Some of earliest US landscape photos coming to New Orleans

All film consisted of light-sensitive particles suspended in a gelatin emulsion. Thus details could not be rendered if they were smaller than one particle. In digital photography, pixels (picture elements) are the equivalent of those particles and the same rule applies. However, in Daguerreotypes, there were no particles. The entire scene was rendered in infinite detail. Thus, if you could study the original plates with a microscope, you could discern almost every detail even in the widest landscape. I have had only a couple of opportunities to study a Daguerreotype in person and was so fascinated that time slipped by unmeasured. I would love to see the original of the one depicting the steam ships rather than a printed version. No printing process or computer screen could ever render all the details of the original.

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