Some of you in this discussion remind me of Bill Gates and his (in)famous (alleged) quote regarding computer RAM: "640K ought to be enough for anybody". Whether he actually said it or not is irrelevant to this discussion - I think with hindsight we'd all agree that anyone who might have said such a thing would have to be considered the opposite of visionary (not to mention REALITY).
Similarly, thinking that a certain number of pixels on a sensor is "enough" and that anything else is simply driven by the marketing department (as if that department is irrelevant to a company's growth, let alone survival) is similarly the opposite of reality. I believe that Tom C's comments in this thread are firmly grounded in reality. I'm sure that we all agree that megapixels are not the *deciding factor* in evaluating the worthiness of a digital camera. However, *all things being equal* the buying public will probably be more inclined to look favorably upon higher megapixels (until they are educated on the downside of those megapixels). One of those downsides that I hear mentioned (even on PDML) is that large filesizes are a pain to work with and require larger/faster computers and storage to handle their output. I don't know if any of use know where this imaging technology is eventually going and how much power is going to ultimately be put in the consumer's hands. But it constantly moves forward. There was a time when laser printers and copy machines were only within the purview of good-sized businesses, but odds are that most of use have one or both sitting our desks at home now. Technology marches on and with it grow our insecurities with the equipment that we bought last year. Some of us have a greater tolerance for that, but we all have some threshold at which we snap and "need" to upgrade or make a change. I think that we are seeing such a snapping point right now with the Nikon D800E. People are being affected by a combination of where the technology is going, a need to upgrade, and a dissatisfaction with how fast their present brand is letting them do that. It is time for Pentax to at least ANNOUNCE that something good is coming down the pike or they each day lose more people in their flock who flip the mental switch away from their current brand loyalty. And that's a hard switch to get flipped back. PS... if you want a look into the (perhaps) not-so-distant future, check this out: http://gizmodo.com/5911315/this-amazing-camera-can-capture-both-the-sun-and-the-stars-in-broad-daylight -- 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.
