>>3344964this is a 20x24 shot I wet printed from a 4x5 neg, I could print this much bigger if I had a taller ceiling and larger tray, with very little loss in detail.
camera was a crown graphic $200, and a Schneider Symmar S 180mm 5.6 lens $400
I have spent less on cars so yes you are correct, but you don't have to spend a fortune to surpass most digital cameras, the higher end digital MF cameras are pretty close to LF in resolution.
one thing I will say though, it is much much MUCH harder to go big on film. I have printed this neg many times 8x10 and 11x14 but am still not happy with my 20x24 print even after about 10 attempts, and these attempts get expensive, very expensive.
I can spit out a 8.5x11 from my epson and get the exact print scaled up to a 17x22 in the first shot.
I did an assignment that required a 144"x96" print intended a wall of a building. it was at grade so it had to be as close to 300dpi as I could get.I shot it with a Fuji GFX and stitched it. Had a lot of problems with the file being fuckhuge and actually had to down res it to keep it under 4GB (I still don't know how to transfer images bigger than that), I think we printed it around 100dpi and it still looked great from 3 or more feet away
