link

the canon g9 is a fine camera.....

Pentax would fare better in the market, if they had better manuals for their equipment.
Intereactive cd/dvd's with a searchable interface.
They could have a cute cartoon charactor, that you could type in your questions and get answers and tutorials on how-to.

I'm all for naming the concept "Ask Mattmatic"

John is absolutely right in saving jpegs youhave altered in a lossless format. Aperture does not alter your originals, but saves a file outlining the changes you made (like a recipe) and only applies those to a copy (version) of the file when you export/print/share the image.
Other wise it just uses the recipe to display the image on screen....your original is untouched.

Aperture handles all files (raw, jpg, psd) seemlessly. On the surface you just work with your image.
But under the hood, so to speak, the files are different. Raw is more flexible, you're working with more data in the file.

now jpegs, if you are a good and careful shooter, meter properly, expose correctly, color balance right on, and you happen to like the (soft comparered to canikon) way your camera processes the file, are just fine.

I used to shoot jpegs, I'm not a sloppy shooter, and jpegs would do me just fine. But....I have several, powerful computers, tonnes of storage, and lot's of cameras. I shoot weddings and to be honest, shooting raw has made the shoots go faster, and on a few occasions saved some shots (usually the weddings that plan to be outdoors, during the worst times of the day, no shade...).

At $2400.00+ a pop, I'd say Raw is worth it for me.

but I know, if I need to, I can switch to jpeg in the feild, and fit a few more images on the card before swapping...

I like it!
but maybe hybrid af system, using Phase detection, AND active ir rangefinding in comination with face detection. for taking images of people who aren't lawyers or politicians?

link

Wayyyy back in the eighties, A classroom full of students stared at thier apple 11's in bewilderment when instead of thier homework, "Don is Great" danced merrily across thier screens in beautiful full color (green)!

Of course several minutes into my first of ten days (after school) detention, I realized, using my own name was a mistake....

sorry if you feel this thread got hijacked, but seriously, rather than rant about what not to buy....please do tell...
What brand should I buy? name one company out there that hasn't had a model or product line that got changed or discontinued? More specifically, name one company, in the SLR Camera business that has a better record than Pentax for backward compatibility? If Pentax breaks it's line up into ff and aps sensors, why shouldn't I buy digital lenses for my ds2 or k10's? And if a ff dslr comes out in the near future, do I have to buy it? no. will there be an aps model available? yes. If I can afford the ff body, will my older ff pre dslr lenses work? bet on it! will they tide me over til I buy newer ff lenses? I'd bet on it.
You why are you so dogmatic about bashing Pentax? go buy a canon, or a nikon...(might want to check thier records on back/forward compatibility first though...)

now, back to a more interesting subject:

10 print "Don is Great";
20 gosub 40
30 goto 10
40 int a =rnd 3
50 if a=1 then print "! ";
60 if a=2 then print "!! ";
70 if a=3 then print "!!! ";
80 endsub

back in the day, that was a sophisticated program, written by a genius!