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Pixels Vs Film 
A Draft Article by Brad Templeton
How many pixels are there in a frame of 35mm film? A print?
This is a somewhat controversial question, and there are many possible answers. Film is an analogue medium, so it doesn't have "pixels" per se, though film scanners have pixels and a specific resolution.
Today the one thing most people agree on is that it's a lot more than any current consumer digital camera. The debate is about how much resolution the digitals will have to reach to start matching the film.
The very short answer is that there are around 14 million "quality" pixels in a high-quality 35mm shot. That's a shot with a tripod, with a decent lens and a quality, fine-grained film, in decent light. There may be as few as 4 million "quality" pixels in a handheld shot with a point-and-shoot camera or camera with a poor lens. And of course if focus is poor, or light is poor, or the camera was not held steady, the number will drop down be...

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Michael Reichmann is the founder of the Luminous Landscape. Michael passed away in May 2016. Since its inception in 1999 LuLa has become the world's largest site devoted to the art, craft, and technology of photography. Each month more than one million people from every country on the globe visit LuLa.
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