# 1950s negative printing



## renegades (May 18, 2013)

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## KmH (May 18, 2013)

That will depend on where (what country) the image was made, and what copyright laws were in effect in that country at that time.
List of countries' copyright lengths - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here in the US the original photographer could still own the copyright to the image, even if dead.


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## dxqcanada (May 18, 2013)

renegades said:


> ... large black and white  format negative which is 93mm x 120mm  my question are how big can this negative be made without losing picture quality ...



With that medium format negative you can obtain very large prints ... you will lose something but it should hold it's own in poster size.
Is that tape stuck to the neg ?


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## renegades (May 18, 2013)

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## renegades (May 18, 2013)

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## timor (May 18, 2013)

Gary, if you gonna print it by yourself just for yourself (hang the poster in your own room), there should be no problems. Different matter, if you will go public with it.
On how big you can go, there is not really way to tell from just this picture you are showing us. Neg is much larger then usual medium size which usually ends at 6x9 and obviously was shot with large format camera. The edge of the negative is showing typical pattern for LF negative carrier, so there is a chance a good lens was used, possibly very good lens. So there is a real chance you can get 10x magnification (print size 90 cm x 120 cm ) with excellent results.


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## timor (May 18, 2013)

Sounds good for you.


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## timor (May 18, 2013)

You are really serious about it. :thumbup:


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## renegades (May 18, 2013)

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## timor (May 18, 2013)

I didn't have any idea about this market existence. So it is a real business. 
IMHO if someone is selling a negative and not transferring the copy rights with it it sort of Micky Mouse business. Negative itself is "nothing", the print is, what counts. This is like buying a pencil without right to draw art with it. Negative is not a digital file, cannot be copied (without very visible lose of quality). I just wonder how such an item could be bough at all, usually photographers like to keep all their negs forever and beyond. 
I wish you luck in clearing this situation in favorable for you way.


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## vintagesnaps (May 18, 2013)

Looking into ownership and copyright like you're doing is probably the best thing. I think at some point copyrights and patents etc. might expire and they'd be considered public domain. Do you know what city the photograph was taken in to help figure out who might have been a local photographer of the time period in that city? I haven't used sheet film but this doesn't seem to be a standard size still used today. 

Actually I've bought sports related negatives off the 'bay, but for my own personal collection, I don't intend to use them for retail or commercial use. I've bought what appear to be photos taken by either a team photographer or a local newspaper photographer. (I collect mostly memorabilia of our local teams of the past.)

I've purchased sports photographs too, those often have the photographer's or a studio's name on the back but I don't think negatives have any markings to show who the photographer was. I'm not sure how a photographer's negatives end up 'out there' but they do.


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## vintagesnaps (May 18, 2013)

You've found out a lot about it. Since you know who the photographer is I don't know if there's any way to find out if there would be any family of the photographer who might have any ownership rights or not. 

I'm more familiar with sports where the photographer was usually working for a team or for a local newspaper and that's who probably had ownership, but the photographer most likely kept the negatives. 

When I've seen them on ebay I'm guessing the photographer's family may not have wanted them any longer and sold them. I doubt at the time that people thought about transferrring copyrights if the negatives were sold. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.


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## renegades (May 18, 2013)

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