Sam Jost mused:
Yup, some just have too much money. This had been a question in a local
pentax forum a few days ago, too, someone who asked if the *istD could not
show a live preview.
Indeed. I'm sure it's going to be a common question from first-time DSLR purchasers, especially if they are upgrading from a digital P&S.
I don't think it's a particularly stupid question - you need to know a great deal about the internal implementation detail of a DSLR before you even know how (let alone why) this capability is rendered impossible.
And I don't think it is impossible. I'd even go so far to say the live view of digicams will render the DSLR mirror system obsolete one day when there are better sensors and displays.
Live view has many advantages: 100% viewfinder, live histogram, silent shutter to name only a few.
The stuff is not good enough yet (battery life, display resolution, sensor quality) but it will be.
I think sneering at the purchaser, or dismissing him as having more money than sense, says rather more about the disparager than about the customer.
I sneer not at not knowing something but at someone who buys very expensive gadgets without trying them first or at least reading a lot about them. I read up reviews, opinions, technical data, handbooks of DSLRs when I wanted to buy one. I didn't just walk in some store, grab the next one looking nice and bought it.
Hell, for the money I spent on the *istD, the lenses and stuff my brother bought a used car, and not a small or slow one.
I suspect I'm probably among the more technically oriented in this group, but when I first played with a DSLR (a Nikon D1, back when they were new) I wondered why it still made noises as though it had a shutter.
Yeah, but you didn't buy and later complain about it. Thats quite a difference, don't you think so?
Sam
