In order to make this discussion (ah, good old religion wars! :-) ) more interesting and more informed, I warmly advice the reading of Tim Vitale's "Film Grain, Resolutions and Fundamental Film Particles".
http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/emg/library/pdf..._resolution.pdf There are some common misconceptions that the document clarifies, which would be too many to list here, I will make a very short resumé:
Grain and ability to resolve details are different properties;
Silver halide crystals are 0,2 - 2,0 microns and color dye clouds are 10 - 15 microns (in a film you have particles of different size, to obtain the "foot" and "shoulder" in the response curve, incidentally Fuji is doing the same with their sensors, they use two cells (with different sensitivity) for one pixel in order to obtain a "shoulder" at highlights);
Digital microscopes arrive to 254,000 ppi and they see details on film!
When the film is exposed to light it forms filaments, very small compared to the silver particle
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These filaments form clouds which are not internally uniform. In a modern film there are at least 9 layers of these. The resulting color is formed by the light passing through the clouds and so, at the "pixel" level on the film, you still have variations which are practically "continuous".
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Graininess is a subjective sensation, a creation of the mind. When humans see a <B>regular</B> pattern (such as a dithered color) from near and, going further, the moment arrives when the minds discards the uniform pattern and only sees the color.
When humans see an <B>irregular</B> pattern, going further the minds still interprets the differences as "graininess" (same point dimensions, same distance of observation).
So instead of measuring graininess (which is subjective) film producers measures RMS granularity which is the real "noise" of the film at the densitometer (you shoot a uniform subject and you measure density variations at very adiacent locations, noise is the variation around the mean).
Vitale considers 18 slide films: RMS Granularity ranges from 7 to 13, and resolution (lp/mm at 30% I suppose the percentage indicates contrast) ranges from 35 to 80 (values in PPI range from 1780 to 4064).
(We should consider here that these values can vary with a different contrast or with a different film treatment).
Film like Kodak Panatomic X arrive to 170 lp/mm (8636 PPI). Exceptional lenses such as Leica or Zeiss on 35mm arrive to 140 lp/mm (at optimal diaphragm, with tripod etc.).
He arrives to a table with the combined resolving power of film and lens for many lens-film combinations. The resolving power of film is wasted with modern do-it-all zooms anyway, and only the very-very best lenses can approach the resolution limits of high resolution films. On the other hand, low resolution film can easily be "outresolved" by very good lenses. It is all old stuff but you have nice numbers here.
Very interesting reading.
The picture below shows that what appears as we would call "digital" grain at 400x magnification, actually appears as not digital at all at the electronic microscope. Please note that the "e" image is a SINGLE grain particle enlarged.
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The essay goes on with some notes on scanning: drum scanners only read luminance and are not as limited by optical factors as flatbeds. The 4000 - 5000 ppi "limit" does not apply to drum scanners. Drum scanners scan with profit at much higher resolutions.
I would like to make this post because of the "digital grain" and the "vortex shedding" stuff, you know ;-). Bumblebees fly, but that's not vortex shedding at all ;-)
So, as far as the question "has film more <B>resolution</B> than digital" the answer is that film has more resolution than any digital 35mm on Earth.
(This does not means resolution is all you want in life, and does not mean film is better. But film resolution is higher, and film grain is not "digital").
I will come back to the main subject in a moment...
Fabrizio