It seems surprising to me, but at one time it seemed worth the time to jump up on a soapbox and discuss whether digital or film capture was better. The arguments usually revolved around resolution and megapixels, which was in many ways missing the point anyway.

As of this writing, this dicussion makes as much sense as discussing whether typewriters are better than word processors. Beside that, it is getting hard to find film and to find places to get it processed. There are still (as far as I know) people using view cameras - and my hat is off to them. I admire what they do and appreciate that style of doing photography.

But I am not shedding any tears. Digital photography is superior to film in so many different ways. It has little or nothing to do with resolution or megapixels. (I can sense the multitudes blinking in disbelief, to avoid getting off onto a sidetrack here, I will suggest you visit this discussion of how much resolution do I really need?.) I will urge you to believe the following claims, which are made by many "in the know" and clearly born out by my own experience:

• Small sensor (APS-C or "crop sensor") digital SLR cameras yield results comparable to or better than 35mm film cameras.
• Full frame sensor digital SLR cameras yield results comparable to medium format cameras.

All this has nothing to do though with what truly makes digital cameras superior to film cameras, namely the following:

• You can shoot and shoot and shoot without worrying about film and processing costs.
• You can get immediate feedback from the display on the camera and/or the display on your computer.

These two things are what make digital cameras overwhelmingly superior to film cameras. And you aren't sacrificing anything in image quality to gain these incredible advantages.