That's just about exactly right. With consumer grade film shot with mid to upper level consumer equipment will give you about 1800x1200 resolution. Even drum scanning any higher, you'll just scan blur. Sometimes, on some film scanners, you'll get a better image by scanning at twice that, and reducing it in software, particularly on inexpensive scanners where you may get more noise in the darks.
Good professional-grade film, and higher-end fixed-length lenses can give results that hold up to 2400dpi scanning, or about twice that. (3600x2400 or so)
You need a *very* good lens, *very* good film, and a rock-solid tripod to get an image that sharp. Its usually not necessary, unless you're trying to print a sharp 11x14 image from a 35mm shot.
The "lines per millimeter" reading is the most lines per millimeter you can have and still discern them as separate lines. So you've effectively got almost twice that resolution, 50 LPM is able to store 100LPM of information, alternating light and dark. (In practical terms its often less than that, because the tests rarely expect full dark and full light across the range, so even 50% more detail than the LPM number indicates can still give that amount of resolution)
One thing most people miss about digital cameras is that the resolution is *really* 1/3 what they're thinking it is.
A 1600x1200 shot is actually 533x1200 full color, since they tell you the number of sensors on the chip, and don't tell you about the RGB mask in front of it.
That's why you often get wierd edges in high contrast areas in a digital camera image.
I use digital shots for stuff that's going online. Anything more and I'll do a 1200 or 2400 dpi scan, depending on how I shot the image (and if I have that kind of resoltion).
Re:1600x1200: what is that in lines per millimeter (Score:2)
Good professional-grade film, and higher-end fixed-length lenses can give results that hold up to 2400dpi scanning, or about twice that. (3600x2400 or so)
You need a *very* good lens, *very* good film, and a rock-solid tripod to get an image that sharp. Its usually not necessary, unless you're trying to print a sharp 11x14 image from a 35mm shot.
The "lines per millimeter" reading is the most lines per millimeter you can have and still discern them as separate lines. So you've effectively got almost twice that resolution, 50 LPM is able to store 100LPM of information, alternating light and dark. (In practical terms its often less than that, because the tests rarely expect full dark and full light across the range, so even 50% more detail than the LPM number indicates can still give that amount of resolution)
One thing most people miss about digital cameras is that the resolution is *really* 1/3 what they're thinking it is.
A 1600x1200 shot is actually 533x1200 full color, since they tell you the number of sensors on the chip, and don't tell you about the RGB mask in front of it.
That's why you often get wierd edges in high contrast areas in a digital camera image.
I use digital shots for stuff that's going online. Anything more and I'll do a 1200 or 2400 dpi scan, depending on how I shot the image (and if I have that kind of resoltion).