It appears that full frame
cameras have reached a level of maximum pixel counts, or at least have
considerably slowed in being offered with ever increasing resolution. It used to be that the industry was doing a
great job in convincing the general public that the higher the number of
pixels, the better the camera. This was
definitely the case when we had to deal with 1 or 2 megapixel cameras. But those days are gone, and
manufacturers have put more effort into improving sensors other than just
increasing the number of pixels offered.
We now have cameras with incredible ISO sensitivities, low noise, great
color accuracy, high res video capability etc.
So the question is, how
big an enlargement one could one possibly make with a high quality, full frame
sensor. I researched the topic and
wasn’t able to come up with anything definite.
Being that today’s full
frame sensors use the same image dimension as 35mm film, I included 35mm film in the
equation. That doesn’t mean that we can simply equate a 35mm negative with
files obtained from a full frame sensor, as a mater of fact, there are several
factors that lead to a slight image degradation with film that do not exist
with digital sensors. Based on that, one
can reasonable expect that a high quality full frame sensor can deliver a
sharper image than a 35mm negative.
Ernst Haas image chosen
for the Kodak Colorama
The biggest enlargement
ever made of a 35mm photograph was the one for the Kodak Colorama at Grand
Central Station in New York in 1977. The
original picture was taken by Ernst Haas with a Leicaflex SL and a 50mm
Summicron-R lens on Kodachrome 25. The
finished Colorama consisted of 20 vertical panels of 3 feet width and 18 feet
height for a total size of 18 x 60 feet This was the first time a 35mm picture
had been used for this project. It
presents a 508 times enlargement to achieve the width of the image. It was a definite testament of the quality of
the film and that of the Leica camera and lens.
Based on modern sensor
technology, we can reasonably expect enlargements of the Kodak Colorama size to
be as good or better than what was done back in 1977.
That brings up the
question of what the largest picture ever made might be. A little research rendered the following
result:
The largest picture ever
was made with what is certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest
camera in existence. It is basically an
old hangar building at the disused El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Southern
California, which has been made light tight to ensure no light gets in except
through a little pinhole in one side of the hangar. To create the image which
is described as "The Great Picture", a huge sheet of made-to-order
canvas was suspended inside the hangar and coated with 80 liters of a liquid
photo emulsion made by Liquid Light.
This made the entire canvas photosensitive.
The exposure time of the
world's largest camera was set to approximately 35 minutes, after which the
canvas was developed in a pool of 2300 liters of developer. Needless to say, photography at this scale
does not come cheap! The world's largest
photo was 313 square meters (3375 square feet) in size. That compares to a standard 35mm film frame
of 24 x 35 millimeters, which equals 8.64 square centimeters, or 0.00864 square
meters.
While this is certainly a
very impressive achievement, this camera is definitely quite limited in terms of
subject matter.
In 1900, the Chicago &
Alton Railway decided that they wanted a mural of their Alton Limited train to
hang on the wall of their headquarters.
There was no suitable enlarging equipment available at this time. Virtually all photographs were contact
printed, meaning that the negative needed to be of the size of the final
print. To solve this problem, they hired
the J. A. Anderson Company of Chicago to build what turned out to be the
largest, portable camera ever. The
camera weighed 900 pounds and was designed to take photographs on an 8 x 4.5
foot photographic plate, which added another 500 pounds to the weight of the
camera. An exposure time of 2 ½ minutes
was necessary to take the photograph.
This was the largest photograph ever until “The Great Picture” was taken
many years later.
The Alton Limited train
picture taken with the Mammoth Camera
What does this have to do
with Leica? Basically nothing, but it is
interesting to see what efforts have been taken by some to go into the opposite
direction of Oskar Barnack when he designed the Leica. It is interesting to note though that the
railroad picture could easily have been taken with a Leica, considering that
the Kodak Colorama image by Ernst Haas had a dimension of 18 x 60 feet, making
the railroad picture of 8 x 4.5 feet rather small in comparison. Of course the difference in camera size is
much greater; the first Leica was designed by Oskar Barnack just a scant 13
years after the Mammoth camera.
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