Can you publish a photo from 2004?

You shot some pretty decent digital photos in the Bahamas in 2004. In fact, they might be useful in a book on travel photography. Can you use them?

Maybe, maybe not. If you used a Nikon D70 -- one of the leading digital SLR cameras sold at that time -- you have some pretty sharp files. Six megapixels isn't bad.

However, if you went back to Marsh Harbor in 2011 to shoot additional photos, you'd be using a 12- or 14-megapixel camera, likely with a better image processing algorithm. Your 2011 photos will have more detail. And your 2004 photos will pale, in some ways, when compared with your new photos.

Documentary photographers who spend years capturing images for a project frequently encounter this issue. Digital advances turn their earlier digital photographs into, well, yesterday's photos. But photos captured on film in 2004 have exactly the same resolution as those captured on film today. Negatives and transparencies from years ago can be scanned into high-resolution digital files today. This makes photographic film, in many ways, more future-proof than many digital imaging systems.

I learned this while interviewing photographer Damaso Reyes (in striped shirt, at left) for a Kodak Close-Up podcast. Have a look.

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