Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Johnny, Where in the world did you come up with Erwin saying a 960 x1440 pixel image was functionally equivalant to film??? No wonder you are confused..... : ) Duane Birkey HCJB World Radio Quito Ecuador Duane's Photographs of Ecuador http://duane_birkey.tripod.com Johnny wrote: Very simply, Erwin argues that a 960x1440 pixel digital image is functionally equivalent to the best hand-held image you can get with a hand-held Leica (ie it has a similar resolution of around 20 lp/mm). Erwin wrote earlier in part: I started with a 24x36mm negative of silverbased emulsion and used standard calculations to find the number of picture elements (pixels) or in classical terms "image points" for a given resolution in lines per mm. So on the assumption of 40 lp/mm (80 lines) as an industry standard (BTWthis resolution gives salon quality exhibition prints of size 40 x 50cm, a 35mm negative capturing 24 x 80 x 36 x 80 lines has a number of pixels or image points of 5.5 million. This figure is independent of whatever grain size. Now a new CMOS chip with 16.8 million pixels needs 4 pixels to repesent one image point. The 16.8 million divided by 4 gives more than 4 million true image points. So what I intented to note is that with a CMOS of size 16.8 Million pixels the overall image resolution is close to if not equal to the film resolution needed for a high quality image and that with such a convergence it could become difficult to see the differences in print (digital or analogue). I was not referring to the file size such an image would require. And I am well aware that file size is pixel number times number of bytes to contain colour and dynamic range information. THis may be 3 or 4 or 8 bytes, that is immaterial to my intended reasoning: that is comparing pixel counts per square area, which according to all handbooks is the equivalent of resolution figures. If we scan a 35mm negative with 4000 pixels per inch, that is 160 lines per mm, we of course get a higher number of pixels and this resolution is closer to the 200 lines perm (100 lp/mm) that current film can capture. I incidentally started my calculations with that figure. And with 200 lines per mm the pixel count/resolution is about 14 milion pixels. More I did not say. That such an image has a file size of close to 100Mb is evident. But I was not, I repeat I was not calculating file sizes but do a comparison of resolution figures to find the current state of the digital versus silverbased image quality. I was not discussing printer dots or the relation to pixel amount and print dots or whatever else can be imagined.