How much is enough?

Canon and Nikon have done it again. They’ve produced a completely new range of cameras that none of their existing lenses will fit without some kind of adaptor. This is utterly ridiculous! Both have made a move from cameras with mirrors to mirrorless cameras, which they could quite easily have done without designing a whole new system. I just dn’t get the whole new system thing - that just seems to me an excuse to try to sell more lenses.

Meanwhile Nikon quietly discontinued their small 1 system. That was a huge blow if not a slap in the face to everybody that has bought a 1 system camera. Those things were small and neat though way overpriced.

The big marketing spiel is all about “full frame” in other words 24x36mm sensors. I’m afraid sensor size is about as overblown as megapixels now. Cameras are available with well past 20 megapixels yet there is no earthly reason to have that many pixels. I currently have two cameras - an old Canon XT that currently lacks a lens. I’ll probably get an 18-55 at some point. That’s 8 megapixels. I still see no earthly reason why 8 megapixels is not more than adequate for most people. In fact there is no camera produced in the last 10 years that is not perfectly adequate. My other camera is an old Olympus PM1 with the standard lens. That produces 20 megapixel images which are way in advance of what I actually need.

Ever more megapixels means ever more storage needed. It does not mean any improvement in image quality. It just means the images are bigger, harder to store and that’s it. Bigger sensors just mean more money spent on the camera and that’s it. It does not improve image quality. Image quality is 100% in the hands of the photographer.

These new systems are utterly meaningless. They’re all about Canon and Nikon milking the hobbyists for all they can get. The hobbyists are the people without the intelligence to see that they’re being milked.

This photograph was taken with a Canon XT and a table lamp. It’s not 100% the look I was aiming at but it’s not bad. The image quality is excellent. That’s 8 megapixels on a 1.6 crop sensor.

This is a straight from camera Olympus photo taken on 20 megapixels. I could tweak it a bit, sharpening and making it pop a little more like I did with the first picture but it is in no way inferior to the first picture. The sensor is 20 megapixels on a 2 crop factor.

This is straight from a cellphone. It’s 8 megapixels. Heaven knows what the crop factor is but it’s a pretty good photo.

Now you’ve seen images take with different megapixel counts, different sized sensors and you’re seriously going to tell me that a brand new camera system with a “full frame” camera with a stupid megapixel count is going to make your photographs that much better? I think you need to check yourself into the nut farm if you say it will!

Mark my words - this new Canon and Nikon thing is nothing more than a way of scamming yet more money out of innocent customers.