Who is Steven M. Scharf, and why does he hate us so much?

pvs said:

Anyone wish to take a stab at his motivation?

Click to expand...

pvs said:

I did a bit of research today, on that SIGMASD10.COM site as well
as this new "Fair and Balanced View of the Sigma SD10", and found
that they are both the demon-spawn an individual named Steven M.
Scharf, registered as:

The Nordic Group
P.O Box 467
Cupertino, CA 95015-0467
[email protected]
(408) 202-7910

I am quite surprised, as I thought these two similar sites were
going to belong to Ken Rockwell, but unless the Scharf name is an
alias, they are different people.

Does anyone on the forum know ... What is this guy's problem? And
why is he out to spread negative (and not at all honest) publicity
regarding Sigma and Foveon? What's worse, is that he seems to have
good contacts with Google, since he gets these lying webpages to
display very high in their result listings, and that is often not
an easy thing to do, even for legitimate sites that offer TRUE
information.

He also mentions this forum in particular, stating that WE post a
lot of mis-information.

So, does anyone know what his problem is? Did he get burned by
Sigma or Foveon in the past? He claims to own stock in Foveon, but
I doubt that myself, because every time I searched that avenue,
Foveon wasn't selling stock to private entities.

I'm confused as to why anyone would take the time, trouble, or
$4.99 to attack a company and/or product with this type of
slanderous, misguided, one-sided, and repetitive drivel. What the
heck is he afraid of?

Anyone wish to take a stab at his motivation?
-pvs

--
The Mayan Calendar predicts that the world will end on December 21,
2012. Be sure to have your camera ready and your batteries charged.

Click to expand...

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

pvs wrote:

I'm also not sure what beef he has, but if you look at the main page:

http://www.nordicgroup.us/

He has lots of advice in many areas!

I think I may point out to this company:

http://www.nordicgroup.com/

And this company:

http://www.nordic-group.com/home/

That someone else is abusing the name - I wonder if that's a valid
registered company name? Hmm...

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Summer Shoot:
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmachangingseasonsiibyday

Click to expand...

pvs said:

I did a bit of research today, on that SIGMASD10.COM site as well
as this new "Fair and Balanced View of the Sigma SD10", and found
that they are both the demon-spawn an individual named Steven M.
Scharf, registered as:

The Nordic Group
P.O Box 467
Cupertino, CA 95015-0467
[email protected]
(408) 202-7910

I am quite surprised, as I thought these two similar sites were
going to belong to Ken Rockwell, but unless the Scharf name is an
alias, they are different people.

Does anyone on the forum know ... What is this guy's problem? And
why is he out to spread negative (and not at all honest) publicity
regarding Sigma and Foveon? What's worse, is that he seems to have
good contacts with Google, since he gets these lying webpages to
display very high in their result listings, and that is often not
an easy thing to do, even for legitimate sites that offer TRUE
information.

He also mentions this forum in particular, stating that WE post a
lot of mis-information.

So, does anyone know what his problem is? Did he get burned by
Sigma or Foveon in the past? He claims to own stock in Foveon, but
I doubt that myself, because every time I searched that avenue,
Foveon wasn't selling stock to private entities.

I'm confused as to why anyone would take the time, trouble, or
$4.99 to attack a company and/or product with this type of
slanderous, misguided, one-sided, and repetitive drivel. What the
heck is he afraid of?

Anyone wish to take a stab at his motivation?
-pvs

--
The Mayan Calendar predicts that the world will end on December 21,
2012. Be sure to have your camera ready and your batteries charged.

Click to expand...

Pete Spader said:

PVS,

Any new technology is hard for some people to accept, and some
people will continue to attack it no matter what anyone says to
refute their negative claims. At the beginning it was possible to
raise all sorts of potential problems with the Foveon/Sigma SD9,
and in among the noise there was even some interesting debates
(though the signal to noise ratio of the debates was always
marginal). I have generally avoided the debates due to a lack of
technical expertise.

But there is still one very old fashioned way of deciding the
merits of a camera. The pictures it produces. As an old 35mm film
user I was attracted to the SD9 pictures I saw posted, and then saw
coming from my Epson 2200 from borrowed X3F files. I was then
pleased with what my SD9 gave me enough to get an SD10. I also like
the pictures others (many more skilled than I am) are sharing as
well.

The gentelman says, after claiming that the SD10 is "sub-amateur,"
that : "No doubt some people will point to links that show very
good results from a Sigma SD9 or SD10, but a few highly processed
shots are not sufficient to classify such a low resolution camera
at a higher level."

Just checked the pbase camera database listing at:
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma
They now have 8476 SD10 and 11891 SD9 images on their site alone.
This is not just a "few highly processed shots."

One can make all sorts of claims of problems with a camera, and no
camera is perfect (though some of the claims made on that site make
me wonder where this person has been the last year and a half.)
But the best refutation of such claims is the pictures themselves.
Just look at the pictures.
Pete

Click to expand...

ChromeLight said:

I support Mr. Scharf.

In fact, he's so inspiring that for the first time here I will
announce that next week I myself will be unveiling a set of similar
web pages that will address the following topics that I"m sure keep
all of us awake at night:

(1) A Fair and Balanced look at Kenmore washers
(2) A Fair and Balanced look at garage door openers
(3) A Fair and Balanced look at adding machines

And finally (I know many of you worry about this)

(4) A Fair and Balanced look at lawn sprinkler systems (and you
thought cameras were difficult! You've obviously never been on
alt.sprinklers.rec.)

Seriously, the only thing I can say about Mr. Scharf is that he
holds a low opinion of the consumer. I believe imaging-resource.com
(and this web site) offer enough in their reviews so that no one,
when buying a camera, can claim they were hoodwinked. Whe he feels
he needs to add anything else is beyond me.

Click to expand...

pvs said:

I did a bit of research today, on that SIGMASD10.COM site as well
as this new "Fair and Balanced View of the Sigma SD10", and found
that they are both the demon-spawn an individual named Steven M.
Scharf, registered as:

The Nordic Group
P.O Box 467
Cupertino, CA 95015-0467
[email protected]
(408) 202-7910

I am quite surprised, as I thought these two similar sites were
going to belong to Ken Rockwell, but unless the Scharf name is an
alias, they are different people.

Does anyone on the forum know ... What is this guy's problem? And
why is he out to spread negative (and not at all honest) publicity
regarding Sigma and Foveon? What's worse, is that he seems to have
good contacts with Google, since he gets these lying webpages to
display very high in their result listings, and that is often not
an easy thing to do, even for legitimate sites that offer TRUE
information.

He also mentions this forum in particular, stating that WE post a
lot of mis-information.

So, does anyone know what his problem is? Did he get burned by
Sigma or Foveon in the past? He claims to own stock in Foveon, but
I doubt that myself, because every time I searched that avenue,
Foveon wasn't selling stock to private entities.

I'm confused as to why anyone would take the time, trouble, or
$4.99 to attack a company and/or product with this type of
slanderous, misguided, one-sided, and repetitive drivel. What the
heck is he afraid of?

Anyone wish to take a stab at his motivation?
-pvs

Click to expand...

Obscura said:

pvs said:

Anyone wish to take a stab at his motivation?

Click to expand...

I read his page from top to bottom and some of the things he
dislikes are my favorite features.

I like lack of an anti-alias filter. I would much rather apply it
myself and adjust the amount for each photo.

I like RAW-ONLY because it forces me to convert each image by
conversion skills are better than they've ever been. Being able to
do a good conversion is a skill that few people bother to learn.
Most just shoot JPEG and let the camera guess.

Folks can say whatever they want about the SA lens mount. If I had
wanted to shoot Canon or Nikon glass I would have bought a Canon or
Nikon camera. My EX lens is better than any of the consumer lenses
I used when I used to shoot Canon and Nikon.

Folks will always continue to argue about the technical merits of
different camera systems. In the end, if you're going to buy a
new camera, you've got to decide what to get.

When I was looking to move up to a digital SLR I looked at sample
images from every camera on the market. When looking at samples
from Sigma/Foveon I saw something that I didn't see in the bayer
sensor cameras. The images had a look that I liked.

I still see it every time I use my SD9.
--
Obscura
Join the GRAY CARD ARMY!

Click to expand...

pvs said:

LOL, Chromelight,

I really wonder how he can get Google to recognize his "articles"
with such a high pagerank, though ... THAT has me bewildered.

Click to expand...

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

pvs wrote:

I'm also not sure what beef he has, but if you look at the main page:

http://www.nordicgroup.us/

He has lots of advice in many areas!

I think I may point out to this company:

http://www.nordicgroup.com/

And this company:

http://www.nordic-group.com/home/

That someone else is abusing the name - I wonder if that's a valid
registered company name? Hmm...

--
---> Kendall
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/user_home
Summer Shoot:
http://www.pbase.com/kgelner/sigmachangingseasonsiibyday

Click to expand...

pvs said:

The Mayan Calendar predicts that the world will end on December 21,
2012. Be sure to have your camera ready and your batteries charged.

Click to expand...

Chunsum J Choi said:

this is the guy who prompted Laurence to unleash his Laurenceness
on that news group. makes interesting read.

now only if I can find that link.....

Click to expand...

Chunsum J Choi said:

I think Dom's sig saids it best. Don't feed them.

Click to expand...

George4 said:

just who this stuff belongs too. I remember glancing at that site
once way back and just blowing it off due to it's misinformation.
But now i'm kinda wondering?
is this the brainchild of a major camera company CEO?

Click to expand...

George4 said:

Much stranger things have happened.
does someone have a vested intrest in misinforming the public in a
possibly liablous false advertising campaign under the auspices of
a person or unaffiliated group?

Click to expand...

George4 said:

Somebody around here is sharp enough to trace these URLs and gleen
ISP info such that we can get to the bottom of this, No??

Click to expand...

Pete Spader said:

Any new technology is hard for some people to accept, and some
people will continue to attack it no matter what anyone says to
refute their negative claims. At the beginning it was possible to
raise all sorts of potential problems with the Foveon/Sigma SD9,
and in among the noise there was even some interesting debates
(though the signal to noise ratio of the debates was always
marginal). I have generally avoided the debates due to a lack of
technical expertise.

But there is still one very old fashioned way of deciding the
merits of a camera. The pictures it produces. As an old 35mm film
user I was attracted to the SD9 pictures I saw posted, and then saw
coming from my Epson 2200 from borrowed X3F files. I was then
pleased with what my SD9 gave me enough to get an SD10. I also like
the pictures others (many more skilled than I am) are sharing as
well.

The gentelman says, after claiming that the SD10 is "sub-amateur,"
that : "No doubt some people will point to links that show very
good results from a Sigma SD9 or SD10, but a few highly processed
shots are not sufficient to classify such a low resolution camera
at a higher level."

Just checked the pbase camera database listing at:
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma
They now have 8476 SD10 and 11891 SD9 images on their site alone.
This is not just a "few highly processed shots."

One can make all sorts of claims of problems with a camera, and no
camera is perfect (though some of the claims made on that site make
me wonder where this person has been the last year and a half.)
But the best refutation of such claims is the pictures themselves.
Just look at the pictures.
Pete

pvs said:

I did a bit of research today, on that SIGMASD10.COM site as well
as this new "Fair and Balanced View of the Sigma SD10", and found
that they are both the demon-spawn an individual named Steven M.
Scharf, registered as:

The Nordic Group
P.O Box 467
Cupertino, CA 95015-0467
[email protected]
(408) 202-7910

I am quite surprised, as I thought these two similar sites were
going to belong to Ken Rockwell, but unless the Scharf name is an
alias, they are different people.

Does anyone on the forum know ... What is this guy's problem? And
why is he out to spread negative (and not at all honest) publicity
regarding Sigma and Foveon? What's worse, is that he seems to have
good contacts with Google, since he gets these lying webpages to
display very high in their result listings, and that is often not
an easy thing to do, even for legitimate sites that offer TRUE
information.

He also mentions this forum in particular, stating that WE post a
lot of mis-information.

So, does anyone know what his problem is? Did he get burned by
Sigma or Foveon in the past? He claims to own stock in Foveon, but
I doubt that myself, because every time I searched that avenue,
Foveon wasn't selling stock to private entities.

I'm confused as to why anyone would take the time, trouble, or
$4.99 to attack a company and/or product with this type of
slanderous, misguided, one-sided, and repetitive drivel. What the
heck is he afraid of?

Anyone wish to take a stab at his motivation?
-pvs

--
The Mayan Calendar predicts that the world will end on December 21,
2012. Be sure to have your camera ready and your batteries charged.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

jarvic7 said:

Someone must have forgot to tell them that that everyone else is
wrong!

Don't they realize that the foveon cameras are a very popular
choice among
computer programmer photo buffs?

What is their problem?

Why won't the world listen to us?

Who can we report them to?

"squeek, squeek -- who hid the cheese?"

--
Peace: Jarvic7

'Blessed are those drowsy ones: for they shall soon nod to sleep'.
http://www.pbase.com/jarvic7

Click to expand...

ole thofte said:

I think his site is an offspring of a bravada between a 'George
Preddy', who was considered a hard-die troll, and a lot of people
on rec.photo.digital newsgroup.

Click to expand...

ole thofte said:

I guess it's got a lot of hits because of the 'entertainment value'
at the time and that's why it's high up in Google...

Click to expand...