The differential factors are:
1. Subjects. Â In studio digital is fine. Â With a lot of low
  contrast foliage in landscapes digital simply breaks
  down by their low-pass filtering and noise reduction
  (especially with Canon).
2. Printing size. Â At 13x19 there is little difference to
  95% of viewers (although not me), but at 30x40
  those of digital origin are full of artifacts while those
  from 4x5 film originals can still be examed with a
  magnifying glass for details from the long tile of
  the film's extended MTF curve.
For those who debunk ClarkVision's science, why do
they take a look of the comparison images Clark
dutyfully provided? Â Pictures says more than the
math. One more study with image comparison
can be found at:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filmdig.htmEven in Michael's 1Ds vs. Pentax 67II examples,
where he said the digital has more resolution, anyone
with an unimpired eyesight can see the scanned
chrome provide much more details where the digital
is all artifacts along the high contrast edges of the
buildings and windows (notice the horizontal line at
the 2/3 window height from the bottom completely
missing in the digital captured?) Â To me it shows
that the P67 chrome showed at least 3x more
resolution obviously in Michael's very own
comparison. Â His arguments that "the 1Ds frame
above appears to have lower resolution because
it is a MUCH bigger enlargement" is simply a way
of stating "the digital file can NOT be enlarged as
big or all you see are the artifacts".
Noise is another matter. Â Many $20K audiophile CD
players add noise for more natural sounding. Â Someone
added little noise to a D2x file in a DPreview discussion
a while ago to make it much better looking. Â Too little
noise in landscape and nature photography creates a
sense of steadiness, unnatural and lack of depth or
dimensionality. Â Again it is subject dependent. Â I pity
those who never experienced the detailed LP sound
off a good system. Â The human ears are not linear
Fourier analysers, so that although the pure 80k tone
can not be heard directly it can contribute to make the
sound (air pressure) wavefrount much sharper, to
enhance the impact from a hit of the drum or bass
string even the harmonic's amplitude is very low.
Leping Zha, Ph.D.
www.lepingzha.com