I take thousands of digital pictures a year, of subjects I love--family and nature. The camera I'm currently using is a Nikon D90.

I make digital albums with my favorites and I like them well enough.

About once a year, usually on vacation, I take out the Wisner 4x5 and make half a dozen images. I'll scan two or three of them using my Epson flat bed scanner.

I use Lightroom to organize all of the images; and then I forget about them for the most part.

Now here's the thing. Infrequently, I'll brouse my image library (full size not thumbnails), I'll sometimes unexpectedly bring up one of the large format pictures. For a split second, my mind and eye say "Now that's a good image!"

I am not a pixel peeper, and I honestly don't know why I respond differently to those images. They're definitely not as sharp as the D90 photos (due to the scanning probably). Their tonality is better, I think (especially with things like sunrises). The moments captured are sometimes better--people seem to be more relaxed and relate better to the largeformat camera.

The same thing holds for 8x10 (and in a few cases larger) prints that I have made on an Epson 4000 printer. To a lesser extent, I even prefer the prints that originated from 35mm film to those made from the D90 (and Nikon D2H and Nikon D70 and Nikon D40 and a Canon that I used once).

I am not sure of the reason, but overall, I respond better to the images that originated with film, especially large format, even before my mind has processed the fact that they are large format images. I am pretty sure I am not imagining things, because it always happens months after I've made the print, and it always takes me by surprise before my conscious mind has analyzed the print.

Has anyone experienced anything like this?