tcp2525 wrote:
Let me guess, you aren't an Apple user either?
As a matter of fact, I am, since 1985. One key difference here is that when Apple has forced major changes on us (switching from ADB to USB, eliminating optical drives), they've often been right. By contrast, the XQD card has been around for more than a full year now, and the D4 remains the only camera to use it.
Another significant difference is that Apple offers an overall user experience that's vastly superior to any alternative, making it easier to tolerate changes we might otherwise protest.
binary visions wrote:
Actually, customization on fairly small consumer electronics like this is pretty complex. There are a whole lot of factors to consider. Just to name a few: swappable modules inevitably increase the size overall item; it's much more expensive to build, especially when you consider that it reduces the bulk ordering options that the manufacturer has (e.g. they can't order ten million of one size buffer memory chips); it vastly complicates the stocking and inventorying with additional saleable part numbers (again, increasing cost); it substantially complicates the testing process since they have potentially dozens of configurations to test (again, increasing cost); it adds additional points of failure.
It's not impossible, of course, but unless you've held a job in the electronics manufacturing industry and seen how the supply chain works, how the test teams build requirements and test cases, how the design teams iterate, it's hard to appreciate just how much goes into making something customizable.
Computers are a little easier in this realm because you have agreed-upon standards to build to, but even there: look what happens when you try to shrink things. Apple and the Ultrabook manufacturers are soldering parts to motherboards, using non-standard connectors, even having fixed configurations of otherwise-changeable parts, like memory, so they can pack electronics into a tight space.
I just think customization would increase cost so much as to not be worth it....Show more →
Good points, although I'm equally critical of moves by Apple, et al., to solder RAM and other components to the motherboard. I value performance and upgradeability in my laptop more than super-smallness. Lots of folks disagree, and that's fine.
When talking about cost, though, we need to factor in the cost of having to invest in a second, incompatible flash memory format when most pros are already heavily invested in -- and satisfied with -- CompactFlash.
Good lord, we are talking squirrels here The FIRST thing if someone asked me about shooting squirrels would be lens, ditch the 800 and definitely the D4 if thats your main focus. Get a crop sensor, or maybe the kick butt D700 and think about getting say 300mm f/4 and a tc or some AI-S glass
