1 Technical Resolution Analysis of the 1967 Patte rson - Gimlin 16 mm Film Imagery The Patterson - Gimlin Film was exposed on 16 mm Kodachrome II daylight - balanced color reversal stock rated at 25 ASA. The camera was a Cine - Kodak K - 100 equipped with its standard factory lens: a 25 mm f/1.9 Kodak Cine Ektar, a four - element anastigmat design typical of mid - 1960s consumer/professional 16 mm equipment. 1. Optical Per formance of the Capture System Kodachrome II film stock, under ideal laboratory conditions, resolves 63 line pairs per millimetre (lp/mm) at low contrast and up to 100 lp/mm at high contrast. In practice, the complete imaging chain is limited by the taking lens rather than the emulsion. The 25 mm f/1.9 Cine Ektar typically delivers the followin g measured performance (derived from 1960s ASC Manual data and modern test - chart recreations of identical lenses): - Centre, at optimum aperture (f/5.6 – f/8): 50 – 65 lp/mm - Wide open (f/1.9, probable in the shaded forest): 35 – 50 lp/mm - Edges and corne rs: 25 – 40 lp/mm Accounting for handheld operation at approximately 16 – 18 frames per second, slight camera vibration, subject motion (walking gait), and moderate scene contrast under dappled woodland lighting, the effective system resolution on the origi nal emulsion in the central subject area is conservatively estimated at 42 – 55 lp/mm. 2. Subject Scal e on the Original 16 mm Frame In the clearest frames (e.g., the well - known look - back frame), the figure occupies approximately 16.7 % (1/6) of the vertica l frame height. Standard 16 mm silent - aperture frame dimensions are 10.26 mm width × 7.49 mm height. 2 Subject vertical image height on the original emulsion: 7.49 mm × 0.167 ≈ 1.236 mm 3. Theoretical Reso lution Budget on the Subject Using a mid - range effective system resolution of 48 lp/mm: Line pairs resolved across subject height = 1.236 mm × 48 lp/mm = 59.3 lp Applying the Nyquist sampling theorem (minimum 2 samples per line pair for faithful reconstruction): Theoretical minimum pixels across subject height = 59.3 × 2 = 118.6 pixels In real - world conditions with moderate edge contrast and post - capture processing, the usable structural information typically falls in the range of 180 – 280 vertical pixels for the figure. This represents the fund amental physical limit imposed by the 1967 lens – film combination. Horizontal resolution follows proportionally, yielding roughly 2.0 – 3.5 megapixels of genuine information across the entire subject area in the sharpest frames. 4. 4 × 5 Inch Int erpositive Enlargement Process Selected frames were optically enlarged by Kodak laboratories onto 4 × 5 inch Ektachrome duplicating sheet film. Linear magnification factor: approximately 12 – 15× (depending on exact framing and cropping to a single perforated frame p lus inter - frame line, where one frame height measures 0.3000 in / 7.62 mm on long - pitch Kodachrome stock). This enlargement renders the original dye - cloud grain and recorded detail physically larger on the sheet film, preserving the spatial frequencies c aptured by the taking lens while introducing typical second - generation losses: 10 – 20 % reduction in modulation transfer function (MTF) and slight contrast increase. The 4 × 5 inch interpositive does not add resolution; it simply makes the existing informat ion more accessible for subsequent digitization and analysis. 5. Capabilities and Limits of Digital Enhance ment High - fidelity digitization of the 4 × 5 inch interpositives, sampled at densities sufficient to resolve the enlarged grain structure (typically 1200 – 2000 dpi on the sheet film), captures essentially all recoverable optical information. Subsequent digital techniques — unsharp masking, selective channel extraction (particularly the yellow or green separation layers, which often retain the highest MTF in Kodachrome), local contrast 3 enhancement, and mild deconvolution sharpening — can significantly improve perceptual visibility of low - contrast features such as hair directionality, muscle contours, skin folds, and surface texture. However, these pr ocesses are strictly information - preserving or information - enhancing within the original frequency content. They cannot recover spatial frequencies above the optical cut - off of ~48 lp/mm on the original emulsion. Any attempted upscaling beyond this limit, aggressive sharpening kernels, or artificial intelligence – based hallucination introduces non - existent detail (ringing artefacts, false edges, and amplified grain) rather than genuine new data. Conclusion The image quality of the Patterson - Gimlin Film is f undamentally constrained by the resolving power of the 25 mm f/1.9 taking lens, not by the film stock, duplication process, or digitization. The effective usable resolution on the subject is limited to approximately 200 – 300 vertical pixels of authentic inf ormation in the clearest frames. High - quality digitization of the 4 × 5 inch interpositives, when performed at appropriate sampling densities, reaches the physical ceiling of the 1967 optical system. Further increases in scan resolution or processing sophi stication yield diminishing returns and risk the introduction of interpretive artefacts. This establishes the definitive technical boundary for all analysis and enhancement of the imagery. Pixel - per - cm Math Table 4 PGF delivers max ~200 – 300 genuine vert ical pixels on the creature — hard 1967 optical limit. The film can support basic gait and gross body - proportion analysis, but cannot resolve skin texture, pores, individual hair direction, facial details, or any forensic - level evidence. Any claim that it does is technically impossible. Is important to reject AI - upscaled or heavily sharpened versions as scientific data. The analysis measures the figure at 1.236 mm on the original film and calculates a usable detail limit of ~0.96 cm — virtually identical to Bonney’s 1.2 mm and 1 cm ceiling. Here’s exactly what the pixel - per - cm math tells us about how much detail we can really see on Patty: We’re working from the same solid numbers that both the technical resolution study and Bruce Bonney’s 1981 Cibachrome prints agree on perfectly. In the sharpest frames of the original 16 mm film, Patty’s image measures just 1.236 millimeters tall. After accounting for motion blur, lens limits, camera shake, and real - world contrast, the usable resolution across her body co mes to roughly 200 – 280 pixels vertically (240 pixels is a realistic average). Most experts place her actual height between 2.10 and 2.20 meters — about 6'11" to 7'3". That works out to roughly 0.75 to 1.10 centimeters per pixel on her body in the best fr ames. So what does that mean in practice? A 1 cm feature on Patty — something the size of a fingernail or the edge of a small coin — shows up as basically one single pixel. It’s nothing more than a tiny dot or a very subtle change in tone that easily b lends into the film grain, motion blur, or noise. At that scale, reliable identification is impossible. This is exactly why Bonney’s “about one centimeter” limit is so firm: anything that small or smaller is simply beyond what the film can resolve. On th e flip side, a 5 cm feature — think the diameter of a golf ball, the width of an adult eye socket, or the length of a thumb joint — appears as 5 to 6 solid pixels or more. That’s large enough to clearly see its shape, position, edges, and movement when the lighting and contrast are decent. This is precisely the size range where Bonney could reliably pick out the eyes, nostrils, lips, and major muscle contours in those sparkling Cibachrome prints. To make it even easier to picture: a 1 cm detail is like tr ying to spot the tip of a pencil eraser in an old home movie — you’re not going to get any useful information. A 5 cm detail is more like seeing half a credit card or a small apple slice — obvious and unmistakable. This is also why the idea of a baby cli nging to her is physically impossible. Even just the baby’s head alone would be 15 – 20 cm across (that’s 15 – 25 pixels), and an arm or body would be dramatically larger — 30 – 60+ pixels. It would completely change her entire outline and silhouette in every go od frame, and there’s simply nothing like that there. Bob Gimlin standing right beside her saw the same thing: “There was no baby! Nothing!” 5 Bottom line: the Patterson - Gimlin film is actually excellent for studying gross anatomy and walking gait (which is why those analyses still hold up today). But when it comes to fine surface texture, small attached objects, or anything finer than about 3 – 4 cm — and especially anything below roughly 1.5 – 2 cm — the 1967 optical limits of the camera and film simply won ’t allow it, no matter how much you sharpen or enhance the footage. 6