Digital BW, The Print

> I am never quite sure whether any subjective element enters the
> equation when comparing film resolution with pixels.

Hi Quentin,

It depends on whether you're talking about science (truth) or marketing ;-)

> For example, the Phase One H20 back uses the Kodak 16mp chip.  16mp
> is less even than Kodak's claims for 35mm resolution, but Phase One
> maintain their back offers quality better than medium format film.
> Examples I have seen from Phase Ones own demo CD are of exceptional
> quality.

The term "quality" is very very subjective.  If you mean it has excellent
color, yes, if you mean it's really sharp, yes...if you talk about actual
image detail...bzzzzzt...it falls way short.  Detail and sharpness are
entirely different things.

> It is a slightly diferent point, as maybe 35mm film does, on paper,
> hold more data than, say, the Phase One back, but in practice, the
> Phase One looks a whole lot better.  There could be a number of
> reasons for this: useful data could be lost in film grain, lack of
> film flatness and scanner limitations. But is seems that,
> subjectively at least, substantially fewer pixels are need from
> direct digital capture than from digitised, scanned film.

It depends on what you are trying to do with the image...  In many
circumstances, yes, that is entirely true.

Austin