Hi,
Originally posted by Pål Jensen ...In the old days when camera were basically mechanical devices, the pro tag had some meaning. Nowadays the electronics that finds its way into DSLR's are all the same grade. The shutter units are most often off-the-shelf units from third parties. Many Nikon and Pentax bodies share shutters.
I respectfully disagree on this point. With mechanical cameras, assuming your metering worked, the lens+film combination (+ darkroom skills) had the biggest impact (AF aside). You could use your favorite film in any of your camera bodies and expect good results, if you knew your film well. Your film of choice could be used in ANY compatible camera body and if you used M42 lenses, you could even move lenses between different brand of bodies.
Today, the image sensor, conversion electronics and image processing steps are all proprietary to each camera company, very tightly coupled to each other and visibly different among brands. Each camera vendor has their own unique set of electronics, even if the physical shutter is the same. So features aside (AF points, video, etc), all of these cameras produce results with their own character. You cannot swap out the electronics from one camera to another or change the sensor (akin to changing type/brand of film). In my opinion, this is what makes choosing a dSLR today challenging, since the trade-offs are much more numerous and far-reaching.
- slrl0ver