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I'm appalled by Kepler's piece, and think he should be embarrassed.
I usually enjoy his column, and find that I generally agree with him when he discusses gear, industry trends, or places where manufacturers shouldn't cut corners. This time I think I realized something new about him.
In some quarters he is apparently quite respected. I have wondered about his photography. What he shows of it in the magazine consists mostly of either (a) group or individual shots of friends at dinner, on Max 800, taken with the rtf flash; or (b) shots of buildings, sometimes taken during travel. I find his dinner shots quite mediocre, although no doubt they are meaningful to him and the participants. His building shots (such as are in this column) are a bit better, but nothing worth a showing, and little even worthy of PUG.
I think he simply understands little about digital. He is apparently slow to adapt to it. He shoots jpegs in the *ist D on a mediocre consumer lens. On the *ist he shoots a mediocre consumer film (Max 800) with a mediocre consumer lens. On the *ist D he used automatic white balance. He then took all files or negatives to a minilab, and wondered that his *ist D results weren't wonderful.
Combining this with the photographs of his own that he uses in the column, I now understand the man better: He is a snapshooter. He may be a long-lived icon in the photography business, but he is a snapshooter. I'm not sure that digital is for snapshooters yet, certainly not digital SLRs.
