The real image is formed behind the lens. The light from this real image strikes a surface sensitive to light: film, CCD or CMOS sensor. A latent image is formed.
No image, latent or otherwise, is ever formed in or by a digicamera sensor. Light does not change the surface of the sensor (that’s why you can use the sensor over and over). The sensor simply transforms the light that enters the lens into a computer file comprised of 1s and 0s. A computer file of 1s and 0s is
not an image; it is simply
code that certain computer software can read to
separately create an
approximation of the original image.
With film you develop it and yes at that point you have a physical image again (although for a negative it could be argued that this isn't a true image as it isn't an accurate representation of the object that was imaged).
LOL. So the physical, clearly perceptible image on a negative is
not an image, but a computer file of 1s and 0s
is an image? You're being absurd. But I guess that’s what happens when one realises his digicamera does not produce images and is forced to argue that his computer files of 1s and 0s are “images”.
In any event, a negative is a perfectly accurate negative representation of the object imaged. It’s an image. I just picked up my TMAX 100 negatives of my children playing on the beach in the summer of 1998, looked at them, and saw perfectly well the images captured at that moment. Real, physical images, captured on the surface of the film. Try that with your strings of millions of 1s and 0s.
With a sensor, the information is stored physically in some form of memory but remains a latent image until it is subsequently displayed.
Information – 1s and 0s – is not an image, latent or otherwise. It’s computer code.
Conversely, when light falls upon exposed film, the light actually, physically, and permanently alters the chemical makeup of the film and leaves a physical, embedded image there. That’s why you can’t use that section of film ever again, but you can always use a digicamera’s computer sensor over and over again – no image, latent or otherwise, is left there.
I'm not sure I get what you are trying to say here. To the average person, there is no practical difference between the image on a piece of developed film and the latent image produced by a digital camera.
Once again, there is no “latent image” produced by a digicamera. A computer file of 1s and 0s is not an “image”, and it does not become one by adding “latent” to it.