The digital revolution in photography nears a significant threshold - cameras which will push image resolution to the point where acceptable 8x10 inch prints can be made.
To gain a better appreciation of what is so significant about where we are in digital scanning technology, an explanation of how digital cameras make images, and how the quality of images is measured, is in order.
In a conventional camera, film captures and stores an image. In a digital camera, these functions are separated - a part called the CCD captures the image, and a memory chip stores it.
Film scanners, flat-bed scanners and video cameras all use CCDs. But there is substantial difference between the image quality from, say, scanning a 35mm transparency using a $10,000 Nikon film scanner and an image shot with a similarly priced digital camera.
How these devices utilise CCDs varies considerably. Of the three - scanners, video cameras and digital stills - the CCD in the digital still works the hardest.
CCDs are far from perfect image-capturing devices. There are colours they can capture which film cannot - greens in particular tend to be stronger.
