Sorry Mafud, I propably expressed myself badly. It must have been a misunderstanding. I didn't want to say that I view everything at ARM'S LENGTH, what I wanted to say that I like pictures I view to cover more of my eye's FOV than when viewed from the usual distance which says that large prints are ok to be fuzzy because they are viewed from "large distance" (ugly sentence, isn't it?) I view 24x30cm (10x12"?) prints from aproximatelly 30cm distance (measured straight eye->print), and this FOV I preffer for larger prints as well, as it still gives me _some_ view of the whole. But most of time, I do both: I look at the photo (still 24x30cm) from e.g. outsretched arm's length distance - around 100cm - and than close in for the 30cm distance, and alternate. But rarely from 3 meters. Perhaps I have bad eyes, but it's so small at 3 meters that it just isn't appealing to me At a sofa-sized print, I would not of course look up close, but from a greater distance, which the 18' might be just right (or closer) But if I was to look at a 11x14", I would look from a 1m at most. At 3m, I would not see enough detail to distuingish it from a 4x6" up close, IMHO. That's why I am perhaps so picky (and why I started the thread in the first place) and feel that the usual advice " 'sharpness' doesn't matter, if you enlarge a lot you will view it farther away" is not valid for me. Of course, a great photo is great even if unsharp, golfball grained and not focused ;) But not landscapes, most of the time. BTW, I have seen few B&W landscapes made by one photographer here, using an old 20x30cm (9x12") camera - CONTACT prints. His choice of subject matter and the fact it was CONTACTS made me look really up close them, and literally "wander around them" with my eyes. They would lose all their impact when viewed from the proposed, 3 meter distance. For me, contact prints rules, for ever. I still long for a 5x7" view camera I missed (it costed almost just a smile). Your mileage may of course vary. Frantisek At 01:28 28.1.2001 EST, you wrote: [...] > Viewing any overly large or small photo at arm's length, as you say you do, >means you will *always* miss some details because of the poor perspective >arm's length would afford you. [...] >You failed to mention the *size* of the wide angle photo in your scenario. If >you view a *large*, sofa sized wide angle photo from the proper distance, >which could be 18 feet, you'll have the detail you crave and more >importantly, the proper perspective. >Close in to arm's distance, (to see more detail) your perspective is so poor >you'll have little concept of what the image even is; at least until you step >back. A 20 x 30 photo *demands* a large room or it becomes gauche. > >Mafud - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org.
