>From Jed: > Regarding cameras, years ago I examined a 35 mm film negative and a photo > under a microscope to estimate how many "pixels" they have. That is, > individual grains with about 1 color each. I read a variety of estimates > of this on the Internet. The topic was hotly disputed by camera > aficionados. It depends on film quality and the camera. Anyway, my > estimate was that ordinary film in our camera captured roughly 16 megapixels. > We had to get a new camera the other day after an unnamed party dropped ours. > It has 16.2 MP. It seems most of them do. So I guess digital cameras have > finally caught up with 35 mm film resolution. They have been better in many > other ways for a long time. We stopped using film years ago.
According to some professional photographers they think the magic barrier actually happened closer to the 12 megapixel range. A professional photographer I've known since the late 1970s, Ctein. Ctein.com came to this conclusion after carefully analyzing the random displacement of the dye crystals used in most film under a microscope. In his opinion, there is so much randomness in where individual crystals were placed within the emulsion that the 16 megapixel barrier was overkill. He writes a lot of articles for professional photography magazines like the following: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/ctein/page/ 2/ http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/02/wha t-cant-digital-do-for-me.html If you browse some of his articles you will immediately notice he spends a great deal of time assembling information graphics and statistics to back up his conclusions. Here's a photo of Ctein with what I suspect is probably some of the last manufactured packages of dye transfer print paper. Ctein is one of a rare handful who still can produce dye-transfer film. He keeps his stock of chemicals in a refrigerator. http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/.a/6a00df351e888f8834014e8ab8e18497 0d-popup Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
