Originally Posted By: wfaulk
In this case, I'd tend to agree that you get the lack of portability with the lack of high-quality imaging and the lack of flexibility.
Lack of portability? I'm not carrying around a bag full of lenses and accessories. It's all one unit, about 20% smaller than a typical DSLR and half the weight.

Lack of high-quality imaging? Yes, but for most purposes the deficiency is (to me, at least) acceptable.

Lack of flexibility? You gotta be kidding! I can shoot aperture preferred, shutter preferred, full manual, or programmed manual. I can choose manual focus (with 8x enlargement of the focusing area) or several different modes of auto-focus, including continuous (faster focus but more battery use) or auto-focus at exposure, or macro-focus. I can choose several exposure methods (spot, averaging, center-weighted, histogram, or manual), with the ability to bias the exposure in 1/3 f-stop increments or shoot in 3-exposure groups, one under-, one normal-, and one over-exposed and can choose the degree of over/under in 1/3 f-stop increments up to two full stops. I can adjust the degree of flash intensity in 1/3 f-stop increments. I can choose between two different methods of optical image stabilization, (although I've never been able to tell any difference between them) or I can turn stabilization off completely. I can focus and expose through the viewfinder or through the viewing screen (although why anyone would do the latter is beyond me), and I can choose among five different viewfinder information displays, plus adjust viewfinder brightness to fit the circumstances. I can change shutter speeds and/or aperture without taking my finger off the shutter release. All of this is without going into the context-sensitive menu system which consists of 13 screens, each with five menu choices. I can select from two to ten megapixels, and my choice of "normal", "fine", or "raw" output. From "power-on" to shutter click is less than two seconds. I can shoot continuous exposures until I run out of memory (4 GB) at the rate of two frames per second, and can shoot movies (with sound) in four different modes of frame rate and resolution. And... I actually do use every single one of the features I have listed. Oh, wait, except the histogram exposure method, I don't quite understand how that works.

Is there some useful bit of flexibility I am missing here?

tanstaafl.
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