most people who see my portfolio are looking at 12x18's, usually in a coffee shop or office, (not a gallery) and are holding the prints up to thier face. Most of these clients will be ordering 16x20 to 20x30. (sometimes a video done a digital projector in hi-def). note cropping an image to a 16x20 aspect ratio involves throwing out a good chunk of image realestate...

I'll often take one image file and use a Ken Burns styled pan and zoom to create a video clip.... it's nice when a wide angle shot from a church can be panned this way and people in the image are recognizable. I do multimedia... photo and video in hi-def off the same files!

I actually prefer the results from my ds2 for low light/available light situations to the results from the k10.
now bring both cameras into the studio, and setup powerful strobes, expose to the right of the histograms (ie don't blow the highlights, but slightly overexpose the shadows) and the k10 wins hands down.

remember that the lcd is displaying a jpeg that already has been processed in camera, and therefore doesn't accurately show what data is in the raw file...

recovering the shadows in aperture gives you shadows with less noise, and more detial in the midtones, than you would get otherwise.

a good raw file on my ds2 actaully looks ruined on the lcd screen!
so exposure affects noise in practice, more than pixel count....
but the ds2 does create cleaner results than the k10 (low light), and since I often sell 20x30 inch prints off my files, there's no complaints.
now in the studio, the k10 really shines you can see the difference in detial at 20x30!.

the end results from both camera are great as long as you remember which camera ya got in your hands and use each to it's strengths.

we could always petition the governments to amend the bill, so that revenues and proceeds generated from "Orphaned" copyright works goes towards feeding and clothing "Orphaned" children.......

if hardware (ie computer, harddrive space, ram etc) are limited shoot jpeg.
if you're really good at exposure, colorbalance, etc, and don't do much photoshopping, go with jpeg.
If you're just starting to learn, go with jpeg.

I use raw for the following reasons:
I got lots of cameras, lenses, memory cards, fast computers, color calibrated workflow, Aperture (Apple's competitor for Lightroom).
I sell large prints often. I do weddings (fast paced. unpredictable environments), and some studio work. I do lotz of photoshop work. I do video and web work.
My clients are demanding.
Raw gives me the control, and safety net I like, to ensure I can meet thier needs.

one example is wedding work, I usually set my camera up to get an ambient exposure a half stop to 2/3 stop less than normal, and use my flash off camera as a main light. this way my subject pops from the background, and is color balanced to match the flash (which may be gelled to match the ambient).
If something goes wrong (flash doesn't pop for example too short recycle time) I can still recover the shot and match it to the others in the album.

were you ever a film shooter?
getting a finished image file from digital is like getting a print from film.
I like to compare:
jpeg to slide film....the range of color, contrast, grain, exposure lattitude, are all limited at the moment of capture, and there is only a few degrees of variables when printing off a slide.

raw to color negative film... .the film itself has more lattitude, more optoins to control grain, contrast, exposure, color...the printing process has more options still.

back in the film days, a slide was really a finished (good or bad) product, as it came out of the camera. A negative, was a starting point for a print.

It was always easier to fix, (or change) color, exposure, contrast on negative film than slides.

It was way easier to get a usable print off a bad negative than a bad slide.
I think the same holds true for raw vs jpeg.

think of the raw file as your negative, from which you extract a file.
you don't destroy your original negative when you make a print off it? right?

is it:
Captain Picaard
and
Jerry Garcia?

nope they're not padded (suppose you could improvise).
I usually buy snow boarders bags for my lightstands....they are padded, easlily long enough and can hold 4 light stands (3 manfroto stackers, and a manfrotto boomstand) plus a small tripod. the snow board bags cost about 1/3 of a soft case for lightstands.

buy one of those umbrella type fold-up lawnchairs.... for some inexplicable reason... they always come with a free tri-pod carry bag.

benbos are great. they are specialized tools, and as such are a little slow to set up and take down. Not the best for general use, but unbeatable for wildlife, macro, and hard to get to places.
I'd go with a manfrotto, and pistol grip for general use. A manfrotto video head if you like macro (the ones with the sliding camera plates are good for extreme macro focussing) or do video and photo...

I'm a creature of habit, and when something works well, I look no further, so I haven't really looked at anything else. (Gerri has a giotos, and it's ok, but I still like the manfrottos better)

far as I'm concerned, there's only two types of client....
Those that are a pleasure to work with...and those that pay more.javascript:emoticon('')