Nina's Blog - Friday 9th January 2026

@ninalanyon 3 Megapixel?? I'm amazed it can be seen!! I keep telling myself I should get my old 35mm out and take some pictures, but then I'd have to get the photograhps developed. Worth it or too much hassle? I really should look into it this year.

@22Michelle I had it printed as an 8"x10". You really don't need a lot of pixels to get a decent picture. I read an article by a professional photographer some years ago in the days when Kodak sold add-on digital film backs for Nikons. They were only 5 MP sensors. But he was adamant that this was good enough for all but the very largest prints. I read somewhere else [1] that under really good conditions colour film can resolve about 6 000 lines per inch which implies that a sensor of the same size as a 35 mm film (image size 24x36 mm) would be about 12 000 x 18 000 pixels or 216 MP because you need two rows of pixels to distinguish an edge. But in practice the resolution is determined by the lense and aperture.

Quite a few of Tom Sandberg's photographs are digital and are printed in sizes up to a metre or more on a side and look fantastic.

But even the biggest handheld digital cameras don't come close to the theoretical resolution of film. However I've just found a page that gives some practical numbers [2]. It says that 35 mm film is practically equivalent to 4 000 dots per inch which is only one third of the theoretical linear resolution and gives about 5 600 x 3 620 pixels, just over 20 MP which you can print at 300 DPI to get an 18.7 x 12.1 inch print. That's about the same as my Sony HX50 superzoom compact camera.

My 3 MP photograph printed at 8x10 is just less than 200 DPI so presumably the printing software had to magnify it somewhat) but it still looks great. At least I'm happy with it. :-)

Where are you going to get film from these days? It will be expensive to buy and probably more expensive to develop and print. By the time you've shot a few rolls you'll probably have spent enough to buy a decent digital camera.

[1] I can't provide the original references so take all this with a scattering of salt.
[2] https://www.filmfix.com/en/scanning-services/blog/35mm-film-resolution/

@22Michelle Ugh. I've never actually thrown up because of seasickness but I do feel quite uncomfortable in even moderate seas. When my wife and I moved to Norway (early January 1986) we took the Harwich-Gothenberg ferry. It was a decent sized ship, Princess of Scandinavia I think, about 20 000 tonne. It's supposed to be a 24 hour journey, it took 30 because of a storm with 45 m/s gusts! My wife and I spent about half the journey face down in our bunks with our eyes tightly closed. The idea of willingly going out on the North Sea in anything smaller in the winter is just unthinkable for me.

@ninalanyon Thr Anchor Handler Vessels were typically 2-3000 Gross tonnage and were very useable and comfortable. Worst I've been out in was Force 10-11. I liked it when it was stormy. By contrast I once spent a week out on a survey and the sea was flat calm, a millpond the entire time. That was nice, but got a bit boring.

@22Michelle I quite like looking at storms, from behind a nice big window. But I prefer to be on land to do it! I can understand how a flat calm sea must be rather dull and featureless even if it is less immediately scary.

@ninalanyon It's been many years since I was out at sea. I wonder how I'd react these days.

@22Michelle I take a cross-Channel ferry to and from the UK each year and sometimes Hook-Harwich and of course across the Skagerrak to Denmark. The Skagerrak is a four hour crossing in a 33 000 tonne passenger, car, lorry ferry. Service speed 27 knots. On this one I feel very comfortable, it's quite a modern ship and you don't feel much of the sea.

There's quite a contrast between the Norway-Denmark and UK-Continent trips. Travelling from Norway to Denmark I just drive up to the gate and the woman (usually) in the kiosk has seen my registration number and printed my boarding pass before I have even wound my window down. She hands it to me, wishes me a safe trip and says which lane I should park in. I wait a while there and drive on to the ship.

At Dunkirk I first stop at the DFDS kiosk to check in, that usually takes a couple of minutes. Then I stop at the French exit control where I often have to get out of the car because it's on the wrong side and present my passport. Sometimes I also have to present my Norwegian residence card because it seems that no one knows what the actual rules are since Brexit. Then I drive on to British entry control and do it all over again including getting out of my car, then a security check where half the time I have to get out, but they never ask me to open the bonnet despite my har having a luggage compartment there. And sometimes there is a separate customs check. And finally I drive to the lane to wait for the ferry.