Jan van Wijk remarked: > > I like the idea too, I'd rather have a 4MP K-mount digital > SLR for $2000 to $3000 in a few months
(or, more realistically, in probably around a year) > than the 6MP full-frame for maybe $7000 now ... That's pretty much what I've been saying for the last six months, too. Let's face it - a digital camera becomes obsolete extremely quickly. It's bad enough if a $2000 camera turns into a $2000 paperweight in a few years, but how many of us can write off $7000 in that same time? Perhaps, once the digital camera market matures, we'll see cameras that last a while (perhaps not the 25+ years some of us are getting from out old manual bodies, but at least something in the 5-10 year range). But at present the digital camera bodies aren't quite good enough for that. They're getting good enough to be used for quite a few purposes, but with a digital body you are at best stuck with the level of technology current when the camera was built (and, to be realistic, liable to find things deteriorating as the sensor ages; pixels will fail, and the sensitivity will probably decrease). While some things on manual cameras are limiting (the 1/1000 top end speed of my MX occasionally causes me a few problems) not all of the technology is embedded in the camera; I'm getting better pictures today than I was back in 1976 because I'm able to take advantage of improvements in film emulsions. A digital camera won't be able to take advantage of improvements in sensor technology (and before any one suggests it: user-upgradable digital camera bodies aren't going to be cost effective - by the time you've changed all the expensive stuff like the sensor, memory, processors & data paths, you might as well get a whole brand new box to put the pieces in). So until the sensor technology ceases to be the limiting factor in the quality of digital images we can expect to see the cameras continuing to become obsolete at around the current rate. -- John Francis . . . . . . . . . . (650) 565-4427 MyWay.com 1070 Arastradero Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94306 Hello. My name is Darth Vader. I am your Father. Prepare to die. - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
