Hi Rick,

I have wondered the same thing. Taking a picture of a picture is one thing for digitizing old family images, as it is great just to get it in a modern format and share with family. But, if we really want to get the most out of film, staying analog may make a lot of sense.

I am not sure I see doing prints myself. But I could see processing the film myself. Actually, it seems that is what many do and it would cut down the wait time for film from weeks off to a lab to a few hours or overnight. Of course, it is more work.

But, diving into the limitation: scanning. First off, I've read a couple of times that good scanners are actually only getting ~2400 dpi even when you set them higher and even though their "native" resolution is rated higher. The V850 camera used for transparencies is reported to be 6400 dpi, but people who have run tests claim to not be able to achieve that. But, using those two values and 36 x 24 mm film, 1 inch = 25.4 mm, so 2400 dpi becomes 94.5 dpmm and 6400 dpi becomes 252 dpmm. Converting to pixels assuming 1 dot = 1 pixel and you get 3,402 x 2,260 =7.7 MP to 9,072 x 6,048 = 54.7 MP.

So, really, even if 35 mm film is capable of 22 MP, by scanning at home we might be crippling film's actual resolution. The scanner may be the limitation. And, if this tests out, you have to ask if it would be better to stay completely analog?

I've only played with the math on this one after reading a few things. This is something I plan to play with at some point if I do get into film and scanning at home. For now, for my family archival project, I am just scanning at 2400 dpi to 3200 dpi. If I find some images that I want to do something with, I might send those out for higher end digitization (wet mounted drum scanner, etc).