This is an article by: Harold M. Merklinger extracted from
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/d60/d60-first.shtml
for those who still have doubts about the technology in digital pictures. Here it goes.
The Canon D60
Well, I have yet to do extensive testing with the D60, but I can say that D60 8X10" prints, and indeed the one D60 11 X 16.5"print I have done so far, are better than any previous 8X10" or larger print I have made from 35 mm colour, no matter how printed. In fact, I would say that the 11X16.5" print is pretty close to similar-sized images printed conventionally (or digitally) from 645 format negatives. In simpler words, I believe the 6 MP D60 is superior to 35 mm colour film–not just the equal. A possible exception might be a really good print from a Kodachrome slide — but I can't claim to have any that are in fact better. To test the issue further, I also converted one of the images to black and white and printed it at 8X10 inches. The eye tends to be more demanding of resolution in black and white prints than it is for colour. Colour contrast helps a lot with the conveyance of information. The black and white print looks fine on sharpness grounds, though it still lacks something — I’m not sure what — that a true black and white image would have. I did learn that I should have converted the file to 48-bits per pixel prior to the simulated filtering and conversion to black and white. My b&w image file has gaps in the histogram of gray levels. That’s certainly part of what I am seeing as deficient.
I have never been sure what it is that makes conventional colour prints from medium format (and larger) better than 35 mm images. With black and white I can fool people into selecting the wrong print when shown two 8X10" images from different formats and asking them to select the 35 mm image vice the medium or large format version. Not so with colour. The medium (or larger) format product has always been easy to spot. Shading is smoother, detail is ‘effortless’, and of course, the gain is tighter for the larger format.
Well, the smooth gradation and absence of grain or noise in the D60 images gives the D60 images a medium-format-like appearance. And I think the nature of the resolution, if not absolute resolution itself, helps these D60 images look more like 645 format than 35 mm.