Moose wrote:
> There is a sort of upbeat quality to the
> writing in much of the descriptive material in PP, and although not as
> much in the reviews, it does creep in there, as well.
>
> And you may well be right about the effort not to upset advertisers.
>
> For one thing, they have a set of standard measurements that
> are published for all the reviews.
>
Who can know what bias is done when applying the cameras to the tests
(if any), or results published are really the results. Even AF focusing
"speed" tests are ridiculous because simple differences in how much
turning one brand's lens needs to go from whatever out of focus position
to in focus (and closest focus to infinity), compared to another brand.
One might need a full turn from 3 feet to 35 feet, another might need
1/3 of a turn, particular lens focus damping, max aperture, etc.
> pixel peeping seriously, the TZ3's smeary NR really
> does lose detail that's still there with other cameras.
>
> I suppose something similar is going on with the differing opinions of
> the H9. Even completely honest reviewers are bound to differ in their
> weighting of various aspects of performance.
>
> Moose
>
Same issue arose with reviews of the Nikon D80 compared to Pentax K10D.
The D80 has NR on RAW at ALL times always smearing a bit of detail,
whereas the K10D sided with keeping more detail, so even though most
reviewers commented that the K10D had clearly better RAW files in terms
of sharpness & color accuracy, there was a different level of importance
placed on that by some testers.
In this case as well, a reason for different weighting (other than
letting brand familiarity of the testers entering too much in ergonomics
judgements), is taking a $1000 camera, and applying the testing bias
toward the point and shoot crowd AND complete photography "nooby".
Therefore, many testers reviewing a $1000+ DSLR place more weight on
jpg, and especially default settings. If the k10D default settings are
for flatter tonality that is less sharpened because those buying a $1000
dslr want a better starting point for photoshop tweaking, the reviewer
may negatively rate the camera - with a quick aside that annoyingly you
can change the settings for more punch. With the D80 jpg's NR is never
completely off, and defaults are bright and shiny as the point and shoot
beginners are used to - so reviewers used to the brand to begin with,
rate this as "better" because complete novices who don't care as much
for getting the best through photoshop, just want to simply use their
$1000+ camera to keep churning out continual little snapshots of their
kids jumping, sitting, eating, kicking balls, throwing balls, scratching
balls, smiling, crying, laughing, growing, forever buying countless
really expensive stabilized lenses to do it with.
So the pop photo test of the K10D was 4 pages, and the D80 test was 11
pages taking "upbeat" to the vomit stage - and oddly they pick the K10D
as camera of the year.
Larry
>
>
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