On Thu, June 11, 2009 20:52, Roger Eichhorn wrote: > the July 2009 issue of Consumer Reports > has an extensive review broken down by type of camera: subcompact, > compact, superzoom, basic SLRs and advanced SLRs. On the one hand, Consumer Reports seems to be the only product rating outfit that understands about statistics (and how quality control is an important part of quality), the need for getting your samples anonymously out of the normal trade stream, etc. On the other hand, I don't find their ratings of products I have a specialist interest in (cameras and computers) to be all that useful. They do, at least, give enough raw data, and lay out their rating methods clearly enough, that you can often find some information that's of use, and figure out when the overall ratings aren't relevant to your needs. I probably still blame them for my first SLR being a Miranda Sensorex. Not a *bad* camera, but I would have been better served by a Pentax Spotmatic or a Nikkormat. (Or a used M3, but I really don't think I had any chance of figuring that out as a beginner.) And they're good at reporting unusual anomalies they've noticed; I remember a shampoo article where they discovered that people trying out shampoos for them often found one they liked better than what they were used to using, even if they described themselves as satisfied with their current shampoo. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
