Wow, lots of good stuff here to reply to...
James, I hope you understand why I'm trying to remain somewhat anonymous in this thread. My boss has been less than thrilled with other online discussions I've had where I've included my camera store's name, regardless of how benevolent the discussions were.
I do see how my "promotion" here might look odd -- that's not my intention here. I'm simply thinking outloud about a camera that just might become popular in the next few months, and why it's intriguing to me.
So here's evidence that I'm not astroturfing for Sea & Sea:
I kindly disagree with you that S&S products are somehow easier to shop for. Is Granny going to understand this?
http://www.seaandsea...systemchart.gifIn my conversations with customers, I've never been asked for a system where accessories could be picked out easily. I've also never seen hesitation with mis-matched brands (e.g. Fantasea arm between Epoque strobe & Canon housing with S&S fiber optic). I think that "systematic" is an advantage on paper, but I see little carryover to the marketplace. As an aside, our shop carries the S&S "Islander" & "Sport" packages, where you get the 8000G along with a strobe & arm, and I personally have never sold one.
I also disagree that 10mp is "too much." Granted, these current high-megapixel tiny-sensor cameras are not massively better than their 5mp 2004 equivalents, but they are certainly no worse. To see for yourself, here's a searchable set of 38,000 photos from the GX100:
http://www.flickr.co...h/caplio_gx100/You're right that there could possibly be a miniature LED "strobe" that could sit in the camera's hotshoe to provide that quick-recycling triggering. And while we're on that topic... Dave, you misunderstand the issue with slow recycling. It's not the external strobe that you're waiting for - it's the camera's built-in flash that takes so long. Since the built-in flash is generally blocked and/or too weak to reach the subject, the camera will choose to dump
its full power with essentially every shot. Not only does that kill your shot-to-shot time, it drains the camera's battery faster. Avoiding having to fire that built-in flash is one of the main reason a lot of my customers request TTL systems (e.g. G7, SP-350, P5000). It moves the "continuous" mode from unusable to usable.
Also, Dave, you're over-simplifying things when you say (redundantly) that the AF speed & shutter lag are the only things matter.
Re: wide-angle... I still don't clearly understand how the flat port renders the 24mm lens "ineffective." The stuff about vignetting makes perfect sense, of course, but I was thinking that 24mm might be just wide enough for some folks to avoid dragging along an add-on lens. If it's not, then I don't see the problem attaching the 0.6x S&S lens & zooming in a notch or two. The designers might have had that in mind, because the S&S rep quoted a "16mm-equivalent" view once you attach their wide lens. That would be 27mm * 0.6.
Can anybody point me toward a non-SLR dome port? I didn't know such a thing existed, but several of you have brought up this camera's lack of a dome port. What am I missing?
And finally, Lndr, the DX-8000G certainly
is a Ricoh. Namely, it's the Ricoh GX8.