I do share your worry though. Technical goods become more advanced and less functional as time goes on. It is, as you note, a regression to 'good enough' that is taking place. The finder of 80s beats the finder of 90s beats the finder of 00's which beats the EVF. Thankfully the EVF and penta are used by the same market (I think MF and 35mm were 2 separate markets so most people never had the opportunity to say 'hey why isn't my 35mm finder like that') so hopefully the crossover will wait until they are at least equal.

Fingers crossed still...

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Just a late reply - I have the gamut in viewfinders. The pinnacle of viewfinders - the Bronica ETRSi AEII - so clear and sharp it shames my K20 + KatzEye, making it feel pokey, dim and decidedly weak. Even though the K20 viewfinder is decent it's still nowhere near my Oly OM-20 of 25 years ago. Then there is the GF-1. Last is the EVF on my Ricoh GX100.
The gap between the Bronica and the K20 is much greater than the gap between the K20D and the GF-1, and the step from GX100 to GF1 is exceptional - this indicates that EVFs are close and closing.
I wouldn't be without the EVF on my GF-1 for all the tea in China - it makes it truly usable and has helped me get shots I would have missed with my K20s.

I think we have to get used to their (EVF) inevitable march and they have their niche - with the EVIL I can take an excellent quality DSLResque camera with all 4 of its lenses (7mm to 200mm plus a macro) anywhere in the world in a bag no larger than my washbag.

That said - you'll pull my K20 from my cold dead hands .

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Yes it is - I have a friend who uses 300+ images stacked and each is < 5s exposure.

I don't view it as a crippling - it's just their way of maximizing quality for a given price bracket that dictated sensor choice. They don't really seem to target a specialty market - they just go for what is middle of the road with maximal return. If you want hi speed sports photos for the papers - get a Nikon, if you want good astro-photos - get a Canon 20Da or a LN2 cooled sensor unit (or get used to hyping Kodak Tech Pan 2415 in your freezer ).

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Au sujet de - is there a killfile capability on this forum? I've looked around but can't find.

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Thanks Mike. I use open source/Linux platform NR solutions. Your demo has inspired me to do a compare and contrast for them. I'll post if it produces anything halfway useful.

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Exposure stacking is the usual answer. Search for Registax - it's free and lets you use multiple exposures of a single object. It has the additional feature/side effect of averaging out the noise over several exposures so you get decent inky blacks instead of a field of chroma noise.

You can use multiple exposure stacking to minimize noise for normal daylight photos, I use Hugin (which gives away that I use Linux for my editing) which lets you align multiple hand held exposures. After that I let each contribute to (1/n * 100)% of a layer.

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Dark frame subtraction. It's exposing the sensor to nothing so it can see which pixels go hot with no light. They are therefore noise so can be subtracted from the first real image. The dark frame has to be the same length as the original exposure to be of use.

HTH

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The levels are very good on the image - fairly much fills [0-255] with a slight peak at 255 due to the white border. So pulling in levels would lose info.
I tried giving it a bit more punch 2 ways. LCE and applying an 'S' curve in curves. The curves one seemed to work best. LCE was a bit more subtle. Curves was more dramatic.

What tool are you using (GIMP/PSE/Paint.net/CS{3-5})? Then I/we/someone can tell you how to repeat the action.

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Thread divergence: Thank goodness - someone else who doesn't think a photo is just a collage with bits to be replaced if they don't match some notional ideal.

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I don't have any problem with my DA*16-50 and DA*50-135 either - focus is smooth and fast.

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