On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:15:57AM -0500, Tom C scripsit: > I almost never use the camera on my cell phone, granted it's about 3 > years old.
The camera on mine scarcely deserves the name, *but* in terms of money and manufacturing effort, it's cell phone cameras and a relatively small space marked "other", which is where everything else goes. > I find the mindset of those who use their cell phone as their only or > predominant camera hard to fathom. I guess it's more about sharing the > image immediately than it is about the image itself. > > Must be getting old. Or it's about social connectivity, which is a major motivating factor in a gang of monkeys. > I generally agree with your thoughts. Especially that the value is in > the lens, in that they are less transitory than the DSLR bodies. In > the short time that DSLR's have been around I find that I upgrade my > camera body every 1.5 cycles... Pentax has released 4 flagships... not > counting the *ist D (the first), 3 upgrades were made available as the > top of the line. I smartly skipped the K10D, foolishly purchased a > K20D, and then got the K-7. > > I'd likely be the same with any other mfr. Certainly buying every new cycle release is a sign of excess disposable income in pretty much every other consumer electronics category as well. I don't see why cameras should be different. > I believe that I could get the same or possibly better image quality > with film and a good scanner. Though the price of film and developing > would likely begin to encroach on the price of new gear, offset again > somewhat by the need for more storage with digital, offset by the time > required to scan the shots worthy of scanning... Ah, but what constitutes "good scanner" is also on that electronics release cycle. :) Next transition is the image formation moving out of the lens into lens plus processing, something we are already seeing; at that point, the value *isn't* in the lens, it's in the lens plus a body that has the correct (and nigh-certain to be intensely proprietary) algorithms. I'm not looking forward to that. With luck, Pentax isn't going there. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
