Actually, correctly exposed film captures more like 100 megapixels of information, and that's only a rough equivalent since you're comparing apples and oranges
One of the reasons is because light causes chemical changes to film on the molecular level. The film actually captures the image optically and directly. In a sense, the image is almost literally "burned" onto the film by light. Whereas with a digital camera, you are seeing a representation of the image, translated from an electronic signal. Digital cameras are getting better, but they will always be different from film cameras because of the nature of how they record an image.
Have you ever seen a real optical print, developed from an enlarger in a darkroom? I bet most people haven't, and that's why they really don't understand how sharp film is and how much detail it actually captures. Even when you scan the negatives, you are nowhere near the full capability of film. I develop my own black and white film and prints in a darkroom I set up in my garage. I don't scan the negatives...I use an enlarger. You can crop and magnify an image from a negative and see incredibly sharp detail that just isn't possible with a digital camera.
To give you an example, I took a picture on my street with a 35mm camera. When I develop the print, I can crop and magnify the image with the enlarger and CLEARLY read a street sign that was a block away! I can then make a very sharp, clear print with the magnified image. If you try to zoom in that much on a digital image, you'll just start seeing pixels. In fact, people will often talk about "pixel peeping" on digital pictures and how you're not supposed to zoom in too much. Well, guess what, with my enlarger I can magnify as much as I want.
And that's just with 35mm film. If you use 120 film, the detail is stunning.
My mom took a picture of me recently in our front yard with one of my TLR cameras using 120 film. I was too far away, on the other side of the yard at least about 30 feet away. I developed the film, and just out of curiosity I wanted to see how much I could magnify the image on the enlarger when I developed the print. Well, I was able to magnify it and blow it up and you could even see the aglets on my shoelaces and the individual blades of grass where I was standing. You could read the brand name on my shoes. Again, that was from at least 30 feet away.
Can a digital camera do THAT?? If you try to zoom in that much with a digital image, all you see is pixels. But if you make a real optical print from a negative, you can magnify the image and still see unbelievable detail.
Most people really have no idea how much detail film actually captures. If they had any idea, they would be shocked.
