I agree Marc - I could have shot it better certainly, especially if it was to be a portrait of my son's face
. This was a quick snapshot of my wife and son walking this trail, and we had just been (30 seconds before) out in the bright light where I was using TAv... In this shot, I just brought the camera up to my eye and fired, without changing the settings for the dark forest we had entered. If I had opened the aperture to f/4, I could have used ISO 800, and had sharper lens performance (if I'm correctly remembering the MTF settings from the DA* 16-50). However - since I was trying to include my wife and the surroundings as well, I would probably want to keep the DOF of the smaller aperture, and again, since they were walking, 1/100 seems a reasonable compromise to stop motion (it's all compromise isn't it). Regardless of my skill (or lack thereof) as a photographer, the shot is the best (only) example I have of a RAW file from the K-7 at ISO 3200 and I thought it relevant (all the others were deleted or converted to jpegs).
I think the argument that photographers don't need high ISO performance is a bit silly - where do we draw the line and stop asking for better performance... Wouldn't better ISO performance help you capture Jazz artists, or help Marc L. with keeping the shutter speed up while shooting wildlife at dusk, and while we're at it, it can help me get better family snapshots
. It's fine if someone can get the shots they want at ISO 400 - more power too them, but in five years I'll be buying a camera (or a phone or an implant or whatever we're using by then) which will take usable photos at ISO 102400 or something like that
... can't wait! (ok, that's hyperbole folks - I really don't wanna hear about how that level of sensitivity is impossible for whatever actual scientific reason
)