[Don Hoey]

Universally accepted ??? When I bought my camera, and for my needs, then A/F response was not even on my radar, so I never studied this

Interested .... not particularly as I have never ever been in a situation when I could not take a picture through lack of A/F, or focus confirmation light for manual focus. For night time street scenes I generally use a manual focus 28mm lens and set it by the distance scale even though the specs say I can A/F or get focus confirmation down to EV -1.

Specs. Been there, done that, spent a fortune, so now only I am interested in those that will impact on what pics I want to take. If I was really desperate about A/F response then from what I have read I would need to save pennies for a Nikon D3 and then when Canon beats that perhaps I should re-mortgage the house to enable me to switch brands.

Going back to the original post, shows that in this case specs are going to be compromised once lens choice is added to the equation. That post illustrates the reality of those on a budget, as two different brand independant lenses were in use, and the ' universally accepted ' theory appears to have gone right out the window. As I see it if ' universally accepted ' applies, then it must be based on exactly similar kit specs otherwise it is fairly worthless.

I know I am a bit of an oddball on this forum. Using a top flight body and mainly manual focus, and non zoom lenses at that, oh and occasionally a hand held light meter, but here is my take on kit generally. If your kit choice is based only on a specs shoot out you will NEVER EVER be happy, as your joy with your new toy will only last as long as it takes to bump into someone with kit that beats yours on specs. Would those specs be relavent to your photography ................. YOU DECIDE. I will example my last purchase. I bought the outgoing model as nothing of the incomming models specs had any relevance to my type of photography. Now a newer model has been announced, and so it goes on.

Am I happy with what I have ............ you bet. Will I change it anytime soon? What of the newer spec relates to the type of pictures I take. Mmmm not much.

I have yet to take a picture that I could not have taken with a camera from a different manufacturer, and I have been through a few over the years.
I personally like Nikon and others go for Pentax or Canon, makes no difference to me.

So here is the challenge. Post any pictures you have taken that could not have been taken with an equivalent camera from any other brand and PLEASE state why.

Don