Originally posted by audiobomber Foveon has a long way to go to catch up in the high ISO race.
Now this is where, I differ with a lot of folks on the forum.
People talk about AF, DoF, focus points, all kinds of crazy things, but as a photographer, my main concern is, "What produces the best possible image,in a manageable package."
You can argue that the low ISO capability is a hindrance, as is slow AF etc. etc., but, it has always been true, that the cameras that record teh best images, have had the highest numbers of negatives. I once carted an 8x10 film camera onto he subway in Tornto to do a shot of a church that would demonstrate my prowess with tilt and shift. It was a huge suitcase. And I set up and a street and put my head under this little cloth and produced a distortion free steeple shot that you probably can't match with anything but a view camera.
That was the best image available. Ask me about the speed of AF, my able to control my ISO, etc.. One of the pictures on my wall, taken of me breaking out of the backfield at a football game, was taken but a guy using a technica press camera. He set up, he got one shot and he had to focus with a rangefinder. And he was really good at it.
But the thing is that's how you get the best image.
This thing about taking a camera that will get you possibly a superior image and then starting to complain about the limitations is good, in that people don't go buy the camera, with out realizing they are in for a bit of ride. The video was very informative for that.
But, you have to end up saying, to get teh best landscape image possible from a small compact camera, you have to put up with the poor ISO performance. And Foveon doesn't have to catch up. You wouldn't say "the rest of the world has to catch up with Foveon IQ" But you should. because you're a photographer, and after all the work, you're end product is an image. No one cares if the AF sucked, if the ISO was low, if it was darn near impossible to get the image into your PP software, if you had to wait 10 seconds to see the image, if the battery died while you were out taking pictures. All those things are pretty much moot. They look at the picture, and it's the best, and they say wow, and that's what you want as a photographer.
How much work you had to do to get it and what you had to put up with, is to my mind irrelevant. Go for the best, go for excellence, the rest of it is fluff. If I can get an 800 camera that will give me D800 quality landscapes in a small APS-c package... I'll still be carrying my K-5, but , what an addition to my kit that would be.