....but with a very good home scanner and for 35mm you should get a very good print at 12 X 16" that would still look good viewed from a close distance.
 
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excalibur2 said:
Depends on the viewing distance as you could have a massive poster on the side of the road viewed at a distance.....but with a good home scanner and for 35mm you should get a very good print at 12 X 16" that would still look good viewed from a close distance.
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Cheers man. I've got a v550, scans look good just not printed yet. The files are a bit grainy but I did some pp to darken the skies and stuff, filters for the future I think
 
Ben johns said:
ive been scanning 35mm negatives at 4800 dpi which gives me a 28megapixel file mainly so I have as big a file as i can, i wont print that big, its more so i only have to scan once. Whats the biggest print that 35mm can be printed at/highest dpi to scan 35mm? Zooming into the files they do lose resolution so they obviously cant be printed as if they are 28megapixel. Im only asking as i uploaded one file to ilford and the website said i could print it at 30"x30" which seems way too big to me, ive uploaded files from my a6000 and it wouldnt let it go as high as that. So im thinking that scanning at 4800 dpi is producing a file that technically is 28megapixel but doesnt have the resolution of a 28megapixel file.
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In general scanners advertise high dpi measurements that the optics can't really deliver. You didn't say what scanner it was, so it's hard to judge. This site: http://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html has reviews of many or most scanners that use the USAF target to work out the actual resolution in terms of lines resolved. So for example, I have a Plustek 7500i, and they measure an effective resolution of 3500 dpi, but to get that you have to scan at 7200 dpi and accept the extra time and bloated files that go with it. An Epson V600 they claim an effective resolution of 1560 dpi, scanned at 6400dpi! So you can easily get a lot of bloat in your files

In practice, if you scan at around 2400 dpi you'll get files that will print very nicely at A4-ish, and if you scan at 3600 dpi they will look good at A3-ish, depending on viewing distance of course. If I really like an image I will use multiscan or scan at a higher resolution and downsample. To get anything more than A3, or to really inspect a print closely, I think you'd want a wet-mounted drum scan, and you're unlikely to want to pay for that for all frames. Ergo, for best results you'll probably end up scanning a few frames more than once....
 
ChrisR said:
In general scanners advertise high dpi measurements that the optics can't really deliver. You didn't say what scanner it was, so it's hard to judge. This site: http://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html has reviews of many or most scanners that use the USAF target to work out the actual resolution in terms of lines resolved. So for example, I have a Plustek 7500i, and they measure an effective resolution of 3500 dpi, but to get that you have to scan at 7200 dpi and accept the extra time and bloated files that go with it. An Epson V600 they claim an effective resolution of 1560 dpi, scanned at 6400dpi! So you can easily get a lot of bloat in your files

In practice, if you scan at around 2400 dpi you'll get files that will print very nicely at A4-ish, and if you scan at 3600 dpi they will look good at A3-ish, depending on viewing distance of course. If I really like an image I will use multiscan or scan at a higher resolution and downsample. To get anything more than A3, or to really inspect a print closely, I think you'd want a wet-mounted drum scan, and you're unlikely to want to pay for that for all frames. Ergo, for best results you'll probably end up scanning a few frames more than once....
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It's a v550
 
I've done a few A3 35mm and I reckon that's close to its limit for a print hanging on the wall 2m away.
6x6 walks it but with 35 you're at a point where you're starting to question the quality of your equipment, your shooting technique and other small variables that might require investigation.
For me, that's where I draw the line, if I want big without penny pinching, its MF.
I should add, this is optical printing, this is just a rule of thumb, there are a million and one factors to consider but for the sake of argument I'm just gonna say if an optical print is getting to the of its tether at A3, I don't think your gonna do much better than that with any scan resolution...:)
 
Well I ordered a 10"X12" from ilford just a tester, we shall see how it comes out
 
Ben johns said:
So does scanning at a higher dpi effect the image in a bad way?
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Shouldn't do as all the software is doing is bunching the pixels closer together so the print looks better....but as mentioned best results from 35mm would be from a VG camera lens and film, although anything goes if you just like the shot sorta like comparing Rembrandt to Cezanne.
 
FishyFish said:
Not "bad" per se, but if the detail isn't there in the negatives then you're getting a much bigger file for no improvement in quality.
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Right I see, so 4800 could be overkill? The only reason I ask is that some photo sites tell you if the photo is too small for. I don't want to "trick" the site by making a file that appears to have higher megapixel than it actually does and getting a low res print back.
 
Ben johns said:
Right I see, so 4800 could be overkill? The only reason I ask is that some photo sites tell you if the photo is too small for. I don't want to "trick" the site by making a file that appears to have higher megapixel than it actually does and getting a low res print back.
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Well you have a set system V550, vg camera lens and film so you can fairly cheaply find what's best for you with your system...I keep meaning to use this place for large prints as they seem very cheap (link below) dunno about Asda prices but they can print up to 20" X 30"
Forgot to mention that I've used them twice for 6" X 4" as they have special offers now and again e.g.100 for £5 plus another 100 for free..and I was pleased with the results..sent high scan jpgs
 
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excalibur2 said:
Well you have a set system V550, vg camera lens and film so you can fairly cheaply find what's best for you with your system...I keep meaning to use this place for prints as they seem very cheap (link below) dunno about Asda prices but they can print up to 20" X 30"
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That is cheap. I did order a 10"x12" print last night from ilford just to have a look. I can't see myself going bigger than that with film. I suppose the film type also effects the size you can do. The one I just got developed was that ilford 400 film that can be developed using c41 so I don't know if that's particularly 'high res'. I have their 50 speed film that I want to try soon
 
Ben johns said:
That is cheap. I did order a 10"x12" print last night from ilford just to have a look. I can't see myself going bigger than that with film. I suppose the film type also effects the size you can do. The one I just got developed was that ilford 400 film that can be developed using c41 so I don't know if that's particularly 'high res'. I have their 50 speed film that I want to try soon
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Its tricky to compare xp2 to "traditional" b&w films due to the nature of the chemistry. Proper B&W film has actual grains of silver developed into the emulsion whilst xp2 has tiny blobs of black dye, so when you enlarge it the grains of silver will become more obvious but will retain a crisp look whilst c41 won't look so grainy but will start to look more.... mushy.
 
Ben johns said:
That is cheap. I did order a 10"x12" print last night from ilford just to have a look. I can't see myself going bigger than that with film. I suppose the film type also effects the size you can do. The one I just got developed was that ilford 400 film that can be developed using c41 so I don't know if that's particularly 'high res'. I have their 50 speed film that I want to try soon
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Depends what you like, I'm sure some guys here would like a 20 X 30" print with loads of grain showing, but might not look so good for a pretty girl's face for portraiture.....it would be interesting to see a 12 X 16" print with Kodak's Ektar
 
steveo_mcg said:
Its tricky to compare xp2 to "traditional" b&w films due to the nature of the chemistry. Proper B&W film has actual grains of silver developed into the emulsion whilst xp2 has tiny blobs of black dye, so when you enlarge it the grains of silver will become more obvious but will retain a crisp look whilst c41 won't look so grainy but will start to look more.... mushy.
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Makes sense. I did scan some delta 3200 and it looked decent; very grainy but decent
 
Ben johns said:
What's the biggest print that 35mm can be printed at/highest dpi to scan 35mm?
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I don't think that there is an objective answer to this. 35mm is the smallest film size in common use, and that's another way of saying that it's the one that requires the most enlargement to make any size of print. Clearly, if you make a print 4 feet by 6 feet and look at it from a normal viewing distance (and to me, that's about a foot - I don't hold a broadsheet newspaper further away to read than a tabloid just because the page size is bigger) then it won't look sharp or detailed. A contact print at 1 inch by 1.5 inches will. At some point in between the print will fail to meet your standards. I've been using 35mm since the 1960s, and only once or twice have I managed a 10"x8" print that didn't disappoint me. Never larger. That's A4 maximum. Others will have different views - I did say that the answer wasn't objective. Oddly enough, I think that my scans of 35mm negatives might be printable slightly larger, and I would always get away with A4. That's why I don't use 35mm anymore...

Conventional wisdom has it that you calculate the maximum print size by assuming that you need 300 pixels per inch, so a 3000x4500 pixel file would go to 10" by 15" in the print. This is based on the visual accuity of the human eye. While true that this represents the smallest detail that we can resolve, it's also true that a print with even smaller detail than this limit will look sharper - it's a different effect of how our eyes work.

It seems to be the case that if you want to extract the maximum resolution that you can from your scanner which appears to be always less than the maker's claims, then you need to scan at a higher resolution than the "true" maximum to achieve it. Scanners, like digital cameras, will produce noise; some software (I use VueScan) will "interpolate down" to reduce file size and noise, so "over scanning" has two benefits to offset against the extra time it takes.

As Steven says above, conventional black and white film gives a negative of silver grains and XP2 and colour films give a dye based image. I can't comment on XP2 as I've never used it, but colour negative film is noticeably less sharp than black and white (comparing them with 6x7 negatives). This is slightly unfair as the colour film (Fuji 160) is not only faster than the black and white films I use (PanF and FP4) but has three emulsion layers which reduces sharpness.
 
StephenM said:
I don't think that there is an objective answer to this. 35mm is the smallest film size in common use, and that's another way of saying that it's the one that requires the most enlargement to make any size of print. Clearly, if you make a print 4 feet by 6 feet and look at it from a normal viewing distance (and to me, that's about a foot - I don't hold a broadsheet newspaper further away to read than a tabloid just because the page size is bigger) then it won't look sharp or detailed. A contact print at 1 inch by 1.5 inches will. At some point in between the print will fail to meet your standards. I've been using 35mm since the 1960s, and only once or twice have I managed a 10"x8" print that didn't disappoint me. Never larger. That's A4 maximum. Others will have different views - I did say that the answer wasn't objective. Oddly enough, I think that my scans of 35mm negatives might be printable slightly larger, and I would always get away with A4. That's why I don't use 35mm anymore...

Conventional wisdom has it that you calculate the maximum print size by assuming that you need 300 pixels per inch, so a 3000x4500 pixel file would go to 10" by 15" in the print. This is based on the visual accuity of the human eye. While true that this represents the smallest detail that we can resolve, it's also true that a print with even smaller detail than this limit will look sharper - it's a different effect of how our eyes work.

It seems to be the case that if you want to extract the maximum resolution that you can from your scanner which appears to be always less than the maker's claims, then you need to scan at a higher resolution than the "true" maximum to achieve it. Scanners, like digital cameras, will produce noise; some software (I use VueScan) will "interpolate down" to reduce file size and noise, so "over scanning" has two benefits to offset against the extra time it takes.

As Steven says above, conventional black and white film gives a negative of silver grains and XP2 and colour films give a dye based image. I can't comment on XP2 as I've never used it, but colour negative film is noticeably less sharp than black and white (comparing them with 6x7 negatives). This is slightly unfair as the colour film (Fuji 160) is not only faster than the black and white films I use (PanF and FP4) but has three emulsion layers which reduces sharpness.
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Right ok. I've been thinking the same thing, a4 max for 35mm and if I know before hand I want a big print use digital. Off the top of my head I can't remember the optical dpi of my scanner, I think it's 6400, it goes up to 12000 interpolated
 
FishyFish said:
Not "bad" per se, but if the detail isn't there in the negatives then you're getting a much bigger file for no improvement in quality.
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It's not just that the detail isn't in the negatives, it won't be in the scan. If a V550 (the same hardware as a V600) has an effective resolution of 1560 dpi and you scan it at 4800 dpi you should at least be getting the macimum resolution the scanner can give you, at the expense of extra time scanning and much bigger files (size increasing as the square of the dpi, of course). I'd be inclined perhaps to experiment with lower resolutions.

Note, a V550 doesn't have a multiscan capability (can't guarantee the registration of the negative for a second pass) so Vuescan suggests scanning at twice your target resolution then save at half the resolution. That would give you a better quality smaller file at the maximum effective resolution... I think! How that works with online printing sites I'm not sure, but I think the better ones will have an option to print at a slightly larger size than 300 dpi at the print would suggest (ie 8*12" for 2400 dpi scanned)... if that makes sense!
 
This article is quite good on the subject of max resolution of film. It's the slower films that have highest resolution, I think Velvia 50 gets the biscuit.

"The finest films (which are slow and best with sunlight or flash) have very fine grain, and in many cases, the limits of the lenses blur the image before the grains start causing too much trouble. However with a decent lens you don't have to blow up too much before you see the grain. The better digital cameras are also starting to exceed the quality of most zooms and even some prime lenses.

"These films, with good lenses, are capable of resolving as much as 7000 pixels (3500 "line pairs") over the width of a 35mm frame -- about 5000 dots per inch. However, before that point, while they can resolve "line pairs," the image is pretty noisy. The lines are not resolved as straight, sharp-edged entities, but you can tell there is a white line next to a black line.

"There is more information to be extracted even at this fine resolution, but the deeper you go, the more noise you also extract.

"To make the image not look "grainy" and otherwise poor, you need to pull back. Subjective tests suggest this is to about 4000 DPI, or around 5600 pixels. For a 3:2 frame, that means around 20 million pixels. (Of course some people don't mind grain as much as others, so your mileage may vary. Also, if you can get a scan that good, digital techniques can reduce the visibility of grain and extend the resolution of film.)

"Down at this level, however, you're reaching the limits of most lenses. They may be able to resolve high-contrast items at this level but most pixels are a little blurry. A crop at this level does not look nearly as good as a scaled down full shot."

XP2 would not be up there at 5000 dpi...
 
As a quick test, here're three 100% crops of a scan from my V5500. This was shot on Agfa Vista Plus 200 with my Olympus Trip 35. Other than the image (and file) size, I can't see any significant difference in detail when viewed at full resolution in Lightroom - the 4800 scan is just bigger. I CAN see actual digital pixels when viewing the 3200 & 2400 scand at 2:1 enlargement, but only just - and I can see them at 4800 too if I look carefully. Based on this I think I might drop my dpi settings to 2400 (for 35mm at least).

EDIT: As has been pointed out below, this doesn't equate to how shots will look when printed on actual paper. It's just an example of the effect of the dpi settings on the digital file (using my V550 and on this particular shot).

The sizes below refer to the full image, not the cropped section.

4800dpi (4175 x 6607 - approx 27.5mp 157Mb file)
4800.jpg

3200dpi (2783 x 4405 - approx 12mp 70Mb file)
3200.jpg

2400dpi (2087x3303 pixels - approx 7mp 39Mb file)
2400.jpg

And here's the full shot so you can see the crop area (ignore the dust - it was a quick job so I didn't clean the scanner or negs):
full.jpg
 
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StephenM said:
and only once or twice have I managed a 10"x8" print that didn't disappoint me
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HuH Steven were you using a brownie and bottle glass for an enlarging lens :eek: At the camera club inter comps I saw plenty of quite large prints from 35mm, but they did look a bit crappier compared to MF ones next to it. :rolleyes:
 
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ChrisR said:
It's not just that the detail isn't in the negatives, it won't be in the scan. If a V550 (the same hardware as a V600) has an effective resolution of 1560 dpi and you scan it at 4800 dpi you should at least be getting the macimum resolution the scanner can give you, at the expense of extra time scanning and much bigger files (size increasing as the square of the dpi, of course). I'd be inclined perhaps to experiment with lower resolutions.
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When I talk about the detail not being in the negatives, I was thinking more along the lines of the quality of the lens, focussing, exposure etc. e.g. no matter what the film's theoretical resolution, something like a plastic-lensed toy camera will be wasting much of it so isn't really worth a super high-res scan, whereas more detail will be gathered by high quality equipment.

ChrisR said:
Note, a V550 doesn't have a multiscan capability (can't guarantee the registration of the negative for a second pass) so Vuescan suggests scanning at twice your target resolution then save at half the resolution. That would give you a better quality smaller file at the maximum effective resolution... I think! How that works with online printing sites I'm not sure, but I think the better ones will have an option to print at a slightly larger size than 300 dpi at the print would suggest (ie 8*12" for 2400 dpi scanned)... if that makes sense!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I might try that and see if there's any noticeable difference.
 
FishyFish said:
As a quick test, here're three 100% crops of a scan from my V5500. This was shot on Agfa Vista Plus 200 with my Olympus Trip 35. Other than the image (and file) size, I can't see any significant difference in detail when viewed at full resolution in Lightroom - the 4800 scan is just bigger. Based on this I think I might drop my dpi settings to 2400 (for 35mm at least).

The sizes below refer to the full image, not the cropped section.

4800dpi (4175 x 6607 - approx 27.5mp 157Mb file)
View attachment 96759

3200dpi (2783 x 4405 - approx 12mp 70Mb file)
View attachment 96760

2400dpi (2087x3303 pixels - approx 7mp 39Mb file)
View attachment 96761

And here's the full shot so you can see the crop area (ignore the dust - it was a quick job so I didn't clean the scanner or negs):
View attachment 96762
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That's cool! I think I'll do the same then. I presume 2400 will be fine for a4, 8"x12"?
 
FishyFish said:
As a quick test, here're three 100% crops of a scan from my V5500. This was shot on Agfa Vista Plus 200 with my Olympus Trip 35. Other than the image (and file) size, I can't see any significant difference in detail when viewed at full resolution in Lightroom - the 4800 scan is just bigger. Based on this I think I might drop my dpi settings to 2400 (for 35mm at least).

The sizes below refer to the full image, not the cropped section.

4800dpi (4175 x 6607 - approx 27.5mp 157Mb file)
View attachment 96759

3200dpi (2783 x 4405 - approx 12mp 70Mb file)
View attachment 96760

2400dpi (2087x3303 pixels - approx 7mp 39Mb file)
View attachment 96761

And here's the full shot so you can see the crop area (ignore the dust - it was a quick job so I didn't clean the scanner or negs):
View attachment 96762
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But Nige what's seen on a comuter screen doesn't equate to what you see in print...I've guestimated but never proved (tight wad) that if a shot looks very good @ the longest side e.g 32"on a computer screen then it should look very good in print at 16" (longest side)....anyone going to fork out some cash for a print to prove me wrong :D
 
excalibur2 said:
But Nige what's seen on a comuter screen doesn't equate to what you see in print...I've guestimated but never proved (tight wad) that if a shot looks very good @ the longest side e.g 32"on a computer screen then it should look very good in print at 16" (longest side)....anyone going to fork out some cash for a print to prove me wrong :D
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That's true, and I don't tend to print much of my stuff so can't say personally. It was more an example of the difference the dpi makes to the shot digitally.
 
excalibur2 said:
what's seen on a comuter screen doesn't equate to what you see in print...
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^^THIS^^

Time and time again, I've discussed with people how a pixelated on screen image cannot offer a true representation of what that same image looks like printed out onto photograph paper.

My advice is to stop viewing scanned files at 100%........it's like an obsession to search out imperfections!

If the quality of the image is in the negative then it will print just fine even at 1200 dpi for an A4 print......I have loads of prints of that size, obtained from 35mm negs, which are very very good, even when viewed close up.
 
excalibur2 said:
HuH Steven were you using a brownie and bottle glass for an enlarging lens :eek: At the camera club inter comps I saw plenty of quite large prints from 35mm, but they did look a bit crappier compared to MF ones next to it. :rolleyes:
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TBH I'd mostly agree with Stephen, both with home and commercial printing, and although I'd go up to 12X16 at times, it won't really satisfy a critical scrutiny. There's a reason why we all wanted medium format cameras, and it wasn't just about having a big (dark) image on a ground glass screen at waist level.
 
ancient_mariner said:
TBH I'd mostly agree with Stephen, both with home and commercial printing, and although I'd go up to 12X16 at times, it won't really satisfy a critical scrutiny. There's a reason why we all wanted medium format cameras, and it wasn't just about having a big (dark) image on a ground glass screen at waist level.
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so this guy was talking a load of ..... http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson V750/page_8.htm ?
This 35mm shot was done by a lab...the cigarette packet was to show the size and the white smudge was my flashgun


The original shot low scan from Boots or Tesco seen on a computer screen..h'mm I seem to have the eyes slightly OOF..superia 200 taken about 7 years ago and would think new Ektar or Potra might have given better quality...just guessing.
 
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I’ve just done a quick comparison scan using my Epson V600 on a single 35mm frame (Agfa Vista taken with Kodak Retinette 1B - which is hardly the sharpest tool in the box). The settings used were: Film; Colour Negative, 48-bit colour; and using 5 different resolution levels. Unsharp mask was selected but no other correction or reduction settings were selected.

The best (the most detailed to my eye) full size image result is displayed below for reference:



I then cropped a similar, small, roughly central, section from each of the scans for comparison. To enable easier comparison I then resized the image in Photoshop Elements and saved at maximum (12). The results from this, although resized in Photoshop (just as they may be in everyday use, for printing, etc.) were representative (to my eye) of the results from zooming into the original scans to observe detail.

Bear in mind that these are the results from one individual scanner on one particular day, and have also been subject to uploading to a hosting site (Photobucket), so shouldn’t be regarded as definitive or representative of the performance of the scanner model used. They merely provide some indication of the results from scanning at different resolutions, on one particular machine. The file sizes listed below are for the original full frame scan, not the cropped image. Anyway, see which you prefer and think has captured the most detail from the film:


2400 (1.76mb)


3200 (2.99mb)


4800 (4.60mb)


6400 (6.89mb)


9600 (11.4mb)



So which did you prefer, and what’s the ‘sweet spot’ for 35mm on your scanner?
 
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Mr Badger said:
I’ve just done a quick comparison scan using my Epson V600 on a single 35mm frame (Agfa Vista taken with Kodak Retinette 1B - which is hardly the sharpest tool in the box). The settings used were: Film; Colour Negative, 48-bit colour; and using 5 different resolution levels. Unsharp mask was selected but no other correction or reduction settings were selected.

The best (the most detailed to my eye) full size image result is displayed below for reference:



I then cropped a similar, small, roughly central, section from each of the scans for comparison. To enable easier comparison I then resized the image in Photoshop Elements and saved at maximum (12). The results from this, although resized in Photoshop (just as they may be in everyday use, for printing, etc.) were representative (to my eye) of the results from zooming into the original scans to observe detail.

Bear in mind that these are the results from one individual scanner on one particular day, and have also been subject to uploading to a hosting site (Photobucket), so shouldn’t be regarded as definitive or representative of the performance of the scanner model used. They merely provide some indication of the results from scanning at different resolutions, on one particular machine. The file sizes listed below are for the original full frame scan, not the cropped image. Anyway, see which you prefer and think has captured the most detail from the film:


2400 (1.76mb)


3200 (2.99mb)


4800 (4.60mb)


6400 (6.89mb)


9600 (11.4mb)



So which did you prefer, and what’s the ‘sweet spot’ for 35mm on your scanner?
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I can't tell the difference between the first 3! The last one is the worst
 
excalibur2 said:
HuH Steven were you using a brownie and bottle glass for an enlarging lens :eek: At the camera club inter comps I saw plenty of quite large prints from 35mm, but they did look a bit crappier compared to MF ones next to it. :rolleyes:
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I've subtlely highlighted the important part.

My results are the same using an Olympus OM4 with an Olympus 50mm f/1.4 lens (stopped down in daylight conditions on a sunny afternoon). I can quite simply see the difference between an image of the whole (scanned) negative that fills my screen and one that uses less than 10x8" of it. What I'm looking for is the maximum size of print that you can make without it looking inferior (when compared side by side) with a smaller one. As I said at the outset, it's subjective; but I see no reason for my personal work to be technically inferior simply because I couldn't be bothered to use a larger format that can still handle the job equally well. As I always say, a camera is simply a tool; and provided it does the job as well, the larger the better. Up to a point; I don't deny that I'd get a better A2 print from a 20"x16" negative than a 5x4 one, but beyond a certain size the practical difficulties mount up.

There is a limit to how much you can enlarge black and white film (and remember, I don't use colour) without the photographic artefacts intruding. Roger Hicks/Frances Shultz illustrate the half tone effect in their book on medium and large format photography, and reckon that 6x is the most you can enlarge without the quality suffering. This squares pretty well with my own experience.

The very best print I've had before my RB67/RZ67/5x4 days came from a Brownie Flash20 6x6 box camera; the print was half plate (4.75" x 6.5"). Despite the cheap (plastic) lens, the degree of enlargement was modest.

In passing: my enlarging lenses are Rokkor, Componon (I think - it's the 6 element type) and Rodagons.
 
Same for me - the first three are pretty much indistinguishable. The last one is much softer and the penultimate one appears to be slightly softer.

It ties in with my findings that, unless you're using something with superb resolution on 35mm, you can probably get away with 2400dpi without any issues on a flatbed (for viewing digitally).

I also tried scanning at 4800 and then resizing the image (by 50%) as per Chris' suggestion. Compared with a 2400dpi scan, the resized version looks marginally better to my eyes (it has slightly less pixellated noise), but probably not enough improvement to take the additional time required for the larger scan.
 
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Steve Smith said:
The negative probably has more detail than the scanner can resolve.


Steve.
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But as I mentioned above, it depends to some extent on the equipment (and photographer) who captured the shot. Top notch glass and perfect focus will capture details that a cheap compact with a plastic lens won't. The resolution of the negative will be the same, but it will be resolving an OOF image due to the lens etc..

I agree there's definitely lots of detail potentially available in 35mm though - I've seen comparisons between professional drum scanner results vs flatbeds that show lots more fine detail resolved by the drum scanner.
 
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Mr Badger said:
So which did you prefer, and what’s the ‘sweet spot’ for 35mm on your scanner?
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3200 seems to have the best contrast and 4800 less colour noise for a small loss of contrast. 2400 and 3200 seem to have some artefacts in the pale sky area where the LH tree meets the more distant hedge, and in a couple of other places.

None of them appear to be resolving grain in the film (does modern colour film still have grain?) on which basis I'd say that there's something distinctly iffy about the stated resolutions.
 
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