What's the largest print that any of you have ever made from a Canon 1D (oldschool version, not Mark II or Mark II N)? Currently I'm shooting with a 300D, I'm assuming the sensor size difference would make up much of the difference, but what is your experiance?

I've made some very nice 16x24" prints from my 1D - How well it works all depends on the subject matter. Like any digital camera the 1D is resolution limited for enlargements. This means than in general, the less actual geography in the frame the better the interpolation algorithms will be able to perform and hold the image quality.

If you are shooting hyperfocal detailed landscapes with a wide angle, there ia generally so much detail that a 16x24 with my 1DS is pushing the envelope. On the other hand I've printed beautiful 30" prints of head and shoulders portraits made with my D30.

With 35mm color film and transparency we really never had to concern ourselves with resolution because grain appearance limited prints to around 16x24 regardless of frame content. But because digital is so much cleaner, it's entirely possible to exhaust resolution before running into excessive noise. This means we must now be concerned with frame content when determining enlargement potential. As long as there were sufficient sampling sites to do a decent job of defining boundaries of fine detail, interpolation algorithms can faithfully reproduce detail much larger than practical print limits. But when there is so much detail that the available sampling is insufficient to properly capture it, enlargement will reveal the problems as soon as they are enlarged to the threshold of our visual acuity.

Think about an oil painting with a pine forest. We are quite happy to accept a few brush strokes as satisfactory stand-in's for pine needles as long as we don't look at the painting under magnification. When we do, the deception is revealed and we are forced to see brush strokes in oil. Back away a few feet and take away the magnification and again our brains are quite happy to see "pine needles" on those trees in the forest. So it is with digital enlargement. In most cases, the more geography (think wide angle versus telephoto at the same distance) in the frame the more detail there is to be resolved.

In general I find my 1D to be a satisfactory replacement for any of my higher resolution digital cameras for up to 8x12 or so. For small geography frames it can go considerably larger. But there really is no substitute for resolution for wide angle landscapes. That resolution can come from more pixels, better pixels (think Foveon processors) or from better pixels or a combination of the above. The 1D has excellent pixels - but they only go so far.

Best regards,

Lin

I think of it this way.

The difference between a pro and consumer level camera who have the same megapixels is like teacups and barrels. The pro camera has barrels of information whereas the consumer level camera has teacups. In the end you end up with more liquid with barrels.

Subject matter, as Lin said, also plays a factor. My analogy was just for general understanding purposes.