OT Re: [HDR-photo] going shopping

[Royce Howland]

Yimm Lisa wrote:
>
> I think it's because "we" aren't their target market.  The general 
> populace makes up most of the sales for all of the big camera 
> manufacturers.  I can't remember where I read it last week, but there 
> was an article that mentioned the percentage of pro users vs. the rest 
> of the market for Nikon DSLR cameras.  It was (I thought) an insanely 
> small number. [...]

Lisa, I have heard that argument for awhile now and I don't buy it. 
There are untold hundreds of thousands of HDR images on Flickr, the 
ultimate non-pro populist imaging resource. Sure, HDR is not what 
everybody is using for everything. But any mainstream camera company 
that doesn't see the benefit of making a trivial firmware tweak just to 
support more flexible bracketing, is truly out to lunch.

Is there a bigger market for people who really need the 8fps out of the 
new Canon 7D? Is there door-crashing demand for ISO 25,600 on the newest 
Canon & Nikon bodies? Are there more Canon shooters who will buy a $3K 
body in order to use the direct print button? So far I've never found 
anybody in the entire world who's ever used or heard of anyone else 
using direct print on a 5D Mk II. :) It had to cost Canon a heck of a 
lot more to engineer that feature than it would to bump up to 7 or 9 
shot AEB.

One of the promises of the digital age that was written about by some 
pundit years ago, was the prospect of "mass customization". Product 
vendors don't need to anticipate what every single market segment really 
needs, and build hardwired products for them. Instead they can engineer 
flexibility into their products & platforms based on the malleability of 
software & hybrid systems. Then either rapidly tailor solutions for 
specific customer groups, or even better... let the customers do it 
themselves. Hard limits are so 1950's... :)

Royce Howland
Calgary, Alberta