[ot] resolution of film

[bof]

On Monday 02 January 2006 06:18, Man-wai CHANG wrote:

>>Is there a megapixel-per-inch (is it inch?) measurement for films in
>>camera?
>>
>>How close is the resolution of the best best digital camera from films
>>

It seems to me that somewhere I read that a 35mm film frame was
equivalent to 25-28 megapixels of data, so the current crop of digital
cameras that are just now hitting 8 megapixels have a way to go.

For casual users, like me, where we want basically 35 mm snapshots of
our vacation, enlarged to 5x8 or 8x11 inch pictures, the better digital
cameras are fine. But few professional photographers use 35mm for their
serious work, preferring a 4x5 inch image, which would be about 500
megapixels of data. The exceptions to this are news photographers, who
have been using digital for two or three years. I believe that last
year's Sports Illustrated coverage of the Super Bowl was shot and
processed entirely in digital format, the first time ever.

There's a very good article on film vs. digital, including some
enlargements showing the shortcomings of digital at the higher
resolutions at http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htm.