Very subjective. Really depends on the fine details in the image and where it will be hung. You will not get one answer that is correct to this question.
k clayton wrote:
What is the largest image you can print a photo taken with the Canon 1D III?
You can print an image that covers the whole side of a very large building. You can also do that with a Canon 20D or a 1D X or a Canon Rebel T2 or a Canon AE-1 (35 mm film).
For prints that are going to be on a wall, in a room, and are going to viewed up close then about 20x30 is the max I would go. With about 4-6MP, 16x20 was my max. You still need a great lens, perfect technique and good post processing. You might be able to go bigger, but not much, unless you dont mind imperfections showing up. The lesser the technique and lens quality, the smaller you will have to go until imperfections show less. As usual YMMV.
Since no one mentioned it, there is a decent and inexpensive way to determine whether a print size will have the quality you want. Go through the full post-processing workflow and continue on to whatever you do to print - the typical flattening, sharpening, resizing to full dimensions, and so forth. The select a letter size area of the image and trim away everything else. You'll end up with a small portion of the whole image, but at the resolution and so forth of the full image. Make a print of this small section of the whole print at letter size and consider it. (It can be useful to tack it up on a wall so that you can view from "typical viewing distance," whatever that is for you.)
I've used this technique for this purpose. I've also used it to talk clients out of using a really big print of an image that I did not think would work at huge sizes. :-)
Blow up a few to 30x40 or 40x60 and see if you like them
Shoot raw usually and nail focus. I was happy with almost 40x60 out of rebel xt as long as you were a t normal viewing distance of a couple feet or more. But I shot a lot to make sure I nailed focus.
I have a great 12x36" print from a single 40d file. Obviously not great if you stand a foot away, but hanging over a couch or in a room it is more than enough detail.
AmbientMike wrote:
Blow up a few to 30x40 or 40x60 and see if you like them
Shoot raw usually and nail focus. I was happy with almost 40x60 out of rebel xt as long as you were a t normal viewing distance of a couple feet or more. But I shot a lot to make sure I nailed focus.
This shows how subjective this can be. The largest I was willing to print from the 8MP XT "back in the day" was 16" x 24", and there I could easily see a sort of "plastic" effect in areas of fine detail. I can accept that certain subjects (portraits perhaps?) can be a bit more forgiving but a 40" x 60" print from a 8MP cropped sensor original will most certainly not meet my printing standards.
On the other hand, if you are a Galen Rowell fan and have seen his prints from 35mm film, you would accept that a) 20 x 30 prints are possible, b) they will look good in many ways, c) if you look close you'll see gigantic grain and something less than remarkable sharpness. Food for thought.
Again, all of this suggests that folks who wonder what their giant prints might look like should consider trying the technique I described earlier in this thread.
Galen's prints start falling apart at 11x14 yet the gallery has been there for years proving it's photo that counts. Its not the camera or print or technical anything but the shot that counts f8 and be there.
And more importantly, was it generated from one of your 10mp images?