4 ms·

How do you make decisions at the grocery store, or for that matter, car shopping? I'm being serious, because of apples return policy, there is no great loss in

by Aloha 11y ago

How do you make decisions at the grocery store, or for that matter, car shopping? I'm being serious, because of apples return policy, there is no great loss in choosing wrong.

alistairSH 11y ago
I was only being slightly hyperbolic. Buying cars is awful. I will literally spend a year researching. And if a new model is released in that period, it really screw up the process. And regardless of what I buy, I second guess myself for months afterwards. No joke. I'm currently shopping for a compact system camera (micro 4/3 or similar). Same thing. Hours upon hours of research, can't decide. Grocery store, not a big deal. Cost is low and I'm not stuck with the items for years. Admittedly, this is a personal problem, and not one of Apple's creation.
- Aloha 11y ago
  I'll spend hours researching, discussing the choice with friends, etc, usually at the end of that process, one of the two things stands out as better, easier to use, etc - in the end if they don't I just pick one and move on. Life is short.
- username223 11y ago
  (Slightly off-topic...) Buying computers used to be awful, back when hard drives cost $1/MB, sound cards were a thing (Gravis UltraSound or SoundBlaster?), and Moore's Law was going full speed (even CD-ROM drives regularly became twice as fast). I spent months agonizing over when to pull the trigger and buy that Pentium 133. Nowadays almost any computer is fast enough to make you happy: buy an SSD, max out the RAM, and you'll be set for years. Unless you're doing high-end gaming or HPC, performance mostly doesn't matter. I'd argue that cameras are at that point now, too. Even a high-end smartphone takes pretty good pictures, and the compact system cameras are well into the realm of diminishing returns unless you're making your living off of wall-sized prints. Seriously, just flip a coin whether you want to go APS-C or micro 4/3 (lenses still matter), and buy whatever's on sale.
- ghaff 11y ago
  With the compact system camera, the decision-making process is somewhat complicated by the fact that (assuming you're not just interested in a camera and its kit lens), you are buying into a system. And, in some cases, you're potentially betting on players who aren't the traditional (surviving) big DSLR companies. I like the Fujifilm X Series BTW if you don't want a full-blown DSLR. (I have both.) Especially assuming you're already in the Apple ecosystem, whether you buy a given model of X to last for the next few or even five years is less of a big deal.
  - alistairSH 11y ago
    Lenses are too big a concern. Whichever way I go, I'll probably stick to the kit zoom, plus a wied-ish pancake prime for carry-around.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      The pancake primes are nice on smaller cameras. They're also high quality. The only downside is that they aren't quite as wide angle as I'd like. (Typically 40mm equivalent whereas I'd prefer something closer to 35mm.) On the Fujifilm X series I mostly use the 18-55mm (~28-90mm equivalent) plus the pancake. I also have a wider angle lens. You go much more telephoto and you start to lose the benefit of the smaller camera.

by Aloha 11y ago

How do you make decisions at the grocery store, or for that matter, car shopping? I'm being serious, because of apples return policy, there is no great loss in choosing wrong.

alistairSH 11y ago

I was only being slightly hyperbolic. Buying cars is awful. I will literally spend a year researching. And if a new model is released in that period, it really screw up the process. And regardless of what I buy, I second guess myself for months afterwards. No joke. I'm currently shopping for a compact system camera (micro 4/3 or similar). Same thing. Hours upon hours of research, can't decide. Grocery store, not a big deal. Cost is low and I'm not stuck with the items for years. Admittedly, this is a personal problem, and not one of Apple's creation.

Aloha 11y ago
I'll spend hours researching, discussing the choice with friends, etc, usually at the end of that process, one of the two things stands out as better, easier to use, etc - in the end if they don't I just pick one and move on. Life is short.
username223 11y ago
(Slightly off-topic...) Buying computers used to be awful, back when hard drives cost $1/MB, sound cards were a thing (Gravis UltraSound or SoundBlaster?), and Moore's Law was going full speed (even CD-ROM drives regularly became twice as fast). I spent months agonizing over when to pull the trigger and buy that Pentium 133. Nowadays almost any computer is fast enough to make you happy: buy an SSD, max out the RAM, and you'll be set for years. Unless you're doing high-end gaming or HPC, performance mostly doesn't matter. I'd argue that cameras are at that point now, too. Even a high-end smartphone takes pretty good pictures, and the compact system cameras are well into the realm of diminishing returns unless you're making your living off of wall-sized prints. Seriously, just flip a coin whether you want to go APS-C or micro 4/3 (lenses still matter), and buy whatever's on sale.
ghaff 11y ago
With the compact system camera, the decision-making process is somewhat complicated by the fact that (assuming you're not just interested in a camera and its kit lens), you are buying into a system. And, in some cases, you're potentially betting on players who aren't the traditional (surviving) big DSLR companies. I like the Fujifilm X Series BTW if you don't want a full-blown DSLR. (I have both.) Especially assuming you're already in the Apple ecosystem, whether you buy a given model of X to last for the next few or even five years is less of a big deal.
- alistairSH 11y ago
  Lenses are too big a concern. Whichever way I go, I'll probably stick to the kit zoom, plus a wied-ish pancake prime for carry-around.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    The pancake primes are nice on smaller cameras. They're also high quality. The only downside is that they aren't quite as wide angle as I'd like. (Typically 40mm equivalent whereas I'd prefer something closer to 35mm.) On the Fujifilm X series I mostly use the 18-55mm (~28-90mm equivalent) plus the pancake. I also have a wider angle lens. You go much more telephoto and you start to lose the benefit of the smaller camera.