Big neg (was: Cyanotypes on glass)

I have used Maco´s film, it is fine to my opinion. Rather expensive
though here. There is no lith-film available here anymore, one has to
get it from Europe or USA, taxes and postage make it three times the
original price. It is so frustrating, that sometimes I am about to ask
people on the list for help. If one sends it as a private package -
there are no taxes! Smaller formats I usually drag with me from London
or Berlin, but the sizes that Gordon has been mentioning remain to be a
dream.

Here in Norway it is not so much less cold or darkness wintertime,
still if it is sun and snow (rather high contrast picture) my exposures
in a round 60 cm pinhole and 120 high were about 1,5 min on that film.
In the shadow or towards 3-4 PM it may be as long as 15 min., but you
loose contrast so much then, that I had to heat the developer to about
25-28`C in order to get any picture at all.

  Naturally, the hole is much bigger in a pinhole than in a field
camera, but i have also used very big format (50 x 60 cm) Maco lith
film neg in a field camera inside with the artificial light. Portraits
turned very Cameron-like: diffused and mystic! Exposure started at
about 20 min in my setting. But one can certainly make still-life or
object photographs that way.

I am planning to take some pinholes outside during Christmas, but
decided to make them rather small, scan and enlarge digitally on my
Epson 7600. There will be a lot of experimenting with file sizes and
print definitions, I hate that! Wonder if my Mac is going to like it?

Could anyone tell me what would be the reasonable way to go if I want
to print negatives about 60 x 200 cm from a Photoshop file? How big
should the file be for printing on Epson 7600? Are there any clever
tricks? I plan to scan on a dram scanner at a service company, but will
I be able to handle such big files on my poor Mac G4 ? Has anyone been
printing on Epson 7600 in those sizes? Jack Fulton gave me some
valuable advise earlier, maybe he can help again?

Thanks in advance.

Galina.
www.galina.no

On Sunday, Dec 7, 2003, at 14:29 Europe/Oslo, Timo Sund wrote:

> Viestissä Sunnuntai 7. Joulukuuta 2003 08:45, kirjoitit:
>> Very, very long cigarette breaks up there in December, I imagine.
>
> yup... have done long time ago some 35mm exposures at -25C it took
> about
> 15minutes/picture and You might imagine how it felt when I was again
> inside...
>
> If I recall right I shot about 5-10 pics that night. Beautiful slides
> btw.
>
> If ASA-range is from 1-12 that's masochist enough ;-) Now must place
> order
> for suitable lith-film Anyone used MACO's lith films?
> (they have my caliber 18x24cm sheetfilm available)
>
> --
> Timo Sund
> Kiihtelysvaara, Finland
> ---
>
>
>
Received on Sun Dec 7 09:41:07 2003