I'm not so sure about it. The final result (the picture) is the sum of many factors like skill, film quality, technology and lens quality. While film quality and technologies are pretty standardized and you can get skilled with experience, the lens factor is still what makes the difference. Unless you buy a very expensive digital reflex camera (like Nikon or Olympus) you can't have the same lens quality. On the other hand, if you compare a digital camera with one of the widespread compact 35mm cameras with built-in flash and zoom, you probably get a similar quality with many advantages like erasable memory, photo uploading and editing etc., but you can't believe a digital camera will give you the same quality of a picture shot with a reflex camera whose zoom lens itself costs more than the whole digital camera!

Professional/commercial shooting and filming is another story, as price is not a issue there, but it was the same with traditional cameras like Leica or Hasselblad compared to our humble Japanese brands.

I have a cheap digital, useful in many situations, but I'll take my old but insuperable traditional camera and its wonderful lenses on my trips for still a long time and scan the slides I need to e-mail. Have reflex, will travel !

Bye

Paolo