FC: Thinking of buying a new camera? Consider... analog

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,33244,00.html

                     New Camera? Go Analog
                     by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)

                     3:00 a.m. 23.Dec.1999 PST 
                     Here's a last-minute warning to
                     procrastinating holiday shoppers: Before
                     you drop US$1,000 on that feature-filled
                     digital camera, consider going analog
                     instead. 

                     Yes, analog technology sounds so
                     oxymoronic, so 70s, so reminiscent of
                     33-rpm albums, Studio 54, and corduroy
                     blazers. 

                     But believe it or not, that dusty old
                     analog 35-mm your father squirreled away
                     in his attic can give you images that are
                     clearer and more colorful than digital
                     ones. And its resale value won't plummet
                     like an Aeroflot jet come Y2K. 

                     The first thing to know is that the
                     cheapest 35-mm camera beats even a
                     $5,000 digital camera in terms of
                     resolution. Most good photo labs offer the
                     Kodak PictureCD and PhotoCD service,
                     which scans in images from any 35-mm
                     film at 3072 x 2048 -- a 6.3 megapixel
                     resolution. 

                     That's a lot better than the expensive
                     Nikon D1 camera, which tops out at 2.6
                     megapixels and retails for $5,000. 


                     Resolution is important. The more pixels
                     an image contains, the more you can
                     generally enlarge an image without an
                     unacceptable loss in quality. A 6.3
                     megapixel image, for instance, is detailed
                     enough to allow attractive prints of up to
                     8 x 10 inches. 

                     Some analog cameras allow even larger
                     images. At around $2,000 they're not
                     cheap, but medium-format cameras use
                     film that's about four times the size of
                     35-mm slides or negatives. Christmas
                     photos I took with a 6x6-format
                     Hasselblad simply wouldn't have been as
                     clear with a 35-mm or digital camera. 

                     [...]



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