[LRflex] Was Stupidity - now dSLR marketing

Good Mornin' Tim!

You said:

>Congratulations. I believe the DM-R will make you an even happier photographer 
>than you already are. 
>
Happier?  Absolutely!  Better?... I suspect not!

>I too have followed closely not only the results but also the feedback from 
>people who have used the DM-R for a while. The jury seems pretty unanimous: It 
>is a great tool! 
>  
>
The common consensus is that it is sharper than anything out there... 
including the 16mp Canons.  I cannot prove it, but I believe that this 
is because the DM-R does not have the anti-aliasing filter which every 
other dSLR has.  This filter, as we all know,  reduces the moire 
patterns caused the the interference of regular patterns in the shot and 
the regular patterns in the sensor's pixel array.  This filter also 
reduces sharpness.  The Leica does it, if necessary, in  software!

BTW: The AA filters are not always effective. I shot a fellow in the 
park, in Liberia, CR, a couple of weeks ago.  The moire patterns in his 
shirt are in remarkably evidence!

>As an analog photog I am still recovering from the Agfa,Konica and Nikon blow. 
>I simply can't get it into my mind that Nikon would want to stop all 
>production including its FM3a. Not to seak about that curious press release 
>from Fujifilm implying thta right now they are just hanging on with the tip of 
>their nails. 
>  
>
There is, perhaps, some hope on the horizon.  A couple of weeks ago, 
CNN's morning news feed from Hong Kong  had a report saying that digital 
camera sales have peaked and are now on the downside slope. 

This is normal for any product.  (Microwave ovens make a good example.) 
When first introduced, the products are expensive and "early adopters" 
are the market.  When market saturation hits 15% to 20%, the item then 
quickly becomes a "must have" item and demand soars. With increased 
demand comes more companies trying to get a share of the pie and  they 
do a lot of research to lower their costs, and thus, the price.  The 
price drops and sales increase dramatically, for a few years.   When 
somewhere between 75% and 85% of the population has the item, sales 
decline sharply, and the item settles into a "replacement market" mode.

As an example: early CD players sold for $1000 and inside, they looked 
like computers, with a motherboard and often 6 or 7 daughter boards, all 
filled with transistors and a few, off the shelf, low density ICs.  
Later models  sold for $500 and had a single board, with lots of IC's, 
many of the high density type.  By the time they'd reached $100, the 
main board had, perhaps 5 or 6 purpose built IC's and a few off the 
shelf IC's to take up the slack..  These days, you can buy one for $29, 
and the innards are almost empty. One or two purpose built, high density 
ICs and that's it!

But, as the price drops, so do the profits of the makers. (Even if they 
manage to maintain their margins, 10% of $1000 is more than 10% of $29!)

So, digital cameras (mostly p&s models to date) are now on the down side 
of the Bell curve.  This explains the news that Sony and Panasonic 
(amongst others) soon plan to enter the still higher priced and thus 
profitable dSLR arena. And it explains Canons announced desire to 
convert entirely to full frame sensors, as quickly as possible, thus 
(they hope) keeping them one step ahead in the technology (and profit) 
department!  (It probably also explains Leica's 55% drop in digital P&S 
sales... it's hard to maintain a market for top price items in a 
declining market!)

> By the way continuing your logic on boosting ISO. I could speculate that a 
> 800 iso underexposed 3 times=3200 that takes you nearly to the limit of whare 
> you can go with the D20. Of course it remeians o be seen if that will also 
> produce good pictures:)
>  
>
It is, indeed, speculation. It's also what I'm hoping for.  Only time 
and some experimentation will tell. I'll keep you all posted.  However, 
I made the decision to buy based on performance at 800 ISO (which, for 
me, is a livable option) after running the borrowed shots through Neat 
Image to reduce the background noise. With this, it seems that ISO 
performance is equal to the Canon's, while offering finer details, due 
to the lack of the AA filter.

 If I can underexpose and obtain a good, effective 1600 ISO, I'll be 
even happier!

>Happy shooting
>Tim
>
Thanks.  :-)

-- 
David Young,
Logan Lake, BC    
CANADA. 

Personal Web-site at: http://www3.telus.net/~telyt
Leica Reflex Forum web-page: http://www3.telus.net/~telyt/lrflex.htm

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