On Sep 11, 2011, at 6:01 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: >> ... Oh come on Godfrey, you know that wasn't meant as an attack. > > The way you wrote it could be considered an ad hominem attack. As long > as you want to comment on my writing style, I'll comment on yours, ok?
Sure thing, it doesn't bother me. Then again my hide is a bit thicker than some of the delicate souls on this list. > >> ... your writing style is not always the most conducive to love, peace and >> understanding ... > > You should be used to it by now. I could care less about love, peace > and PC smarminess in a discussion of camera technology and technique. > Good, clear information and directly stated opinions are all I find > useful. That's kind of where the understanding bit comes in. > >>> There are legitimate uses for extraordinary sensitivity. There's never >>> any point to being obsessed with it as some sort of Holy Grail. >> >> Unless, for example, it is the performance limitation that keeps you from >> getting the pictures that you're trying to take. > > I don't know how being obsessed with something as a Holy Grail helps > you in getting the pictures you want to make. People are always looking for technical solutions that'll solve all of their problems. Taking a look at cars you have: ABS, soon to be mandated, even though it has shown not to reduce accidents, just change the likelihood of types of accidents. Passive restraints: that were mandated, even though many of them worked worse than manual seatbelts. Four Wheel Drive: Useful for getting cars in the snow, or mud, to go forward, doesn't help their ability to stop or turn, and just adds weight on dry pavement. Hybrids: In most cases, a pure internal combustion engine car could have lower total overall cost and impact to the environment Most of them are actually useful to some percentage of people (though I would argue against expending resources to save the lives of people too stupid to put on a seatbelt, especially at the expense of my own safety), but are certainly not useful, nor worthwhile to the vast majority. I wouldn't say that I obsess over high ISO quality, but it's been the principal limiting factor that I run up against the most often. Two more stops of speed and I could use f/2.8 zooms in most cases where I now need to us f/1.8 and faster primes. Another stop or two of speed and I could use relatively inexpensive f/4 zooms rather than annoyingly expensive f/2.8 zooms, where I can get away with the zooms today. Even when you aren't pushing the performance envelope, a few more stops of sensor speed, and you could get todays performance without the cost and complexity of image stabilization. I've played with Marco's camera and Voigtlander 25/0.95 lens, and it's a really sweet system, but the poor high ISO sensor performance keeps it from getting as good of shots as I can with my K-5 and an f/1.8 lens. Even with the advantages that EVIL has for manually focusing in a dark room. I won't say that it's a holy grail, but in terms of image quality, I'd say that it, along with the closely related dynamic range, would solve more problems than just about any other measurable quantity. > > When I run into the limitations of my equipment, I work on thinking up > ways to extend the envelope so I can still make my photographs. Or you swap out to another system. -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
