Photography. The new digital divide.

It seems like the Canon 1Ds, and the new Kodak 14n, represent a new leap forward in digital cameras. The first digital cameras based on 35mm bodies that outperform 35mm film.

But the prices are sky high. Some naively think that prices will come down and soon these new super-digicams will be affordable for everybody. I doubt this will happen. We have not seen a signficant decrease in the cost of manufacturing digital cameras when we look at the price vs. sensor size. Cheap prosumer cameras use .56" sensors. More expensive prosumer cameras, costing $1000, use .67" sensors. A camera with a sensor bigger than 1" costs $2000. And the full sized 1.7" sensor on the new Kodak costs $4000. Kodak is probably going to be losing money on ever 14n they sell too. The corporate purpose of the 14n is for Kodak to become a key player in the digital market, and not to make money by selling this one particular camera model.

With film photography, things were on a much more even playing field. An inexpensive $200 35mm SLR uses the same film as the $2000 35mm SLR. The extra features on the $2000 pro camera are pretty marginal improvements over the cheap $200 SLR.

With digital, unfortunately, the more you pay, the better image quality you get. I suspect this will be extremely frustrating to neophyte photographers using digital cameras once they become aware that they can NEVER make the same high qualiy image that pros do using their $4000 pro cameras.

Digital cameras are a lot less egalitarian than film cameras.

Hi Capital Man

To a certain extent yur are of course correct. But keep in mind that a gray market D1x can be gotten for $2200. This means that the sensors are not as expensive as billed.

They are making money while they can because there's more demand then capacity and it's not as if they're going to lower the price until someone else does.

Five years and things will equal out. Of course for real digital photogrphy you're going to need your own computer although even here digital processing comnpanies are already "developing" and printing your digital imaes right from the memory card.

Dave

Capital Man said:

It seems like the Canon 1Ds, and the new Kodak 14n, represent a new
leap forward in digital cameras. The first digital cameras based
on 35mm bodies that outperform 35mm film.

But the prices are sky high. Some naively think that prices will
come down and soon these new super-digicams will be affordable for
everybody. I doubt this will happen. We have not seen a
signficant decrease in the cost of manufacturing digital cameras
when we look at the price vs. sensor size. Cheap prosumer cameras
use .56" sensors. More expensive prosumer cameras, costing $1000,
use .67" sensors. A camera with a sensor bigger than 1" costs
$2000. And the full sized 1.7" sensor on the new Kodak costs
$4000. Kodak is probably going to be losing money on ever 14n they
sell too. The corporate purpose of the 14n is for Kodak to become
a key player in the digital market, and not to make money by
selling this one particular camera model.

With film photography, things were on a much more even playing
field. An inexpensive $200 35mm SLR uses the same film as the
$2000 35mm SLR. The extra features on the $2000 pro camera are
pretty marginal improvements over the cheap $200 SLR.

With digital, unfortunately, the more you pay, the better image
quality you get. I suspect this will be extremely frustrating to
neophyte photographers using digital cameras once they become aware
that they can NEVER make the same high qualiy image that pros do
using their $4000 pro cameras.

Digital cameras are a lot less egalitarian than film cameras.

Click to expand...

It has always been the case, generally, that the more you pay the better the results you have the potential to create.

Anyone who is concerned about resolution can still rival the $4k cameras with a $50 slr off of ebay. Anyone who is really concerned about resolution can get some cheap manual medium format gear and blow the $4k cameras out of the water. Of course, I won't pretend that medium format is cheap just because the cameras are.

It's important to remember that noone is as concerned about resolution as we are here on the digital photography boards. There are already few applications that demand the kind of resolution that is already available today. Heck, the reason 35mm was so universally popular is that it delivered more resolution that most people actually wanted in a size that was convenient. There just wasn't demand for more resolution.

You can go out and purchase an f707 that will make a very credible 11x14 for about $650 now. How many 11x14's do most people need in their home? How many 16x20's?

The last thing is that, of course, the technology doesn't make the picture. I noticed recently that most of my favorite photographs on photosig were made with prosumer cameras. I thought this was especially interesting as I'm just now making the switch from digital to film.

-Greg

Capital Man said:

It seems like the Canon 1Ds, and the new Kodak 14n, represent a new
leap forward in digital cameras. The first digital cameras based
on 35mm bodies that outperform 35mm film.

But the prices are sky high. Some naively think that prices will
come down and soon these new super-digicams will be affordable for
everybody. I doubt this will happen. We have not seen a
signficant decrease in the cost of manufacturing digital cameras
when we look at the price vs. sensor size. Cheap prosumer cameras
use .56" sensors. More expensive prosumer cameras, costing $1000,
use .67" sensors. A camera with a sensor bigger than 1" costs
$2000. And the full sized 1.7" sensor on the new Kodak costs
$4000. Kodak is probably going to be losing money on ever 14n they
sell too. The corporate purpose of the 14n is for Kodak to become
a key player in the digital market, and not to make money by
selling this one particular camera model.

With film photography, things were on a much more even playing
field. An inexpensive $200 35mm SLR uses the same film as the
$2000 35mm SLR. The extra features on the $2000 pro camera are
pretty marginal improvements over the cheap $200 SLR.

With digital, unfortunately, the more you pay, the better image
quality you get. I suspect this will be extremely frustrating to
neophyte photographers using digital cameras once they become aware
that they can NEVER make the same high qualiy image that pros do
using their $4000 pro cameras.

Digital cameras are a lot less egalitarian than film cameras.

Click to expand...

There are folks in my camera club shooting with Nikon F5 and a 600 MM hunk of glass that I would need a bearer to carry. There are folks in my club with D1X and an arsenal of lenses that make others envious. Then there are those with an old Pentax or a low end digital who are creating images equally as good. Sure with my Nikon 8008S and biggest lens of 300MM and my Dimage 7 I certainly can't compete in long distance shots of birds and a number of other specialties but for subjects within my range I do quite well as do many others.

My 13x19 prints are quite nice even when made from a fairly well cropped file. Will the prints made from the new generation of camera be better? Maybe but at what price and will anyone really be able to tell. As an amateur I just can't justify anything more than I own now.

Howie

http://www.pbase.com/howier My Galleries

Mojo Riser said:

It has always been the case, generally, that the more you pay the
better the results you have the potential to create.

Click to expand...

Mojo Riser said:

It has always been the case, generally, that the more you pay the
better the results you have the potential to create.

Click to expand...

It was more egalitarian with film. Paying more money only purchases a small increase in results. With digital, the situation is far different.

Mojo Riser said:

Anyone who is really concerned
about resolution can get some cheap manual medium format gear and
blow the $4k cameras out of the water. Of course, I won't pretend
that medium format is cheap just because the cameras are.

Click to expand...

There's no such thing as "cheap medium format gear". Go to bhphoto.com or adorama.com and check out the prices. It's not clear to me that some 30 year old camera from Ebay using 30 year old lenses is really going to give a big performance boost over new 35mm equipment.

Mojo Riser said:

Heck, the reason 35mm was so
universally popular is that it delivered more resolution that most
people actually wanted in a size that was convenient. There just
wasn't demand for more resolution.

Click to expand...

Med format died out when technological improvements allowed 35mm to have competitive image quality. And 35mm has even better quality today than back when it won out over medium format.

I was looking at some Henri Cartier-Bresson photos. He shot strictly with 35mm film (using Leica). The technical quality of his photos is pretty bad. Yed, he captured the decisive moment, but he captured it on grainy low resolution film with really bad dynamic range.

Image quality from an F707 blows away what a Leica from the 1940s did.

Mojo Riser said:

You can go out and purchase an f707 that will make a very credible
11x14 for about $650 now. How many 11x14's do most people need in
their home? How many 16x20's?

Click to expand...

No one "needs" any photos at all. I do desire the best possible image quality, because I'm a serious hobbyist and not a snap shooter. I diagree that you can blow up an F707 to 11 x 14. I did this and was very disappointed with the results. While sharp at 8 x 10, when enlarged to 11 x 14 the F707 makes for a blurry print. 8 x 10 is the practical limit for making F707 prints. Those who find 11 x 14 acceptable have low quality standards.

Also, I found that the 8 x 10 from my 3MP nikon coolpix was noticeably inferior to the 8 x 10 from the F707.

Mojo Riser said:

The last thing is that, of course, the technology doesn't make the
picture. I noticed recently that most of my favorite photographs
on photosig were made with prosumer cameras. I thought this was
especially interesting as I'm just now making the switch from
digital to film.

Click to expand...

At web sized resolution, the better prosumer cameras make photos you can't tell apart from more expensive cameras, or even film. For some strange reason, film scans look worse at web sizes, even though they look better when enlarged. There is also probably a lot of bad scanning going on. Good scanning takes a lot of playing around with photoshop and curves and the like. Beyond the skills of most people. But then, developing ones own prints in the darkroom is also beyond the skills of most people, including me. I've never developed anything in a darkroom.

let's say, since we're comparing 14n and 1ds, 10+mp cameras, in the film world, you had the medium format cameras. The bodies would be + $1500 - $4000 range and the lenses would run anywhere from $500 to $20,000. Nothing seems to have changed that much.

I don't really see anything different in the digital world. $700 digital cameras are available that gives you great images. Canon G2 is an example. 14n is like medium format cameras. I think you are comparing apples and oranges.

From what I can see, the digital divide seems to be getting narrower. Even last year you had to spend + $10,000 to even to think about 10mp.

You can buy D60 at $2,000. It costs about $2,000 to buy either F5 or Eos1n. The cameras gives you comparable images.

$4,000 Kodak for 14mpixel? By even last month's standards, that's a bargain.

David Barkin said:

To a certain extent yur are of course correct. But keep in mind
that a gray market D1x can be gotten for $2200. This means that the
sensors are not as expensive as billed.

Click to expand...

The D1X has a tiny 1.1" (23.7 x 15.6mm) sensor, compared to the full sized 1.7" sensors on the new Canon 1Ds and Kodak 14n. Naturally it costs less.

Like I said before, breaking the 1" barrier means prices around $2000. Bigger sensor means bigger price.

The same is true with film, medium format costs more. A Pentax 645 costs almost as much as a Nikon D1X. But unlike with the Nikon D1X, there is no real reason why the Pentax 645 costs so much. Pentax is just trying to make a lot of money on the 645. The opposite of digital camera pricing, where manufacturers want to break even to grow their marketshare.

ksocool said:

let's say, since we're comparing 14n and 1ds, 10+mp cameras, in the
film world, you had the medium format cameras. The bodies would be
+ $1500 - $4000 range and the lenses would run anywhere from $500
to $20,000. Nothing seems to have changed that much.

I don't really see anything different in the digital world. $700
digital cameras are available that gives you great images. Canon G2
is an example. 14n is like medium format cameras. I think you are
comparing apples and oranges.

Click to expand...

No, I am NOT comparing apples and oranges.

Let's look at a concrete example. Shooter A has a Pentax ZX-M with 50mm lens. Total cost is $200. Shooter B has a Canon EOS 1V with the 28-70mm 2.8 L zoom. Total cost is $3000.

Now which camera will take the sharper picture? Believe it or not, the $200 setup will take the sharper picture.

This is what I mean by the digital divide. In the film world, paying for super expensive pro-equipment only purchases marginal gains in photo quality. Or in this example, no gain in quality at all! Just some convenience features like zoom and really fast auto focus.

Capital Man said:

Cheap prosumer cameras
use .56" sensors. More expensive prosumer cameras, costing $1000,
use .67" sensors. A camera with a sensor bigger than 1" costs
$2000. And the full sized 1.7" sensor on the new Kodak costs
$4000.

Click to expand...

I may actually be misinterpreting the sizes of sensors because there's no standard measurement. All I know is that 24 x 36mm, the standard size for 35mm film photography, comes out to a diagonal of approximately 1.7". I'm not sure that the sizes given for CCDs mean this.

I wish there would be some kind of STANDARD for these things. Why not list all sensor sizes in height x width in millimeters? Then we'd be able to compare them.

But the point that the prosumer sensors are tiny compared to the sensors in the new Kodak and Canon is still valid.

I would purchase a used (good condition) Nikon D1x in a NY minute.

Tell me where. Better yet, email me so I can be ahead of the other 5000 people who would purchase it.

TIA

David Barkin said:

To a certain extent yur are of course correct. But keep in mind
that a gray market D1x can be gotten for $2200. This means that the
sensors are not as expensive as billed.

They are making money while they can because there's more demand
then capacity and it's not as if they're going to lower the price
until someone else does.

Five years and things will equal out. Of course for real digital
photogrphy you're going to need your own computer although even
here digital processing comnpanies are already "developing" and
printing your digital imaes right from the memory card.

Dave

Capital Man said:

It seems like the Canon 1Ds, and the new Kodak 14n, represent a new
leap forward in digital cameras. The first digital cameras based
on 35mm bodies that outperform 35mm film.

But the prices are sky high. Some naively think that prices will
come down and soon these new super-digicams will be affordable for
everybody. I doubt this will happen. We have not seen a
signficant decrease in the cost of manufacturing digital cameras
when we look at the price vs. sensor size. Cheap prosumer cameras
use .56" sensors. More expensive prosumer cameras, costing $1000,
use .67" sensors. A camera with a sensor bigger than 1" costs
$2000. And the full sized 1.7" sensor on the new Kodak costs
$4000. Kodak is probably going to be losing money on ever 14n they
sell too. The corporate purpose of the 14n is for Kodak to become
a key player in the digital market, and not to make money by
selling this one particular camera model.

With film photography, things were on a much more even playing
field. An inexpensive $200 35mm SLR uses the same film as the
$2000 35mm SLR. The extra features on the $2000 pro camera are
pretty marginal improvements over the cheap $200 SLR.

With digital, unfortunately, the more you pay, the better image
quality you get. I suspect this will be extremely frustrating to
neophyte photographers using digital cameras once they become aware
that they can NEVER make the same high qualiy image that pros do
using their $4000 pro cameras.

Digital cameras are a lot less egalitarian than film cameras.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--

-photoave http://phillywood.com An Amalgam of images. Remember to place a ';' after image links in your replies so it helps our dialup friends when viewing threads.

Capital Man said:

Mojo Riser said:

It has always been the case, generally, that the more you pay the
better the results you have the potential to create.

Click to expand...

It was more egalitarian with film. Paying more money only
purchases a small increase in results. With digital, the situation
is far different.

Click to expand...

It depends on what you consider to be a large increase. I think the difference between a D30 and a D60 is a small increase. It would take a 12 Mp DSLR just to double the resolution of a D30 in each dimension.

Capital Man said:

There's no such thing as "cheap medium format gear". Go to
bhphoto.com or adorama.com and check out the prices. It's not
clear to me that some 30 year old camera from Ebay using 30 year
old lenses is really going to give a big performance boost over new
35mm equipment.

Click to expand...

I consider the Mamiya M645-E pack offerred at adorama.com for $699 to be pretty cheap. I didn't even look at bhphoto.com. Also, I can't think of a reason why many used medium format cameras from ebay can't spank the daylights out of new 35mm equipment.

Used equipment can still take advantage of the primary improvement in photographic technology: better film.

Capital Man said:

Med format died out when technological improvements allowed 35mm to
have competitive image quality. And 35mm has even better quality
today than back when it won out over medium format.

Click to expand...

What technological improvements applied to 35mm that did not apply equally to medium format? I find it difficult to understand how you consider 35mm to be competitive with medium format when the difference appears to be much larger than that in your digital divide.

Larger formats are rare because they are inconvenient and because 35mm is "good enough", not because 35mm is comparable in quality.

Hi Capital Man

When the Canon 1ds was announced the price quoted was $9,000US, then after the Kodak full frame was announced the price dropped over $1,000. This is what competition does. Canon and Kodak are not known for their cheap prices for professional quality products.

With more competition with full frame sensors, once there are 4 or 5 players out there with these sensors of 11-15 MP I think the price will drop.

Whether I will be able to afford one is another question. I do not particularly want to mortgage the house to get a camera.

--
Geoff

Capital Man said:

It was more egalitarian with film. Paying more money only
purchases a small increase in results. With digital, the situation
is far different.

Click to expand...

Quite true. Comparing the quality from a, say, a compact film camera that's priced at 200 euros and a 2500e EOS 1V or something, and while the 1V's image is better, yes, mostly due to lens being better (or well, you can always use a worse lens, but that's besides the point), the difference isn't the same as with a, say, Canon Powershot A40 and a Canon D60. Heck no it isn't.

Capital Man said:

There's no such thing as "cheap medium format gear". Go to
bhphoto.com or adorama.com and check out the prices. It's not
clear to me that some 30 year old camera from Ebay using 30 year
old lenses is really going to give a big performance boost over new
35mm equipment.

Click to expand...

You can get excellent results with old gear. Of course you can. Since you use new film. 30-year-old lenses weren't that bad.

Capital Man said:

Med format died out when technological improvements allowed 35mm to
have competitive image quality. And 35mm has even better quality
today than back when it won out over medium format.

Click to expand...

Medium format hasn't 'died out', although true it isn't used by snapshooters or most other ordinary hobbyist. And while a 24x36mm screen from 35mm film probably has equivalent quality to a 24x36mm piece from a medium format film, heck no it's equivalent if you use the full size of the medium format film! Or do you really think you can print the same quality, or same size, from 35mm as from medium format?

Capital Man said:

No one "needs" any photos at all. I do desire the best possible
image quality, because I'm a serious hobbyist and not a snap
shooter.

Click to expand...

I want best possible image quality too.

Capital Man said:

I diagree that you can blow up an F707 to 11 x 14. I did
this and was very disappointed with the results. While sharp at 8
x 10, when enlarged to 11 x 14 the F707 makes for a blurry print.
8 x 10 is the practical limit for making F707 prints. Those who
find 11 x 14 acceptable have low quality standards.

Click to expand...

Hmm. Generally a 5MP camera can make a good 16x20", at least when properly post-processed. It's so that those who find a 11x14" unacceptable have been looking at medium format photos all their life, or the original image was unacceptable to begin with

I've seen a 30x40cm... that'd be, what, 12x17", print from a 2MP P&S camera. It was very good. A portrait of a man. 2 meters away you really couldn't tell the difference from 35mm film. Even close up it still looked acceptable - even the professional photographer who had taken it thought so, and he has shot 35mm, both negative and slide, for a looong time!

Capital Man said:

Also, I found that the 8 x 10 from my 3MP nikon coolpix was
noticeably inferior to the 8 x 10 from the F707.

Click to expand...

Well, yeah, the bigger resolution does play a role here. After all the dpi count is much higher when comparing 5MP vs. 3MP.

Capital Man said:

At web sized resolution, the better prosumer cameras make photos
you can't tell apart from more expensive cameras, or even film.
For some strange reason, film scans look worse at web sizes, even
though they look better when enlarged. There is also probably a
lot of bad scanning going on. Good scanning takes a lot of playing
around with photoshop and curves and the like. Beyond the skills
of most people. But then, developing ones own prints in the
darkroom is also beyond the skills of most people, including me.
I've never developed anything in a darkroom.

Click to expand...

Well, film scans show the grain so clearly, in prints it is less evident due to 'blurring' by the 'ink', as well as the worse level of crisp detail of paper vs. a computer monitor. A monitor defines everything more clearly.

--
Teppo @ Finland
Cameras: Canon PowerShot S30, Nikon CoolPix 5700
Galleries: http://th.joroinen.fi/photography.html

Mojo Riser said:

The last thing is that, of course, the technology doesn't make the
picture. I noticed recently that most of my favorite photographs
on photosig were made with prosumer cameras. I thought this was
especially interesting as I'm just now making the switch from
digital to film.

Click to expand...

Hehe, I'm doing this partially myself, too. I'm getting a Canon EOS 600 today (if all goes well) Still keeping digitals too, of course.

Are you planning to go 'totally film' or are you going to use digital alongside film, like I now plan to?

--
Teppo @ Finland
Cameras: Canon PowerShot S30, Nikon CoolPix 5700
Galleries: http://th.joroinen.fi/photography.html

Capital Man said:

I wish there would be some kind of STANDARD for these things. Why
not list all sensor sizes in height x width in millimeters? Then
we'd be able to compare them.

Click to expand...

That's what I've been wishing

--
Teppo @ Finland
Cameras: Canon PowerShot S30, Nikon CoolPix 5700
Galleries: http://th.joroinen.fi/photography.html

Hi photoave

The price mentioned is for BRAND SPANKING NEW D1x's. Quite a few stores in New York sell them.

These are gray market camera's. This means no guarrantee. More then that, if anything goes wrong with the camera Nikon will not repair the camera EVEN IF YOU PAY CASH!

A .25 cent part breaks and you will not be able to get it fixed. It's thrown out money.

Dave

photoave said:

TIA

David Barkin said:

To a certain extent yur are of course correct. But keep in mind
that a gray market D1x can be gotten for $2200. This means that the
sensors are not as expensive as billed.

They are making money while they can because there's more demand
then capacity and it's not as if they're going to lower the price
until someone else does.

Five years and things will equal out. Of course for real digital
photogrphy you're going to need your own computer although even
here digital processing comnpanies are already "developing" and
printing your digital imaes right from the memory card.

Dave

Capital Man said:

It seems like the Canon 1Ds, and the new Kodak 14n, represent a new
leap forward in digital cameras. The first digital cameras based
on 35mm bodies that outperform 35mm film.

But the prices are sky high. Some naively think that prices will
come down and soon these new super-digicams will be affordable for
everybody. I doubt this will happen. We have not seen a
signficant decrease in the cost of manufacturing digital cameras
when we look at the price vs. sensor size. Cheap prosumer cameras
use .56" sensors. More expensive prosumer cameras, costing $1000,
use .67" sensors. A camera with a sensor bigger than 1" costs
$2000. And the full sized 1.7" sensor on the new Kodak costs
$4000. Kodak is probably going to be losing money on ever 14n they
sell too. The corporate purpose of the 14n is for Kodak to become
a key player in the digital market, and not to make money by
selling this one particular camera model.

With film photography, things were on a much more even playing
field. An inexpensive $200 35mm SLR uses the same film as the
$2000 35mm SLR. The extra features on the $2000 pro camera are
pretty marginal improvements over the cheap $200 SLR.

With digital, unfortunately, the more you pay, the better image
quality you get. I suspect this will be extremely frustrating to
neophyte photographers using digital cameras once they become aware
that they can NEVER make the same high qualiy image that pros do
using their $4000 pro cameras.

Digital cameras are a lot less egalitarian than film cameras.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
-photoave http://phillywood.com An Amalgam of images. Remember to
place a ';' after image links in your replies so it helps our
dialup friends when viewing threads.

Click to expand...

I couldnt find anything for grey market D1x' though I didnt check bait and switch sellers. How about providing a link to a someone who will genuinely let it go at that price.....albeit grey market.

Ps: I am more leaning towards a D100. I HAVE seen a new grey market D100 on ebay for 1799. However for the 200 more I would rather have a US warranty.

David Barkin said:

Hi photoave
The price mentioned is for BRAND SPANKING NEW D1x's. Quite a few
stores in New York sell them.
These are gray market camera's. This means no guarrantee. More then
that, if anything goes wrong with the camera Nikon will not repair
the camera EVEN IF YOU PAY CASH!
A .25 cent part breaks and you will not be able to get it fixed.
It's thrown out money.

Click to expand...

David Barkin said:

photoave said:

I would purchase a used (good condition) Nikon D1x in a NY minute.
Tell me where. Better yet, email me so I can be ahead of the other
5000 people who would purchase it.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

David Barkin said:

David Barkin said:

David Barkin said:

Hi Capital Man
To a certain extent yur are of course correct. But keep in mind
that a gray market D1x can be gotten for $2200.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

-photoave http://phillywood.com An Amalgam of images. Remember to place a ';' after image links in your replies so it helps our dialup friends when viewing threads.

Ho photoave

photoave said:

I couldnt find anything for grey market D1x' though I didnt check
bait and switch sellers. How about providing a link to a someone
who will genuinely let it go at that price.....albeit grey market.
Ps: I am more leaning towards a D100. I HAVE seen a new grey market
D100 on ebay for 1799. However for the 200 more I would rather
have a US warranty.

Click to expand...

Your going to have to check bait and switch places. No reputable company would sell such a gray market camera. For example B&H will sell clearly marked gray market lenses and they provide their own guarrentee. Since they are not equiped (and who but Nikon is) to fix such a camera, they don't sell gray market cameras.

I've seen these ad's in the Daily News. I looked in today's paper and couldn't find any electronic ad's except for PC Richards (no, camera's). Check the Sunday addition and you will find them.

Dave

There have been about five threads on this topic and if I recall many gave links. While these discussions and ad's register on my consciousness I'e never considered a gray market camera even for a second because of the risks I've mentioned. Saving $3000 is quite a bargain but not if you have to throw the machine away because of some minor problem.

David Barkin said:

photoave said:

I couldnt find anything for grey market D1x' though I didnt check
bait and switch sellers. How about providing a link to a someone
who will genuinely let it go at that price.....albeit grey market.
Ps: I am more leaning towards a D100. I HAVE seen a new grey market
D100 on ebay for 1799. However for the 200 more I would rather
have a US warranty.

Click to expand...

Your going to have to check bait and switch places. No reputable
company would sell such a gray market camera. For example B&H will
sell clearly marked gray market lenses and they provide their own
guarrentee. Since they are not equiped (and who but Nikon is) to
fix such a camera, they don't sell gray market cameras.

I've seen these ad's in the Daily News. I looked in today's paper
and couldn't find any electronic ad's except for PC Richards (no,
camera's). Check the Sunday addition and you will find them.

Dave

Click to expand...

Capital Man said:

No, I am NOT comparing apples and oranges.

Let's look at a concrete example. Shooter A has a Pentax ZX-M with
50mm lens. Total cost is $200. Shooter B has a Canon EOS 1V with
the 28-70mm 2.8 L zoom. Total cost is $3000.

Now which camera will take the sharper picture? Believe it or not,
the $200 setup will take the sharper picture.

Click to expand...

Capital Man, I hate to say this, but you are dead wrong. There is no justification whatsoever by stating that the Pentax ZX-M with a 50mm lens takes sharper pictures than the Canon EOS-1V with a 28-70mm F2.8 L zoom.

The camera alone does not make a difference.
The lens itself makes very little difference.
The choice of 35mm film is rather insignificant.
The shutter speed and aperture combinations don't seem to matter much.

They still won't make a damn difference UNTIL all of these factors are combined. Thus the accounting principle of Materiality: the cumulative effect of many small distortions IS very significant.

Capital Man said:

This is what I mean by the digital divide. In the film world,
paying for super expensive pro-equipment only purchases marginal
gains in photo quality. Or in this example, no gain in quality at
all! Just some convenience features like zoom and really fast auto
focus.

Click to expand...

There is a big difference between film and digital. For one thing, film is notoriously and extremely unforgiving, while digital lets you retake another shot on the fly. Therefore, when comparing the quality of the pictures, you SIMPLY CANNOT look at the camera alone! Film or digital, the user's photography skills matter as much as the equipment (and it actually matters far more with film), shutter/aperture combinations, and lots of in-camera settings.
--
http://printerboyweb.net/G2

P.S. Your argument has some merit, but it is so full of holes and so fatally flawed at its core, there is no evidence that can support it, if at all.