I always find this discussion a bit entertaining. Especially when I hear that question about why people buy an expensive SLR to shoot JPGs.
I don't think most of the folks that hang around this group have a real appreciation for how little most non-hobbyists understand about photography. I do not mean this to be condescending. There is very little reason why most folks would know anything about how and why a camera works. Other than the auto hobbyists on this list, it's unlikely that most of us have anything more than a very rudimentary idea of how a car works. On this list, among relatively hard core hobbyists, there is an on-going discussion about Raw vs. JPG. No consensus, even among those that know. Among my personal friends and friends in the workplace, a few might be aware of raw. Most take the camera out of the box and never learn where anything but the power switch and shutter button may be. A few of the more technical types have flipped through the manual. They bought the camera because someone told them it was good, and they wanted to get rid of shutter lag. Most of the other features are needless complication. I get a lot of "soccer-moms" and grandmas in my Saturday photo classes. Again, the terms are not used with disrespect, but meant to give you an idea of who is in the class. There are always a few exceptions, but most still treat me like a high-wizard when I introduce them to the shutter button half-press. Many of the people in these classes drop off their memory cards at the local Wal-Mart and have a CD and prints returned (although in the last year or so this group is shrinking.) Few know how to use the software that came with their camera. No more than about 30% or so use photoshop elements. There are all good, intelligent people. In their own fields they know way more than I. They just don't want or feel the need to mess with raw files. So when Phil Askey or other reviewers spend a lot of time on the JPG performance, it's because it is very important to a lot of people. We are a very, very small part of the audience. My concern is that we've reached the point where most people will never see any difference among the major camera vendors offerings. The "pixel-peeping" doesn't really help them make their purchase decision. It deters them from looking at other features that might have a bigger effect on their results. I'm sure we all know the guy with a $1000 SLR that prints his photos on no-name, bargain paper using refilled ink cartridges. I'm happy to see that Consumer Reports and other groups have started to try to debunk the megapixel madness. See you later, gs <http://georgesphotos.net> -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
