Digital equal to film ?

I was recently told by a camera store clerk that for digital camera to be
equal to film camera it needed to be 12MP. for the same quality of photos.
Is there any truth to that?

Thanks

JRYezierski wrote:
I was recently told by a camera store clerk that for digital camera to be
equal to film camera it needed to be 12MP. for the same quality of photos.
Is there any truth to that?

Thanks
Nope.

Of course it depends on the film camera, assuming here a 35mm. Most
people feel that it is really hard for film to match a good 8 MP camera
(DSLR) by the time you are to 12 you will be far better looking then
any 35mm camera.

Scott

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 18:58:02 -0500, "JRYezierski"
wrote:

I was recently told by a camera store clerk that for digital camera to be
equal to film camera it needed to be 12MP. for the same quality of photos.
Is there any truth to that?

Thanks


It depends on two things.

Which film (and at what size)?
Which pixels?

It's a very contentious area, but my 8mp digital produces much better
images than my film SLR ever did.

Then again, I've got better lenses now and I can do my own
'processing' rather than accepting what the minilab decides is best.
Pixel count is a pretty poor measure of image quality on the whole.

--
Tim Hobbs

"Tim Hobbs" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 18:58:02 -0500, "JRYezierski"
wrote:

I was recently told by a camera store clerk that for digital camera to be
equal to film camera it needed to be 12MP. for the same quality of photos.
Is there any truth to that?

Thanks


It depends on two things.

Which film (and at what size)?
Which pixels?

It's a very contentious area, but my 8mp digital produces much better
images than my film SLR ever did.

Then again, I've got better lenses now and I can do my own
'processing' rather than accepting what the minilab decides is best.
Pixel count is a pretty poor measure of image quality on the whole.

--
Tim Hobbs

Agreed. My Sony DSC-H1 produces marvelous images from a 5MP sensor.

It depends on two things.

Which film (and at what size)?


That would be 35mm film at what ever asa/iso you pick.
Camera being a SLR


Which pixels?
Clerk didn't say just that it took a 12MP to be equal to film.

JRYezierski wrote:
I was recently told by a camera store clerk that for digital camera to be
equal to film camera it needed to be 12MP. for the same quality of photos.
Is there any truth to that?
Sort of. There are a lot of variables though. I'm assuming that you are
comparing 35mm to digital. From my own testing, I would be prepared to
say consumer ISO 100 colour negative film is on par with 6-8MP. Pro
Films give a little better, maybe 7-9MP.
ISO 100 Slide film or B&W I would rate equivalent to about 10-12MP,
while ISO 50 is probably on par with 12-14MP.
It is all a bit academic though because film grain is not equivalent to
pixels. There is also a big difference between the pixels of different
digital cameras too - A 6MP DSLR will generally deliver far greater
image quality than a 6MP ultra-compact. Also with film, the processing
and printing methods used have a big bearing on image quality. I've seen
minilabs that do such a lousy job printing, that a 1.2MP camera phone
can blow them away quality wise.
If you are familiar with 35mm consumer films, processed and printed by
minilabs, then you will most likely be blown away by the quality of a
6MP DSLR. If you are more familiar with pro 35mm films, or pro slide
films, and use a decent lab, then you will probably find an 8-12MP DSLR
to be on par with what you are used to. If you are familiar with low ISO
B&W films, or love darkroom processes, or use MF or LF film, then you
will probably find anything digital to be very underwhelming.

Thanks

JRYezierski wrote:

I was recently told by a camera store clerk that for digital camera to be
equal to film camera it needed to be 12MP. for the same quality of photos.
Is there any truth to that?

Thanks

Yes, there is truth, but it depends on film type. The finest grained
color film, lowest ISO generally are 10 to 16 megapixel equivalent in spatial
resolution, but digital has higher signal-to-noise, which greatly help
image quality perception. see:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta....summary1.html
Higher speed film, like iso 400, for example, are approximately equivalent
to 4 megapixels digital.

Roger

JRYezierski wrote:
I was recently told by a camera store clerk that for digital camera to be
equal to film camera it needed to be 12MP. for the same quality of photos.
Is there any truth to that?

Thanks

One thing to do if you are wondering about the relative quality is to
print an image from a DSLR and compare it to film prints that you might
have. There are any number of review sites that have example photos,
if you feel uneasy about copyright issue with printing this out feel
free to use one of mine.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/38377423/original
This is a test image to see how good the 50mm 1.8 Canon lens is, but it
is about as sharp as I can get from the 20D.

It is getting harder and harder for film to match the current batch of
DSLRs.
I have seen some pretty good scans of film but these are rare and
require a very good film and a very good scanner. It would also appear
that slide film gives the best detail but falls way short of dynamic
range to with film you are going to loss out somewhere.

Also it is good to keep in mind that to get a good film shot, one that
can compete with a good DSLR you pretty much need to use a good prime
lens and a tripod. For me this is a limitation that I can't live
with.

Scott

Graham Fountain wrote:

If you are familiar with low ISO
B&W films, or love darkroom processes, or use MF or LF film, then you
will probably find anything digital to be very underwhelming.


I think it also depends on the subject matter. With wide lenses focused near
infinity MF or LF does kill digital capture right now (the same way it
kills 35mm film) but at higher magnifications (longer lenses or macro
stuff) it's right there IMHO. That said, I get better results with 8MP dSLR
than I ever did with MF negative film and trying to get good prints from
slide film is such a problem, I'd never compare digital to that.

--

Stacey

"JRYezierski" wrote in message
...
It depends on two things.

Which film (and at what size)?


That would be 35mm film at what ever asa/iso you pick.
Camera being a SLR

Could also be a MF, they are SLR as well.


Which pixels?
Clerk didn't say just that it took a 12MP to be equal to film.