Not a big help I am afraid, as I don’t print normally. Last week I printed some big ones 20 by 30 and 30 by 40 as a test, just to see the difference betweeen slide/negative and digital. On all occasions, the print from the digital (Eos 10D) ws the best. Super sharp, good colours and absolutely no grain. they looked as if they came from a large format camera. To be honest, both slide and colour negative prints were made of 100 ISO film, while I shot the digital on 400 ISO, so if I put the DSLR on 100 ISO, the result must be even better.
One of the main drawbacks of printing yourself is the extreme high cost of the ink. So unless you can get them for free (the ink cartreges) I suggest to shoot digital, then give the shots some “cleaning up” (dust removing, sharpenning) and burn them on a CD. Then bring that CD to your local photoshop and asked them to print them for you. The result are good, and cheap prints (much more cheaper than on yopur own printer).
Here in Holland some photoshops have a small digital (Sony) lab. Here you can put your CF card in a machine, the images apear on a screen and you can print them yourself. Price for a 30 by 40 in Holland is around 3 P.St.
If you want to print on your own machine, buy a printer where there are seperate containers for each colour, so you only have to refill the empty ones. A friend of mine has a Canon printer that can print great pictures up to 30 by 40 cm.
Enclosed shot was taken with a 100 – 400 MM lens which on my DSLR became a 160 – 650 mm or so. I took the machine with 650 mm.
BW Roger
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