I recently just about got accused of being a paedo for shooting pictures overlooking a playground.
It was a sunset. I was shooting at 16mm (DA*), from the top of a hill, with the closest kids about 30 meters away.
A "youthwatch" (some social support group for dodgy neighborhoods it seems) person walks up to me and tells me I shouldn’t be shooting here.
I ask him if he means I might get mugged around here and thanks for the warning.
No, he means I should go away or he'll report me to the police for photographing kids, as it's against the law.
I ask which law.
He tells me "child protection act", the preposterous ignoramus.
I find it really annoying that amateur photographers with dSLRs are being harassed - in the UK there have been many cases of arrests and searches of SLR-wielding enthusiasts, while no-one thinks twice when people snap away with their cameraphones. If I were a terrorist scoping for targets, I honestly don't think I would be interested in the shallower DOF and increased DR inherent to a larger sensor size. (I like
this article on the subject)
But back on topic - it is true that people react differently to a larger lens.
I used to live in the Middle East, and my father bought a P+S camera for the sole purpose of candids, as some people (especially women) didn't take too kindly to being photographed. Even among young westerners, the kind of people who upload a couple hundred pictures to facebook after every party, an SLR tends to make people more self-conscious and often gets in the way of capturing a natural portrait.
Feel free to mail me your SLRs and lenses when you switch to point and shoot - I will gladly carry the burden of social stigma and accusations of terrorism