Jolly good...I think.
I do try not to be too annoyed about this perpetual game, as I do realise that these companies do have a buck to make..and if they end up supplying a snapper's needs(as opposed to the "want" that they engender and pre-manufacture in people's gadget-vacuum), this can be a very good thing.
It is perhaps both perjoratively transparent and predictable that the way to generate interest is to in some way feed and work the more base of human instincts: this "show an ankle" approach, used so well by Canon(and car/automobile makers in their ads), is guaranteed to hit one's salivatory G-spot. Mind you, as, er, has been reported to me, Ladies of the Night in Amsterdam peek seductively from Amsterdam windows using the same successful ploy, showing a shoulder and getting one gagging for the rest...and why not use the oldest profession in the world to make a sale?
Manufacturers have to reach new markets..which necessitates either creating the perceived need for one in a consumer, or revisiting something that has been done already in the past with 35mm. If one does the latter, then one can ride the wave of ensuing retro-chic: Leica have clung to the straw that floats on this one with the death-grip of a blind and drowning man, with others blessedly getting the idea and giving quality at a more reasonable price.
In terms of this approach, I have to say: good for Sony. Though their audio and pewter products go from depency-creating exclusivity to nooses of barbed wire yet have lost quality, they have played a few blinders in optics(pun intended) the past few years from the S2 Pro onwards and are succeeding in the same arena as the Big Boys by hitting with the same body-blows as they have used. Doing the Behind Glass Thang, then wheeling the reps out to rehearsedly say jack through inscrutably-tightened lips, will get the DPReview kitboys writhing in their pants.
I'm not over-sure about the longevity(and what a self-contradiction that concept is nowadays) of yet another format that tries to get the right equation of cheapness v. pixels/sensor v. lenses; sooner or later people hopefully would wise up and realise that IF portability and New Smallness are the Present Thing, then the same old same old of buying fewer lenses would still hold true. I have to say though, that I have a smirk on my face, as the way Sony are going, I'd not be surprised at all if they got it spot on: the point of the 4/3 system was already stretching thin at its birth(in my humble) and is transparently pointless by now surely. That sniff of the word Distagon does engage the heart too, does it not...
Mind you, I do like(and think it has "legs" too) the idea of these light, "street"(to use Toad's term) cameras with ultra-sharp fixed primes. I remember the sheer brilliance and quality of the Yashica T*4 some years ago: 35mm film with fixed, quality prime wide: by some synchronistical quirk, the modern digital equivalents like Toad's have the same quality AND have the retro factor of being equivalent-ish in effective focal length to the old fixed 40mm rangefinders. I personally love this idea.
Anyway, opinions, like...er, pores...are exhalative orifices that all are blessed with. These are merely my unconsidered ones and I'm sure won't meet with everyone's bonhomie.
