I have switched to digital for most of my photography, but shoot B&W and a little slide film.  My D200 and D1x do a good job of replicating the results you can achieve with print film, they just lack the depth you get with slides and monocrome images. 

I have overcome the urge to just "blast away" when shooting digital by bracketing every shot with 3 to 5 frames, depending on the composition and conditions.  It has forced me to pay attention to the details. 

I think the F100 is probably the best film camera ever made.  I also have a couple of old F3HPs and MD4s that I really consider my favorites.  I usually carry the D200 and a F3 (loaded with Ilford FP4). 

I am lusting over the new FX format cameras as well, but need to upgrade my lenses before I take the plunge. 

All thios films talk is making my mouth waater. I jist sold my Toyo 4x5 view with 20 film holders. It was gather dust here way too long.  My original Speed Graphic that I bought used in 1959 still works and is in my "museum." My Nikon F1 still works 24 hrs a day as part of my house burgler alarm system (on mag switch to set off alarm if picked up.)
   I miss the darkroom side of the biz. I use to make 11 x 14 ND 16 X 20 Cibachromes all the time. Ilfrod was a client for videos and I bartered a lot. Stuff ws expensive then but out of site now. Another client was Agfa so they kep me stocked with 35mm film.  other photo clients/friends were at Beseler, Bogen, Mamiya so film side was easy to do,...now, I dont know how film people can exist.
   Two weeks ago I had knee xrayed. I watched them do it all without film. The doctor came to     xray and view the frame. THEN the technician exposed a sheet of film from the digital to have in my folder. Think aout it...that backward direction worked for their practise.

I switched from the old pentax to my first nikon (coolpix) and never looked back.  I bought the D80 when it first came out and love it.  The wife did not like the weight so I got her a pocket cannon for keeping in her purse for kid shots.  I have to admit lugging the nikon around is heavier, but I just love nikon pics. 

Have you guys seen the new Hasselblad H3dII 50? They can run up to $40K!  Holy cow!  The sensor is up to 50 mega pixels.   The images are HUGE.  Image size is 65 mb's in raw and up to 150 mb in TIFF.  You had better have a large card for these shots.  My cousin used to be a rep for them in SOCAL.  Until they came out with the digital line, their sales were through the floor.  I'll bet they can barely give away their regular film cameras.  I like the Mamiya 645 series from what  I have read about them.  Used ones are showing up daily on the B & H website.  Speaking of B & H, if you ever go to NYC and like photography, you gotta go to their store.  Leave all CC at home or you won't get out of there alive.  Well, maybe, until your wife finds out what you did.  Then you are a dead man.  It's amazing with the stuff they have.  Pretty good prices too.  My hobbies are killing my early retirement plan.  Between Festool and photography, I don't stand a chance of quitting before age 80...

Bob,

When you do you might want to take a look at the micro four thirds cameras.   Great liitle cameras and they can use all the older Canon, Nikon, Leica, and other brand manual lenses (w/ manual focus and aperature) with the appropropriate adaptor.   The Panasonic G1 or GH1(if you're interested in stills and HD video) have great image quality and are still small enough that I'm more likely to carry it around than a Canon or Nikon.

Fred

Hi Bob,

I will jump in here since I now use the Panasonic G-1 for all my art photography as well as studio work for the manuals and books.  The names four-thirds, APS-C and others are hang overs from the days of video tubes and now refer to the sensor size (a four thirds sensor is half the size of 35mm film, an APS-C sensor is about 5/8 the size of 35mm film, etc.).  In the case of the four-thirds standard promulgated by Olympus, Panasonic and Leica it also refers to the lens mount.  Micro four-thirds is a different, smaller lens mount on a camera which uses the same 4/3 sensor size where the mirror box and penta prism have been removed allowing the lens mount to get much closer to the sensor (a shorter back focus distance in camera terms).  This shorter back focus distance allows older lenses designed for much longer back focus distances required to miss the SLR mirror flipping up and down to be mounted on the micro four-thirds body and still focus to infinity by the use of a simple adapter. 

Olympus, Panasonic and Leica all offered their brand digital cameras based on the original four-thirds standard with the very handy live view mode for composing on a rear mounted LCD.  That well integrated live view mode made it much easier to do studio work since you no longer had to peer into a small view finder from an awkward angle as studio work often requires.  For a long time I used the Leica version for much of my work and Leica designed (still does) many of the lenses for Panasonic.   

Panasonic was the first of the trio to replace the mirror box and penta prism with a high resolution electronic view finder out of their professional video cameras allowing the use of the shorter back focus micro four-thirds mount.  That is called a Panasonic Lumix G-1 or GH-1 if you want high resolution video as well.  Olympus has recently added their own micro four-thirds version and many others are rumored to be developing their own versions.

What makes the micro four-thirds such a hot topic in the photo industry is that short back focus distance between the mount and the sensor.  Adapters are flooding in from Europe and the far east to allow mounting of nearly any 35mm or 16mm movie camera lenses from virtually any legacy lens mount such as Leica screw, M and R mount lenses, Voigtlander, Zeiss, Schneider, Nikon, Canon EF and current mounts, Olympus OM, and many others that have a mechanical aperture ring.  All manually focus and stop down and require shooting in either manual or Aperture Preferred mode but the results are stunning.  As good as the new digital designed zoom lenses are, they are no match for a premium maker of what we used to call "prime" lenses such as the Leica 50mm F2.0 Summacron or Canon 50mm FD mount F1.4 lens.  Mounted on a Panasonic G-1 body with the right adapter the images are remarkable.

One Shutterbug magazine editor covering the recent Tokyo vintage camera show (largest in the world I'm told) started his column by noting that nearly everyone entering the show had a Panasonic G-1 slung over their shoulder.  The G-1 single handedly doubled or tripled the eBay price of the older high quality legacy lenses.   

Hope this helps.

Jerry

BOB ,also check out the new Olympus D-P1 a real nice 4/3 system addition that has a cool "classic range finder"look!
That is the camera that I'm thinking about getting it pretty soon.

ya can't win for losing, can we?     The one thing that has always bothered me about digital is the softness of the images compared to film.  I can put on my 80mm 1.4 on the F100 and the images just explode off the prints.  That simply doesn't happen with my D200.  Maybe it's the glass but I doubt it.  There is also a ton of post processing that has to be done for some reason even though the camera is supposed to get the exposure right (it seldom does). I have to use curves or sliders to get it right and then put in the requisite amount of sharpening.  I suppose since film has a lot more lattitude in the exposure, the film processor fixes any exposure issues before I have a chance to see them.  I have heard the D3 has awesome exposure and is razor sharp. For $4500, it should. 

I had old friend stop by over weekend. He brought his girlfriend who is Fuji rep. We talked about digital vs analog and I said "I didn't even have a film camera other than the old F1 which has pin registered back and my trusty Speed Graphic. She went to her car and pulled out a brick of 35mm and 2 boxes of 4 x 5 film. I said thanks but I didn't even want to pay the lab costs. She pulled pulled a card for a lab in CT and told me to get film developed and printed there on her account - like free.  I will use both in my ongoing area of art photography of women. Close ups with 4 x 5 will be dynamite. I do have to go downstairs and find a changing bag and the Grafmatics.

Movies...do they still shoot them on film or have they gone all digital also???

Best,
Todd

Most movies are still shot on 35mm film, but many are switching to digital.

Here's a list of recent major films shot in digital.  I'm surprised the list isn't longer.

It is possible that some people that I know might still be using film, but the last time I recall seeing anyone using a film camera was on a trip I took to Newfoundland two and a half years ago.

Yes, I expect that it would be easy to construct a Newfie joke about this.  Maybe I will do so.

My mom gave me her mid-70s Mamiya SLR when I took a photography class in high school. Unfortunately, I left it at a friend's house years ago and never got it back. It's one of the few things I've lost that I miss dearly, and not just for sentimental reasons. Shooting black-and-white film with a completely manual SLR forced me to slow down and really think about composition and lighting, and what I'm going for in the shot. Point-and-shoots and camera phones just don't work as well for me; everything looks like a snapshot. I've waffled about picking up a digital SLR for the times when I'm trying to take quality photographs, but I still think I'd rather go back to 35mm film.

- Mike

Most movies are shot digitally by now, but most of the big-budget films are still 35mm (though not all of them).

I suspect the biggest users of film anymore would be movie film cameras, and medium and large format cameras.

Most of the 35mm and smaller cameras are digital by now, though there will likely be some holdouts for quite some time.

I gave up up on film when I bought my first DLSR (Canon). At the time I was using a Nikon FE-2. Wonderful camera. Film does nothing for me these days. In my opinion good DLSRs now outmatch the old film SLR image quality unless you go medium/large format. Color profiles are the easiest thing to manipulate with Photoshop.

I still have a couple of Nikon AIS lenses that I use with adapters on my Canon EOS cameras for video stuff. Who would have thought you could shoot HD video in an SLR. There are a few movies out there that were done using this technique. Who would have thought that adapting a Nikon manual lens to a Canon digital camera would be easier than using an older Canon lens on a Canon Digital.

Nowadays I'm doing landscapes with a Canon 5DII and 24mm TS-E lens. While not exactly a Sinar view camera it gives me the same types of perspective and focal plane controls that a view camera would give, just in a smaller package. I love it because you get a lot of the old fashioned creative control combined with modern digital.

They actually changed the mount when they went to auto focus.  That is the reason I have stuck with Nikon.  I can still use my old manual focus lenses with their pro bodies. 

I gave my old Canon AE1+Program, with some lenses, flash units, etc, to my dad many years ago (many, many).

Recently my sister and I we're sorting his house out for selling ... dad's very old and moving into care. I was surprised to find the old camera. For the heck of it I'm going to nurse it back into life and give it a go.

I'll be interesting to see if there's anyone nearby that still processes film - though there's a few serious camera shops in Sydney that will.

First, i have to go back to Jerry Works marvelous explanation.  I know it was over 2 years ago, but I read the whole thing.  not being a camera bug, I apologetically say," Huh?"  Oh well, I also now only use my small Cool Pix.  My old Nikon with its many lenses is, i guess, a dinasore.  I tried to sell it a few years ago, but it would bring nothing. I understand that all of the lenses can still be used on some of the newer Nikon digitals.  They just need manual operation.  i used to be able to judge light and exposures quite well, but for so many years now with everything automatic, i cannot come even close on a guess.  (Jerry, that was really a great report.  I am a little dense about such things, but i do understand a lot that i knew nothing about before, even if i am two years late in reading.)

OK; here comes another enlightening story.

I had occasion to take a car (actually my pickup truck) trip across country and back way back in 1963.  I had closed down my business for a 6 month period for reasons unrelated to my own business.  the last four weeks was spent seeing this beautiful country.  Along the way, i had made it a priority to visit Washington state and take one more look at Mt. Rainier at sunset.  I had visited Ft. Lewis in Tacoma for three or four weeks in '52 as I was awaiting a ride to the orient.  Every evening, if no clouds, I had spent the sunset hours watching that mountain disappeaer from the bottom up until there would be just a tiny purple crescent to disappear ever so slowly. For this soldier, it was the most breathtaking sight ever in my life.  Anyhow, back to my more recent travels.

I did manage to get a glimpse of the disappearance of the Mountain one more time.  the next day, my buddy and i took a ride up onto Mt. Rainier and ended up taking a late July hike up into snow.  There was an ice cave that drew our interest and we headed inside.  The sun was bright enough that there was considerable light inside.  I had an old (i guess at that time, it was fairly new) manually controled 35mm camera.  i don't recall the name.  I never see it listed in any camera adds, but in those days, i did get some pretty good pics with it.  Once our eyes had become adjusted to the light, i decided to risk taking some shots.  As I was firing away, another would be prospector saw me and asked what camera I was using.  He wanted to know what film i was using, aperture, shutter speed and whatever else any camera bug would want to know.  He wanted to take some pics, so I gave him all of the info i could.  i wanted to be helpful.

My pal and i finally walked back out into the light and headed back down the slope to get back to the truck to be on our way.  "I didn't know you knew all that stuff about cameras."

"I don't know much." 

"If you don't know much, how do you know if your gave that guy the right information?"

"I don't."

"Don't you think he will be mad if he finds out he did everything wrong?  He will blame it on you."

"Well, I gave him a lot of ideas; but i really don't remember telling him where I live."

When i got back home and had the pics developed, every one came out perfect.  My only problem now is that they are all on slides.  My daughter gave me an adapter (I think it is digital)  for Christmas a year ago so I can put them into my computer.  When i retire in another 100 years or so, I will see what i can do about changing them.  For the purpose of enlightenment, I think that stranger, if he DID follow my advice, had to be real thrilled with his results.  I still was not tempted to look him up to tell him where I live.  One can never be too careful. 
Tinker

Opinions vary on that.

http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2/

http://www.sphoto.com/techinfo/dslrvsfilm.htm

I still sometimes shoot Velvia 50 on my old Canon AE1 and a slightly newer Canon EOS1000FN, but thanks to Sony for killing Konica-Minolta film scanner business and now Nikon pulling out of it too there just aren't reasonably prised good quality film scanners left on the market. And no, unless you're shooting larger than 35mm a flat bed scanner is just not going to cut it. I'm lucky since I can borrow a mates Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 II scanner when I need one, but its a bit of a hassle to get it from the UK to Finland and then back after the scan project.  eBay prices have just sky rocketed since Nikon gave up on scanners - last one I saw was 6500€ for a Nikon LS-9000 - they sold for  2000€ new 

Mostly I've now moved to digital with a Canon 5D Mark II and gave my old trusty Canon 10D to my daughter to learn with. I've lately been drooling over the Sony Nex-7 for a travel camera, but that has to wait after some green shinies.

I love taking landscape scenery shots and stitched panoramas and I do say that bang for buck with the 5D mark II is just right and at the moment with the "old" current model going out with huge discounts it's forever better... Amazon UK is quoting £1461 body only Canon 5D Mark II Body @ Amazon UK 

Will a DSLR take technically better pictures than a film camera? I'd say a definitive maybe  I personally like the sharpness and low noise I get out of my 5D without film grain in my panoramas, but for B&W and retro shots film with visible grain in scans does have it's appeal. Also comparable file sizes for a RAW-file out of the 5D is about 26MB vs. an equivalent scan with the minolta of a 35mm slide at 220MB in linear DNG makes using film all that much more cumbersome and time consuming. Editing the scanned DNG's just plain kills my computer. Even if I run the RAW-file through DxO and output to linear DNG prior to Lightroom it still is only about 70MB per file so with automated preprocessing digital is faster to work with...

If dynamic range is a criterion, you might want to try HDR photography.  Some work done using HDR techniques is very obviously done that way, much the way overdone polarization is very evident, but for subtle effects, it's another option.  Digital post-processing from RAW or NEF files allows one to get some pretty great dynamic range back into to a photo, even if the photographer doesn't want to mess with HDR.  I've been using Nikon's Capture NX2 with a few of the Nik Software plug-ins, and am quite pleased with the results.  Some folks like Lightroom.  I'm not fond of Lightroom's workflow, but it does have some features that Capture NX2 lacks, such as digital watermarking. 

 

IMHO digital has matured enough to surpass film from a practical standpoint.

Digital is not always the time saver it is made out to be, on the contrary you often spend far more time working your images than you did before - simply because you can, and because you can do so much nowadays.

Unfortunately only a small percentage of digital users learn the four-five important steps or links in the digital output chain, color profiling, color management, optimizing for web, or print and simply learning how to prepare a digital image. Both when capturing the image and in post processing.

I worked in various labs since 1989 (quit "for real" in 2005 if I remember correctly) and I was brought up with B&W processing (started that prior to 1989), E6 (slide) processing, and C41 (neg) processing. I have worked making slide duplicates, prints from slides, negative duplicates, repro photography, scanning images, negatives and slides as well as operating various printers. I endured (with some teeth grinding) the digital transition, and let me tell you in the beginning digital was crap compared to film. You could hardly work the files and there was very poor latitude in post pro. It was a horror that went on for years. People were convinced digital was perfect and bought a camera with 4MP and a 32MB card (yes, that is MEGA, not GIGA) and set the resolution to the lowest possible AS WELL AS maximum compression rate on Jpeg and could happily fill the card with almost a thousand images on a trip. Looked great on that 1" LCD monitor.

You can imagine the outcries when they ordered prints, small prints, and the digital artefacts were so appaling it looked like LEGO. Then you had to explain to them why they could not even print a small print out of that file. Then they'd say "But, it's digital!" "Can't you just run it in the computer and make it bigger?" Cough.
Sigh.

I worked as a photographer for some years, with Leica, Zeiss, Nikon and Hasselblad, with a brief stint with Mamiya7 and Rollei too. For me the advent of digital made working with photography unbearable for a quality oriented photographer, the customers wanted "a disc" and thought all digital cameras were the same and that anybody could take shots and why isn't it cheaper since you don't have to buy film? Etc etc. I stayed in the photofinishing and printing business for some years though, helping other photographers that were grappling with the new cameras. Progress was slow in the first years I tell ya.

We've come a far way since. Digital is still not perfect, but it is pretty darn good I'd say. I waited until the Canon 5D arrived before letting go of my analog cameras, it was the first "affordable" full frame (24x36mm sensor) digital SLR and still today it is quite a camera. I have moved on since then, to a Sony A900 with some converted Leica and Zeiss lenses, manual focus lenses. Today I prefer smaller cameras and shoot with an oddball camera that accepts Leica M lenses, the Ricoh GXR M mount. Not many have heard of it and most people dismiss the camera based on prejudice, but I can tell you it is one of the best thought out digital cameras ever made. Still waiting on a full frame module for it though...

As for the topic, digital versus film. Digital still can't do all that film does so well. Film has a very nice transition into highlights, it is a gentle roll off where as digital "clips" into the highlights and simply loses all detail. It is the main drawback of digital today and it is very hard to work with files that have clipped highlights.
With (negative) film you "burn in" light on the negative and the more you burn in the denser the negative gets, and you have quite a lot of latitude to work with before it gets oversaturated/overexposed. Digital still can't do this gracefully and you have to expose differently.

Digital has an advantage (at least for the better small cameras with larger sensors) in that you can lift the shadows and bring up detail in them in a way you simply can't do with film. On film, shadows mean that you have not burnt/etched in any information on the negative so when you try to bring out the detail all you get is a murky gray with little to no shadow detail. Digital can often extract a lot of detail from shadows without the expense of losing the highlights. It takes some skill to make it look natural though.

On film (negative) you always err on the plus side (more exposure) if you are not certain.

On digital it is easier in a way, you can watch the histogram and correct exposure and you aim for an exposure where highlights are not blown but "as far right as possible", i.e. weighting it towards the brighter side of the histogram. In very harsh light digital will not be able to capture all steps due to slightly lesser latitude but you can still wring a lot out of it.

Digital is somewhat like Slide film in that sense. With Slide film you had to err on the low side of exposure if you were unsure. Overexposing a slide meant burning out detail and washing out highlights beyond recovery - same as digital. Some people would purposely underexpose slide film slightly to give it a punchier look.
I used to tell slide shooters making the transition to digital to just keep thinking like you are shooting slide film and you'll be just fine.

Digital today (the better ones, that is) has the same latitude as slide film, slightly better even. It is not too far off negative film but still not quite there. As for the highlight roll off Sony has made the best sensors, which have a gentle roll off into highlights and this, together with color accuracy, was the main reason I switched to Sony. With Canon I felt I lost track of nuances and had a hard time recreating them in post processing.

When you are shooting RAW instead of Jpeg (I encourage this for important shots) you have not finalized the processing. You have simply dumped an image in limbo in the camera and you will finalize it after the fact. You don't set white balance on a RAW file in camera, or more correctly, it does not matter if you have set it wrong. You set your White Balance when converting the RAW file and choose and tweak it to the best setting manually. Also, you will have a more gracious exposure latitude. Not MORE latitude really, but you can shift the whole latitude which means that you can actually recover clipped highlight (to a certain degree only though - so don't be sloppy with exposure!) and recover shadow detail. Have you or your camera metered properly you can often do both.
During RAW conversion you set a few parameters, then export the result as a .TIFF or .Jpeg for further processing. A .TIFF has the advantage of not being compressed and is best, but most times a Jpeg will suffice, at max resolution (minimum or no compression).
RAW files look a bit dull and grey compared to Jpegs out of the camera, this is because you need to shift the exposure and set white balance. Also, Jpegs are sharpened in camera and RAW files are (usually, and meant to be) unsharpened and you are suppose to sharpen them to suit the intended purpose, which is either print, or web display. Sharpening is not the same for the two. In general sharpening is applied at the very end of post processing, after all else is done.
If making a print one needs a higher resolution image than for web, so the best thing is to save a copy, shrink it down for web and work the larger file later for printing. If you save a Jpeg on a high compression rate and work with it and save it again with high compression it will look like garbage. For reopened Jpegs you should save them at MAX Jpeg settings (no/minimum compression) so they won't deteriorate. You can't recreate that lost detail by means of upressing them later...

Having worked with medium format film I will still say that a well exposed negative on slow speed negative film is very hard to beat. You can get close but there are limiting factors for resolution in digital cameras that aren't there in "analog" cameras. One of these limiting factors is sensor resolution and the AA filter nearly all digital cameras have to avoid a thing called moiré which basically is "false color" in small repetitive details (like window blinds and fences) that are far away and at the limit of what the lens/sensor can reproduce. As a whole most digital cameras have a smaller "system resolution" than the old analog cameras. Todays advances in noise reduction and sensor technology has helped produce much cleaner digital files at high ISO settings.

An ISO 1600 image from a modern dSLR today looks sooooooo much better than what I could get with a small format (full frame) analog camera at the same ISO film speed. ISO 1600 was GRAINY. A base ISO digital shot looks very clean for the most part with a slightly plasticky feel to open skies that creates an illusion of resolution. It looks clean so it holds up well when enlarged if compared to an analog print. But when comparing details outside of the sky portion the difference is less apparent and can sometimes tilt the scale in favor of analog. For me, I'd say a 12MP full frame digital camera is equal to small format film. There is usually little need for more Megapixels and doubling the pixel count does not double the print size. You need to quadruple the pixel count to do that.

The Sony A900 I had produced superb prints at base ISO and up to ISO 640, and is still one of the better cameras with 24MP. From the 12MP of the Canon 5D to the Sony's 24MP (Or Canon's own excellent camera, the 5D mkII) there is a noticeable difference, but not HUGE. Nikon has not played with that many high MP cameras but have chosen (and I applaud them for that) to make lower MP count cameras with excellent dynamic range (mostly Sony sensors) and remarkable high ISO capabilities. Canon has pushed on with the high MP race to some degree but I am not so into Canon cameras myself.

Phew, it was long since I wrote so much on this forum, but I have been nurturing my photographic pastime lately so I thought I'd chime in.

Henrik
     

Thanks for the info. Very interesting.
Is that the aforementioned ("smaller camera") the Sony A900 or another.
What kind of photo's/subjects do you take, portraits, landscape etc. or anything and everything?

Tim

Thank you guys, I was not sure if anyone was going to read my posting and two thirds down I was actually about to delete it, thinking this is perhaps the wrong forum.

Quietguy: Yes, I've shot my fair share of slides (remember, I had virtually free E6 processing...) and slide film thinking IS the best approach to digital.

I definitely agree that slide film was only really good at low ISO. In a pinch I would enjoy Fuji 400 slide film, but that is, in a pinch. For me personally, pretty much all ISO 100 films were solid - and as you know they all had their character (or lack there of). I almost never shot anything other than ISO 100 slide film. Or Fuji Reala 100 negative film. I was not a Velvia (ISO50) fan, but I did shoot some Kodachrome, both 64 and 200, the considered the latter the "best" "high speed" slide film. ISO 200 = "High speed" haha.

As for the digital sensors outresolving the lenses, it is a very long discussion but I don't quite agree with this. It is a both Yes - and No - answer to that. For practical reasons you need to look at the "system resolution" i.e. sensor size, AA-filter and how much lp/mm (linepairs per mm) of resolution you get at the end. In reality this means that sensors for the most part don't really outresolve anything but quite poor lenses. For better lenses that have high spatial resolution (a great lens can resolve up to and over 240lp/mm center and still over +100lp/mm at the edges- there is no way that resolution makes the transit across the AA-filter and sensor bayer matrix conversion, that much I can guarantee.)

However, digital sensors are easily good enough to reveal decentered and poorly corrected lenses with coma, CA and other abberations - so on that I really agree.
You have to be even more picky with your lenses on digital.

Also, you are absolutely correct that system resolution is applicable in analog printing as well and must be taken into consideration. For professional printing (direct printing) we worked some marvelous machines that would squeeze the last grain out of the prints and were calibrated regularly. The whole printing system was calibrated every morning after warm up by means of a printed evaluation chart that would read the output of a test chart and calibrate colors accordingly. It worked.

Unless you make an obvious mistake, digital is easier to output in printing, provided you don't choke the resolution on the way out on paper.

A bit of a stiff reading on system resolution, not complete, but a good primer:
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml

For me photography is all about the lenses, a high resolving lens will always serve you well and will pose no bottleneck in the digital chain. The best lens I have, the ZM25/2.8 is stated by Carl Zeiss, one of the better lens makers and known for not throwing figures around loosely, to resolve a whopping 400lp/mm in the center at f4 - measured on a special film emulsion! This is actually at the maximum theoretical limit of optical resolution for a camera lens, and the highest ever measured by anyone. No one in the industry has disputed Zeiss claims. Anything around, say 240lp/mm is considered world class and there is no digital sensor that can claim to top out those figures. In order to avoid other digital artefacts there are limiting factors in the sensor array/layout and the Anti Aliasing filter that will reduce actual system resolution.

In short: you can stick the ZM lenses (and other superb glass) on ANY camera, digital and analog, and be amazed by the results. If resolution seems poor, it is the sensor that is maxing out before the lens. This is even more evident on wide angle shots with modern digital cameras where the system resolution is to poor (despite 20+MP) to resolve minute detail in grass/leaves on landscape shots. Sometimes digital photographers refer to lenses as "pixel perfect". These are the well corrected, high resolving lenses that chisel out them details all over the sensor surface and makes you go - wow!

I can tell you that my better lenses - one from 1974 - have stayed with me throughout my career and have never been outresolved by a sensor but of course the benefit of my best lenses (converted or adapted to fit other mounts) have been that they bring out the best of the sensors used. And sometimes reveal the sensor, but not the other way around. Today I have let go of my Sony A900 (resides no more than 10 min away though, so I have visiting rights) and my prime lenses as I have too little time to indulge and peruse said items. The Sony A900 is one of the few digital cameras that have been inspiring to use, and with results that have really impressed me. I will not show any samples here in a film thread though.

For the digital side of the discussion I think it is crucial to talk about sensor size. Smaller digital sensors pay a penalty when it comes to gathering light and the result that the applied "gain" to reach equiv ISO100 is higher in a small sensor camera than in a large sensor camera. When reaching higher ISO with the small sensor cameras (with a few exceptions, the P&S cameras) the applied gain will lead to a lot of image noise, sometimes grain like, very evident in dark areas, and sometimes color blotches, which are the ugliest. Most often both. To combat this heavy noise reduction is applied - to varying effect. Nearly all small cameras will render a perfectly usable image at fairly high ISO settings for web posting, where the artefacts of noise reduction (smear, blotches, color anomalies) are hidden. For print, or when magnified on screen it can look like a water color painting. This is the penalty we have to pay when people scream for high resolution cameras with a small foot print.

Some people argue that better noise processing will eventually make them look as good as bigger sensor cameras. That is false. The same noise reduction advances trickle both ways and today large sensor cameras have pretty amazing high ISO performance - and will always look cleaner and have more latitude than a smaller sensor. Physics still apply here.

Today I think, and most agree, that the APS-C format* has matured into the "new standard" for serious amateurs and many professionals too. The sensor technology is good enough for most applications and the sensor format allows for smaller, yet potent cameras. In this segment there are plenty cameras too chose from. For me, personally, I still prefer "full frame" digital cameras, as it gives a certain look with high speed lenses that you cannot achieve with APS-C or smaller format cameras, i.e. controlling depth of field and creating an image.

Also, all else being equal a larger sensor with larger photo sites will render better images, quality wise. They might still suck though. Nobody can help you or me with that.

Stay tuned: photo to come...

Camera Contax G2 with 28mm lens. Scanned from Kodak Ektar 100 film. A film that was poorly developed and all but ruined at a local lab around Moab, Utah. I had to scan all images at home before printing in order to correct them, totally backwards for analog work flow... Low res scan but with decent tonality given the harsh midday desert light:
 






*name is a remnant from the hideous film based APS "advanced photo system" which was a smaller amateur format with three aspect ratios accomplished by cropping in print, all shots are actually shot at APS-H.  


EDIT: spelling, have yet to proof read properly though.

In case anyone is still interested in details, toward the bottom of this page there is a section which determines a "megapixel equivalent" for a specific filmstock mathematically; it reaches the conclusion that in 35mm format, it would be roughly equivalent to 87 megapixels; in square medium format about 313 megapixels; in 4x5" large format, about 1140 megapixels.

Some of the 5-figure digital Hasselblads (medium format digital) can only reach 60 megapixels in a single-shot mode.  Some can reach 200+ megapixels by playing some games with the sensor position, but this would limit their usefulness for capturing anything that moves -- those are more for capturing landscapes and still-life shots where the camera is mounted on a tripod or similar support and the subject doesn't move.

At 60MP for a single-shot, even 35mm film has better resolution... while it is still film, anyway :-)

There are still limits on affordable *scanning* of that film, and a scanned image from the film may not present the kind of resolution that can be obtained by a higher-end digital camera.


EDIT: forgot the link - http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-resolution.htm

It's funny (strange) how Hasselblad equipment has somehow managed to hold it's value over the last several years.  I would suppose it was the genius of having the ability to add a digital back to replace the film version but it's only a guess.  Those H4d-200's... crazy at $44,000!  My cousin was a rep for them in SOCAL for many years but she saw the handwriting on the wall and now reps digital media and is doing very well.  She could barely give the stuff away.   I still have my F100 and it still collects dust.  I'm about thinking about replacing my D200 (it's about 200 years old in camera years) with the D800 or the D4 since they both do video too.  The Sony is interesting but I hate thinking about having to sell all my Nikon gear I've collected over the years including some great primes.  BTW, just a random thought, if you ever have the chance to go to NYC, you have to go to B&H on 9th Ave.  It's the epicenter for photo buff's.  If it's photo related, they have it.