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Jorge
6th of November 2002 (Wed), 11:36
Obviously I haven’t read through this entire forum, but from what I’ve read my impression is this:

There is an endless mass of passionate discussions about resolution and other technicalities. Technicalities are by no means unimportant, but there’s no natural law that says that quality equals resolution!

I my opinion composition - meaning what you get in your shot - is by far the most important factor with regards to the quality of a photo. The factor of technical standard always comes in second.

But this is often forgotten probably because to equal quality with resolution is an easy measure and probably because it’s easier to improve technical skills than to achieve what ever it takes to produce photos that really makes sense.

I would not care too much about whether digital can match film from a technical point of view. The true advantage of digital photography must be that it speeds up the process of getting better by a thousand times by instantly letting you see what you do.

I have yet to benefit from this advantage since I’m not digital yet. But the problem of doing things in the dark with my film camera is really annoying me. In some ways it’s like playing an instrument without being able to hear the sound and then go pick up a tape of what you played in some store months later. No wonder there are so many tone-deaf photographers out there.

Enjoy and don’t forget to focus!

G2Jim
6th of November 2002 (Wed), 13:10
Good input Jorge.
Generally more resolution provides the ability to show more detail and clarity at larger sizes, but it certainly isn't everything.
Please come back and share your photos with us when you eventually go digital!

Pekka
6th of November 2002 (Wed), 13:56
Of course quality does not equal resolution.

But big resolution is good for few things:

- you have more freedom in composition, not for cropping, but for keeping smaller subjects reasonably accurate. Imagine a wide angle shot with a big sky and a small human standing in low left corner wondering all that. Enough resolution and you can see the person and the expression in detail, so big prints bring more to the content. I seem to lean towards "filling the frame" with D30 - perhaps that is partly because the resolution does not "allow" more freedom.

- you can make high ISO photos look much less noisy by downsizing large originals.

- you can have full advantage of high-quality lenses.

- when you have the shot of the year, you can rely that it is technically as good as it can be, and can be sold to any magazine or book without fighting with AD's and interpolation/sharpening.

Rudi
6th of November 2002 (Wed), 17:32
Do I hear the D60/1Ds coming, Pekka? :)