Originally posted by cali92rs The original poster asks "what do we NEED a bigger sensor for"? That's always the question, and there's no correct answer for everyone...like me for example, I don't NEED a K-5. It doesn't pay my bills. I just wanted one, for many reasons, so I bought it.
I have the same question, not so much about the K5, but about full frame cameras. I'm retired and so fund my camera purchases as a hobby. Occasionally I sell some fine art pictures but it in no way fully pays for expenses. My understanding is that more professionals own APS cameras than full frame cameras due to the expense of such an investment as weighed against the net payback. My limited experience, and some reports from threads indicates that fine art purchases are down due to the almost worldwide continuing recession/unemployment.
Panasonic, Olympus and Sony all lost money last year. Canon sales were disappointing to the degree that they hired a new CEO. Don't know how well Nikon did last year, but with a potential of 4 different Nikon FF concurrent models this year, e.g. D4, D800(2), D700, D600, they sure have confidence on FF viability. So i'm probably totally wrong.
I just have a hard time believing that the present financial Return on Investment for photography work is high enough to sustain a large FF prescence in the camera market. Particularly since the APS and below cameras have never been as good as they are today. I think its going to be fascinating to see how well the FF cameras, and Nikon do.