I've been going through my old negs and I've learned something surprising about how digital cameras have changed my photography

I was never obsessed with resolution when I shot 35mm film. There were obvious flaws like camera shake or mis-focusing that I could spot and deal with, and it was clear that slower films offered higher resolution and less grain than faster ones, but as long as I felt I was getting all the quality the film could deliver, it was fine.

Now I get to shoot with some of the best full frame mirrorless cameras, with digital sensors that offer far more resolution and way less noise than analog 35mm, and yet now all of a sudden I’m worried about both those things. Actually, it’s not all that sudden. I wonder if it started just about the time when my photography workflow switched from film and darkrooms and prints, to computer monitors.

Why? Because now, using the best monitors for photo editing, it’s easy to zoom in as far as you like on digital images using monitors sharp enough and clear enough to show the exact moment when the fine detail disintegrates. It’s become too easy to find fault and too easy to lose track of the magnification you’re actually using.

Back in the ‘optical’ days, you might have a light table and a loupe for magnifying your negatives, but it wouldn’t have the magnifying power we take for granted today, or maybe you had a slide viewer that let you look at 35mm transparencies at a larger size, but certainly not at today’s digital magnification levels. 

The real test was making a print. If a 10” x 8” print looked crisp and sharp enough, everything was fine. If you wanted a larger print you might have to use a slower film, or may switch up to medium format. Either way, it was easier to keep a grip on how much resolution was ‘enough’.

This is what’s changed. Now we can keep zooming in and in until the resolution ISN’T enough. But enough for what? If we don’t print any more, we don’t know.

But something else has happened which gives me hope. I’m re-digitizing my old 35mm negatives with a modern digital camera that easily records all of the detail in the original film. Clearly there’s not as much detail in my negatives as my mirrorless cameras deliver but I don’t actually mind. My old negs still have more resolution than my 27-inch 4K monitor can display full-screen, which probably represents the highest display/output resolution I’m likely to need.

Do I zoom in to check for even more detail? I know I won’t find much more so I don’t bother. It doesn’t worry me. I judge the images as a whole and as long as they have adequate sharpness, it’s fine.

What I don’t understand is why, knowing all this, I still pixel-peep my digital images. That’s very odd.

Check out our guide to the best film scanners