Mike West wrote: > The problem with converting film-cameras to digital (and thus > retaining one's investment in lenses), is that it's only a matter of > time before digital zooming replaces good old glass. If they can > give us a whole bunch of pixels and a good 20mm (or wider) lens, > we'll have all the focal lengths we need by means of digital zoom. Mike, let's imagine you would like to be able to zoom to 300mm, from 20mm. That means a 15x zoom. The equivalent resolution of a fine film is about 4,000x3,000. But let's accept a lower resolution, e.g. 1600x1200 like what is found on modern digital cameras. If you want to keep that quality at 300mm by using digital zooming, you need a 24,000x18,000 sensor! That is, a 432 Mega Pixels CCD. Honestly, I do not think it is for tomorrow. And the figures are even worse for real photographic quality. If a 24x36mm sensor size is considered, it means that each pixel (which is made of a transistor) should be less than 1,5 micron in size!!! It may come one day, but not anytime soon. Nicolas.
