Expert: John Oliverio - 7/15/2004

Question
I purchased a Canon Rebel EOS 300D Digital Camera thinking it would reproduce images as sharp as my old Canon EOS 620. I was pleased that I was able to use all of my lenses from the 620, but when I took pictures with the 100-300 zoom lens it appears that it is not near as sharp as what I got with the 620 using film. I used a tripod with timer but still it did not render what I thought was as good as the film camera.
Is there a way to determine what film would be in megapixels if converted. What I mean is if my camera is 6.3 megapixels shooting a digital image, in comparison what would a roll of 100 iso film be in megapixels?
thank you  
Donny

Answer
Donny,

Your question unfortunately makes some false assumptions.  The number of pixels has nothing to do with the quality (including sharpness) of an image.  The number of pixels only determines how large you can print.  For the record, I own a Canon 10D and can make prints up to 13x19 that I would consider film quality.  And the 300D has the same chip the 10D has.

 Quality is determined by the lens and how "good" the pixels are.  Not all pixels are created equally.  You should also look at your printing and editing process to see if any fault can be found there.  And if you can, (I can't remember if you can or not) you may want to increase the sharpness parameter on your 300D.  

 Also for the record, I think the current thinking is that 20 million pixels will equal film in scalability which once again has nothing to do with quality.

 Hope this helps.

John