Hi,
Try to use live view for accurate focusing on the M9, and you see that CMOS or CCD matters. This is just an example of enabling technology.
Regarding DR, it depends a bit on... things. I would agree that life on earth is possible without 13EV DR. As a matter of fact, I was shooting digitally since 2006 and seldom run into DR issues, and when so resolved to HDR.
The area where CMOS benefits is essentially readout noise in the darks. A modern CMOS sensor uses like 6000 analogue digital converters in parallell, while CCD passes the data trough say two ADCs that are not even on the same chip. So, for dark noise CMOS is a winner.
Weather CMOS or CCD, sensors reflect a lot of light while film was dark and was a diffuse reflector. So, film era lenses did not need to take reflection from film into account. With digital, that has changed.
Luminance range at the sensor is often limited by veiling flare in the lens.
So needs do vary. If a camera has new capabilities that we don't need there is little reason to upgrade.
Best regards
Erik
Engineering and engineers are absolutly necessary. I have the highest respect for engineers, reasearchers who build the evolution of mankind technology and I can be amazed by gear, craftmanship, new gadgets usefull or less usefull.
I don't regret the film days at all. Evolution does not have to cese but follow its flow. Then regulations, standardisations appear when the chaos becomes unproductive, and we see that in some areas of this business.
In what imagery is concerned, the progresses made those recent years are simply impressive in both production and post production. It's truly exciting to live and being part of this era.
But at the same time we reached a point IMO where some deontological ruminations are being necessary and starting to araise everywhere because the flow becomes out of control, a bit like a water overflow.
The problem is the roadmap. For example, HD in broadcast is a relative new implementation and no near to have been exploited to its full potential yet. The data stream remains very low. HD in a sensible situation will have to mature, reach the top and then go further. However, now they are pushing 4k. HD is dead before reaching maturity. Then it's not just 4k but HDR is pointing. Nothing is really ready yet but the frenesy is being sold by the brands themselves at an exponential speed. HDR is going to bring enormous chalenges and as a gimmick, it will sink rapidly.
Cameras were shooting HD, now it's completly obsolete and it's 4k. But we did not have solid codec HD yet in the hybrid era, we do not have raw HD a part from the experiments of magic lantern that was a DIY movement, not an industrial one. We had hd on the cheap and now 4k on the cheap. There is no hybrid camera today that proposed to mature the HD concept instead of 4k and bring a rock solid HD imagery. Not one. Even before the concept reached maturity, it's 4k and by the way 4k is already almost obsolete. But the 4k that is bundled in mirrorless/dslr today is an extremely low quality one.
But an extremely high HD capability does not sell. It does not interest marketing deps.
Too slow. The brands that produce our equipment want speed, very high speed. They want to sell the maximum possible number of devices in the shortest possible time. The only way to do that is by creating constant needs even before what is being implemented evolves and reaches the top. What sells is the immediate upgrade, regardless if we need it. So they sell concepts. The stream becomes an overflow. Before a concept even reaches any sort of maturity it's dead already.
That IMO is the issue this industry is facing.
Because for the client, the viewer, the art lover, nothing really changed. I have never heard a friend of mine saying "I'm going to see that movie because the theater is 4k". They don't care, even if they have a brand new 4k hdr tv in their living room.
They go to the cine, to the art gallery for other reasons.
The only ones who really care are idiots like us, caught in the overflow and completly manipulated by marketing depts. So we became like kids. We got a new toy, play with it a few hours, then it's not interesting any more. Dad Panasonic, dad Sony...I need a new toy for christmass, this one is boring. And papa PanaSony says with a big smile "of course my son! It's already prepared for you. Would you like to autofocus brickwalls in complete darkness?
When this touches the average consummer, it's not an issue. If I'm a consummer, a gear reviewer, that is just fun and legitimaly a game and if I have the cash, I may want to play with toys and experience every single evolution regardless if usefull or not. There is no problem with that. Let's just call a cat a cat.
Those latest years, I witnessed that even with the most tech freakies I know, people who were amazed by the latest and cutting edge and never complained, a significant feeling of fatigue and frustration. I hear more and more phrases like "Ixm fed-up to have to upgrade my workstations every 3 years, I'm done with new learning curves and so on. Even on people who have the cash to pick-up, they start to talk about costs and hidden costs, thing that never happened before.
I also hear in my surrounding that as things become more and more complicated and messy, people spend more and more time in fixing sins, in looking into the forums for some help and they spend less and less time with the family and friends. They are being absorbed by the stream and the time/money they have to invest increased exponentialy. They feel overloaded by datas and informations to process and the exciting point of it became now a burden. This complain is real and serious for the professionals. The amateur has more freedom to stop at any time.
IMO we reached a limit in which this industry will have to rethink itself very soon.