First of all - I am the type of guy who thinks my 8.2M pixel 1DmkII repositioned my 125 ASA 35mm Plus-X pan negatives to the backseat in terms of resolution. It does not just match the level of detail, it surpasses it and it also makes grain (noise) a non-issue. There may theoretically be additional information in the film media, but hey - you're going to digitize it anyway, or are you still standing in the darkroom and send your images by post...? My 4000 DPI Nikon film scanner is a pain to use and the level of detail did not jump that far as I switched from a 2880 DPI one. Bye, bye 35 mm film - I won't miss you...

In certain groups of photo buffs it seems politically correct to claim that "the megapixel race is meaningless and is just a marketing thing - my D70 is just as good as anything. Unless you're doing 70x100cm prints, you cannot really se a difference". Well, I still think my old EOS 10D pictures show a nice level of detail, but in certain cases when it comes to partial crops it simply looses important detail. It is however a delicate balance - I am convinced that we'll get high pixel counts on pro cameras independent if we want it or not in the future. Larger pictures means larger storage requirements and slower processing. Surely, Moore's law will apply, but conversely, there is a practical pivot point where you're satisfied. (I am also waiting for the persistent archive media that matches my picture output of today)

I think a 16.7M pixels 1Ds Mk II is a bit of overkill as it would yield a 100% increase in storage requirements, where it on the other hand has probably reached the optical limitations of the 35 mm lenses. I would say that the 6M pixels of the 10D is too low and the 8.2M pixels of the 1D Mk II gives a bit more to hope for. The 11.1M pixels of the 1Ds (- mark 1) seems like a perfect compromise in the 35 mm format. Given the seemingly weaker AA-filter on the 1Ds, it seems like it can deliver a higher level of detail than the 1DmkII, although the pixel site size is more or less the same. Again, I have not seen any signs of Moiré so far.

Below are a few examples. No sharpening or other PS fiddeling. C1 3.7 was used to process the RAW-files.
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