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Digital Camera Quality Passing Film?
smartbit writes "Luminous Landscape writes in their Preliminary Field Report of the Canon 1Ds 11 Megapixel camera: 'the 1Ds produces the best combination of resolution, colour accuracy and low noise that I've yet seen in a digital camera.
What about a comparison with both 35mm film and medium format? I'm afraid that film has definitively lost the battle. The 1Ds's full-frame 11MP CMOS sensor produces a 32MB file -- as big as a typical scan. But this file is sharper and more noise free than any scan I have ever seen, including drum scans. There simply isn't a contest any longer.'
Kodak's Pro 14n list price is $5000 lower and uses a similar CMOS sensor supplied by Fillfactory "
Actually, that's not true. Film has a "grain" structure, caused by lumps of silver-halide. The grain is the limiting factor in film resolution.
Film certainly does not provide resolution at the "atomic" level.
The resolution of high-end consumer digital cameras now matches or exceeds that of typical consumer 35mm film.
The biggest advantage that film does have - it will continue to enjoy for some time to come - is dynamic range. You can't even come close with digital. No digital camera - even the most costly professional models - came come anywhere close to the dynamic range of consumer 35mm film and print material - let alone that in an Ansel Adams or Weston print. (And that was the film technology 50 years ago!)