> no, but it is nice to be able to look carefully at a 40x 60cm print and see > the tiny guy in the background is reading a newspaper, and when you walk > right up to the print and look veerrry closely you can make out the > headlines on the newpaper :-) :-) Joe King may have have light of this but, it is an element that a "1000-pixel" image can never, ever emulate. It's what was hinted at with the comment: "Digital resolution has not improved that much - what has changed is people's expectation / tolerance ". This does not have to be taken as a slur - try observation instead. What we "see" goes far beyond the data in a picture: the images we see are entirely constructs within our own heads, loosely related by what is before our eyes. We learn to "see" (interpret) the physical entities - heck, we can construct 3D images from a couple of lines and a bit of shading ... If a lower resolution view of the world becomes the norm (ubiquitous) we adapt, and before long it really does start to look just as good as ever. TV images of nature "look" fantastic but transferred to paper the same images look p-poor. We subconciously know to make allowances without needing to think about it and there it is - we just become unaware. But the fact (and it is a fact) that films can, and did, record (superfluous) fine detail that MUST be missed by a digital sensor [detail - limited] does not go away just because there is a paradigm shift in the way we decide we should look a photos. Sure, large prints on adverstising hoardings are meant to be looked at from 50-m away. But for me the ability to be able to walk right up to my "minimum viewing distance" and make out still more fine detsail - like the tiny guy in the background - adds to not detracts from the image. The fact that with digital sensors he would occupy only a few pixel just removes that ability. Q
