On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 03:47:47AM -0700, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > What's the reality of getting 10 years of use from now current Pentax DSLR?
I would expect my *ist-D to still be capable of delivering images in ten years time. The question is more whether I'll be asking it to do so. Digital cameras are an odd, hybrid product. They're neither a film SLR (which lasts practically for ever) nor a computer (which, until recently, was regarded as an underpowered antique at five years old). The big issue for digital cameras, initally, was indeed megapixels. You need a certain number of megapixels per square inch of the final print size you will be creating. Exactly what that number is does somewhat depend on personal criteria, but most people agree to within a factor of two. My personal stake-in-the-ground, back when I started down the path to a digital darkroom, was that for my use (mostly 8x10 prints) 4MP represented the bottom line (that gave me around 200 pixels/inch), and 6MP (300 ppi) was about where other limitations were comparable to the restrictions introduced by pixel count. While over the last ten years the way I got those pixels has changed from scanning film to using a DSLR, that 6MP baseline hasn't changed. You can get some pretty good results at 16x20 from a 6MP starting point, but if you consistently want to produce prints that size (especially of scenes with a lot of fine detail, like landscapes, and from exposures where camera shake and optical softness have been carefully controlled) you're going to want more than that. But, there again, if that's what you want then why are you using a small-format camera? If you want a 16x20 print, then a 35mm (or APS) camera isn't really the ideal tool. I expect the next generation of DSLRs (10-12 MP, APS-C sensors) to allow me a little more leeway in cropping, and to allow me to make 16x20 (or at least 13x19) prints as good as the 8x10s that I make today. Beyond that, the only other technical feature that I see affecting the final results is sensor depth; 14-bit (and, no doubt, 16-bit) sensors will appear, and they will allow for a little better post-processing of digital images. But a well-exposed image on a 12-bit sensor, under all but the most demanding lighting conditions will remain more than good enough. So, to summarise: I expect my *ist-D to be just as capable of creating 8x10s in ten years time as it is today. By that time I doubt if I'll be using it for those shots where I consider I might want more than an 8x10, but there again I don't really use it for that today - I pull out the MZ-S and grab a roll of Royal Gold 25 from the freezer. I do expect the D to be my backup digital body by then - even if we don't see it next year, I'm sure that over the next decade Pentax will be able to come up with a camera enough better than the D to tempt me. In fact I expect I'll probably have bought two further models in that timeframe, but the additional features that prompt that decision will be aimed at ease-of-use rather than at technical image quality (much as the MZ-S supereceded my MX).
