Originally posted by Gerard_Dirks I complained. In analog time we had the kodachrome 25 slide film. Comparing with modern Cameras this film has a resolution of about 60Mpx.
The film may have had a resolution of about 60Mpix* - but the lenses at the time struggled to produce anywhere near this kind of resolution. My personal exemplar of this is the SMCP-K 50mm f/1.2 - it is not the sharpest 50mm lens pentax has ever made, at f/1.2 its resolution characteristic is
abysmal, stop it down a bit, circa f/3.5~4 and it gets this soft-sharpness that was considered the holy grail of portrait photography in the 1960s - the kind of sharpness you get when you stretch a black stocking over a Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm f/4 C** on a Hasselblad 501C. Stopped down f/5.6~f/11 the 50mm f/1.2 really hits its stride, and performs admirably.
Don't get me wrong old lenses can produce phenomenal images on whatever medium they are used on. But if you're expecting the level of performance offered by new computer designed fully apochromatic primes that are showing up these days, you will be disappointed. In the end, If the artist is happy with the results that is good enough for me.
*I take these kind of statements with a hefty grain of salt - these numbers are nowhere near accurate when taken outside of the lab from which they were derived. 60Mega pixels at 1000:1 contrast
perhaps, However, at 50:1 contrast you would only see probably
1/5th of that resolution. I have said before and it bears repeating: Film resolution is heavily dependent upon the photographers technique and ability, camera support systems used,Lenses, film flatness at the rails, film batch, the chemistry used to develop the film, the incantation used while you pour in the fixer, phase of the moon.etc etc
**some photographers would also go so far as to slightly de-focus the lens because for such a simple optical design, it was outrageously sharp.