Changed to OT:



> Wow, you are rambling...

Why thank you, you don't ramble so badly yourself :-)

> Thus, a  5 Mpix camera will actually rival a 35mm film.  Only in the hands
of a
> really pro photographer and a very good lab, in conjunction with a good
> negative-film to begin with, does the 35mm still hold some advantages.

Alas, I think not. I've recently been examining in minute detail test images
produced by the current top "prosumer" 5 MP cameras. (Nikon 5700, Minolt
Diamge 7HI, Fuji S602, Sony F717 and a few others with a view to buying
one.. I'm disappointed in the results compared to my expectations of 35mm
film technology.
Which probably says that the 5 MP cameras are ALMOST there.

> If you have a 100x150mm card made out of a 35mm negative, you won't have
> more than 300 dpi across that card.

OK. Lets see what megapixels that is equal to

    100 x 150 x 300^2 x (1/25.4)^2 = 2 MP

I think not! :-)
I consider that even a glance at the result from a 2MP camera printed (or
otherwise viewed) at 150mm x 100mm size would tell most viewers that it had
been taken with something inferior to a good 35mm film camera.
But maybe you don't see it that way?

As an uncontrolled test with sample size of one I just went to my loose
photo drawer and took the first good looking 6" x 4" picture that came to
hand. This was a colour portrait taken about 20 years ago on (probably) a
Minolta SRT303b, film unknown but nothing flash and printed by a typical
photolab of the day. I scanned this at 600 dpi  on an HPG85 to give 8.6
effective MP. This gave a  TIF of 16 MB and a JPG of 490k converting with
Irfanview. Viewing the jpg I am impressed - if ANY of the 5 MP cameras that
I have been looking at gave an effective resolution anywhere near as good as
this it would go instantly to the top of my list. None does.

But maybe you see things differently :-)



        Russell McMahon

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