MICKEY88 said:
I'm not so sure about that ....I've read a few articles recently stating that the newer digital cameras 8 megapixel and up, are quite capable of producing photos equal to 35mm..
# of Megapixels is only relevant as the size of your printed photo goes up. I.e. a picture taken with a 3MP camera printed at 4x6 and a picture taken with a 22MP camera printed at 4x6 will look the same. There is a simple formula for determining how big of a print you can make before you start losing sharpness:
Long print dimension in inches = 4 x (square root of megapixels)
For example, for a four megapixel camera the biggest print you can make without losing sharpness compared to film at normal viewing distances is is 6 x 8." From a sixteen MP camera likewise you could go 12 x 16." Of course you can print bigger, just you won't have the sharpness of film.
Depending what you are doing, digital cannot always replace film. If that were the case Arizona Highways would accept digital photos. They don't. See
http://www.arizonahighways.com/page.cfm?name=Photo_Talk803
It's true that most photojournalism has gone completely digital. But, that's because it's fast, convenient, and the quality they need is close enough to film to not matter.
It takes about 25 megapixels to simulate 35mm film's practical resolution, which is still far more than any practical digital camera.
The key to resolution debates is to ask yourself how big you will ever need to print an image. If you are happy with small sizes digital cameras are great. If you want to be able to have prints of any size film provides that capability Printing amateur sizes, like most of us do, on a $700 EPSON will never show the resolution advantage of film, but it's there. For gallery type work, one will see the difference. The ordinary digital camera simply can't make enough real pixels for gallery sized pictures. Of course when most of us think of "film" we mean 35mm color print film, and make 4x6" prints. At that size almost any digital camera has plenty of resolution to give the same sharpness as film and you'll probably get better color from digital. But from a pure perspective, film has better resolution and image quality than digital.
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