Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Next weekend I'll be taking some shots for a family member's small business that they will want to turn into a trade show poster (over six feet tall). I've never shot with the intention of the result being that large so I was hoping that if anyone had any tips they'd share them.

I'll already be on a sturdy tripod with a remote shutter release and shooting at the lowest ISO possible in daylight (outdoors) with the best lens(es). Are there other things I should be trying to do?

Thanks!

IMO it's a bit of a misunderstanding that high ISO creates noise. It doesn't. Lack of exposure creates noise. It's common when there is a lack of exposure to use high ISO to compensate, hence noise.

I have found more often than not it's better to bump the ISO up a little, say 400, in order to get a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate blur. Of course a tripod is better .


Back to the question - I think the bigger question might be the DPI of the printing process for the printer. I highly doubt they are going to the very high end printing processes to get this done - where the quality degradation would be an issue.

IMO your biggest issue is ensuring aspect ratio. Once you shoot your image you will, as always, need to ensure it's the right aspect ratio for the final product. This will likely entail selective cropping. Otherwise you will get an awful lot of pixelation.

These are probably basic hints but hopefully they help.

The largest that I've printed from a single frame was from my 6mpx D70s. I took the image from the Maid of the Mists with all the water sloshing around. The 36"x24" printout from Poster Jack turned out great. From the same camera I've also printed 24x60 panoramas on canvas. A few turned out slightly blurry others turned out great. I now have a full frame and will be trying larger prints soon.

Don't worry too much. I have had images printed over 40 feet in size and I always shoot handheld. There isn't one factor that is more important than the other. Megapixels are for selling cameras and are always over rated. Shoot with whatever you have and make the best of it. You can blow up an 8mp image to poster size if you have optimised your camera and its settings to make the most of every pixel.

ISO, lens quality, shutter speed or flash duration, IS/VR setting and most importantly... how the image is adjusted in post processing are all factors in the equation. Finding the right formula for your style of shooting is the challenge. The good news is, shooting for large print applications will teach you a lot. Do your best and most importantly, have fun with it!

Congrats.

Thanks for the tips guys!