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“bad resolution”??? 35mm film can deliver 87 MP, more than any ff digital camera i know.

https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-resolution.htm#:~:text....




Besides that this number is high and there we are talking about only very high resolution films, the lenses limit the resolution. With the tiny lenses of those cameras, you wouldn't make good use of any large sensor. There is a reason that even mFT lenses are usually larger than those old compacts. They used 35mm film only because it was the widest available and cheapest material.


No, it can't. That's at a very low contrast rate, meaning that any detail at the 87MP level is going to be extremely muted and barely noticeable even if it was already high contrast. So basically you'd only ever get that resolution if you were taking picture of a black/white striped test chart, nothing else.

A better benchmark is MTF50, at which you can get about 50 line pairs at ISO 100-50 which corresponds to about 10 megapixels. If we want to be nice we might go as low as MTF20 where you'll get about 18 megapixels of low contrast. I'm looking at Velvia 50, the same film as Ken (https://www.ishootfujifilm.com/uploads/VELVIA%2050%20Data%20...)

Ken also makes the point that the Bayer sensor reduces the resolution - and it does - but he forgets that film has different MTFs for different wavelengths, sometimes even as bad as half for red compared to green.


Tmax and Delta 100 have 150 lines per millimeter, and it's even way higher for certain specialty films like Adox CMS 20 with 250 lines. Though you probably need a drum scanner to resolve to that level. For general use, a high quality scanner at 22 mp is about enough. Thats with 35mm though. You get much much higher resolution with 120 film and larger

https://jpbuffington.com/?p=167


I was comparing color films, but sure, speciality black and white films can approach the resolution of current high resolution color cameras, with the drawback that the lack of stabilization will make these resolutions only achievable with a tripod and of course only for static subjects, in which case pixel shift is probably a better option.

And yes, you can use medium or large format film, but that comes with very serious drawbacks, and for low ISO film is literally impossible without a tripod, in which case you might be better served with sensor shift instead.


Ken Rockwell is the most reliable source of non-fiction fiction on the internet.




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