CMOS vs CCD and res. of 35mm film

bond007 (James Bond) is spot on - light is analog. Let's look at it another way:

We represent grayscale in terms of 8 bit, 12 bit, 14 but and 16 bit (and a bit more...) Eight bit gives us 256 shades, 16 bits 4096 shades. We can split those hairs as fine as we want and still find something in nature to in that that shade.

Look at color graphic cards - how many millions (billions) of colors can they produce?
If light were binary (or digital) we'd have black and white. Presence or absence of photons. Yet photons must be able to carry more than on and off - Where does a "red" photon come from? Luminance and brightness is the number of like photons - the more, the merrier.

Digital is our way to represent mathematically and repeatably the light energy we see. It is a compromise, as the eye is so amazing in what it can detect.

fxk wrote in post #5880218
bond007 (James Bond) is spot on - light is analog. Let's look at it another way:

We represent grayscale in terms of 8 bit, 12 bit, 14 but and 16 bit (and a bit more...) Eight bit gives us 256 shades, 16 bits 4096 shades. We can split those hairs as fine as we want and still find something in nature to in that that shade.

Look at color graphic cards - how many millions (billions) of colors can they produce?
If light were binary (or digital) we'd have black and white. Presence or absence of photons. Yet photons must be able to carry more than on and off - Where does a "red" photon come from? Luminance and brightness is the number of like photons - the more, the merrier.

Digital is our way to represent mathematically and repeatably the light energy we see. It is a compromise, as the eye is so amazing in what it can detect.

You would be right, if there were an infinite number of colours possible. There are not, each colour could be represented by a number (as I said earlier, a band gap). But, as I also said, our camera can't measure down to that level yet.

You're confusing the word digital with the word binary. There are certainly more than 2 combinations.. but they are finite.

However, as I said it's almost moot the fact that light is better thought of as being digital - because the camera can't measure to that level.

This link has a nice bit of info on sensors!
[URL="http://[URL]www.​pcphotomag.com/cameras​/still-camera-reviews--comparisons/sensors-exposed.html"]

DognBone wrote in post #5880741
This link has a nice bit of info on sensors!
[URL="http://[URL]www.​pcphotomag.com/cameras​/still-camera-reviews--comparisons/sensors-exposed.html"]

First subheading of that article says that light is analog. Neat... =_=

DognBone wrote in post #5880741
This link has a nice bit of info on sensors!
[URL="http://[URL]www.​pcphotomag.com/cameras​/still-camera-reviews--comparisons/sensors-exposed.html"]

As I mentioned at the beginning on my post, CCD is inheritably superior to that of the CMOS with the exceptions that I mentioned and your site validates what I mentioned:
CCD Advantages
• Lower inherent noise
• Better inherent image quality

CMOS Advantages
• Faster
• Less power consumption
• One-chip Live View
• Lower cost

bond007 wrote in post #5881403
As I mentioned at the beginning on my post, CCD is inheritably superior to that of the CMOS with the exceptions that I mentioned and your site validates what I mentioned:
CCD Advantages
• Lower inherent noise
• Better inherent image quality

CMOS Advantages
• Faster
• Less power consumption
• One-chip Live View
• Lower cost

I find that first point strange, seeing how almost all Nikon cameras had worse high-ISO performance in relation to their Canon counterparts up until Nikon switched to a CMOS sensor.

CCD's need to be cool if they are not to produce noise.
Because they use more power, they don't stay cool.

CMOS has less noise but CCD can sync at way higher speeds I think - doesn't the D40 do 1/500 with the onboard flash (1/1000 with an external I've heard can be accomplished as well).

blinded wrote in post #5882399
CMOS has less noise but CCD can sync at way higher speeds I think - doesn't the D40 do 1/500 with the onboard flash (1/1000 with an external I've heard can be accomplished as well).

Right. The Canon 1D, which had a CCD sensor, had a X-Sync of 1/500s

SolidxSnake wrote in post #5882434
Right. The Canon 1D, which had a CCD sensor, had a X-Sync of 1/500s

Almost, not quite.
1/500s was the sync speed with a dedicated flash.
However, since the shutter never went faster then 1/125 (or maybe 1/250s) and the rest of the "shutterspeed" was regulated by switching the CCD on and off, flash sync was possible at all shutterspeeds, as long as the camera didn't "know" a flash was attached. (Therefore PC sync and manual flash would be needed)
If the flash would be fast enough, that would be up to and including 1/16000s

Realisticly 1/1000 or 1/2000s is do-able.

Search strobist on this topic and a Nikon D70; works the same.