Shooting a 300MP photo of a Hotrod – full frame digital vs large format film

Recently, I was tasked with shooting a hotrod. It was exciting from the beginning, because these kinds of cars are pretty rare here. The owner also wanted his dog sitting on the fender. When you hear that (from a photographer’s point of view), it does not sound that difficult to do. But the picture also has to be huge – 100 megapixel are too few.

Three times of that is the minimum requirement for the print. A digital medium format camera gives you 100 Megapixel, maximum 200 in one shot. These are not that easy to rent and they are very expensive too.

My solution was to do a stitched panorama digitally with Canon 5D mkIII, Canon 100mm Macro and the Nodal ninja. Additionally, I shot with my large format camera, a Linhof Mastertechnika with a Kodak Portra 160 VC sheet film.

A panorama with a dog in the picture – was this a joke? Absolutely not. I just had to use the right frame for the dog. The more difficult part was to make the picture with the Linhof Master Technika. I had only 1/18th of a Second at F11. But luckily the dog was very calm and patient enough, so I only had to use 4 sheet films to get the job done.

Both cameras delivered enough resolution – each photo was around about 300 Megapixel total. The Linhof managed it with only one shot (High-end scan from the shop) and the Canon required 24 separate photos stitched together.

After some hours of work, I finished both versions (I had to do a lot of post processing, because the grass was not even, the grill was full of flies, the inspection plate was disturbing in the windshield, one tire had a funny color and the tire treads were full of grass and stones).

If you’re interested in pixel peeping, here are a few high resolution crops for comparison.

The dog

Radiator grill

Headlight

I’m so happy that the customer chose the Analog version, it fits so much better to the car. I’m pretty sure, that this cars were shot with large format cameras too back then.

About the Author

Markus Hofstätter is a professional portrait, events and sports photographer based in Austria. He has a passion for analogue and wet plate photography. He loves travelling to visit new places and meeting new people. You can find out more about him on his website or blog, follow his work on Instagram or Facebook or reach out to him through Twitter. This article was also published here, and shared with permission.