What's funnier is people rediscovering this fact today, we went full circle aha
Modern phones have tiny sensors. Pre 50s camera had massive sensors. Sensor size does a lot, the larger the sensor the less optical performance you need from the lenses. It also helps a lot with the "3D pop" due to depth of field, the larger the sensor the more depth of field you get.
4x5 cameras from the last century out-resolve modern 150mpx sensors.
35mm film, which has the same area as modern "full frame" cameras was called 'miniature format" until fairly recently.
Digital still can't compete with film on any measure other than convenience.
A 150MP Bayer Matrix sensor would resolve about 7000 lines of vertical optical resolution.
I have some 35mm 50 ISO adox film here that can resolve about 600 lines per mm. That is about 21,000 lines of resolution. And there is better film which can do almost double that.
Nothing crazy about that, cameras used at the time had large film surface resulting in much high resolution than what your camera can ever hope to produce. Portable cameras (35mm style) became popular later.
Consider that most of these photographs were (probably) taken with a relatively large device that is cumbersome to set up and requires an absurd (by modern standards) amount of light to get a usable image. If you account for the "convenience" of modern digital photography, the difference is significantly less (though still real, in my opinion.)
Devices we have now that fit in our pockets can display a good photo almost instantly. Comparably sized modern cameras (digital medium format) given the same control of conditions (staging, access, models, lights, post-processing, etc) will certainly produce results comparable to, "better" than, or possibly indistinguishable from even the best of these older photos.
So does a CRT monitor. It can have better contrast, "unlimited" resolution and better colors. But LCDs are more practical. That's the same reason we picked up these subpar cameras.
Modern phones have tiny sensors. Pre 50s camera had massive sensors. Sensor size does a lot, the larger the sensor the less optical performance you need from the lenses. It also helps a lot with the "3D pop" due to depth of field, the larger the sensor the more depth of field you get.
4x5 cameras from the last century out-resolve modern 150mpx sensors.
35mm film, which has the same area as modern "full frame" cameras was called 'miniature format" until fairly recently.
Iphone vs full frame size: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-de59d641fcb2cb69218544...
full frame vs medium/large format size: https://www.quinnimages.com/wp-content/uploads/_mediavault/2...