Bill P wrote:

> I've been following this thread for the last eight or nine days and I have
> come to the conclusion that the whole thing has been a wind up. Mr aNdY has
> been having a laugh. Does anyone else feel like that?

I do not think so. It occurs to me that aNdY is an Asian, in
particularly, Chinese. The motivation of Chinese is unperceptible for
westerners. It is deeply entrenched in the Aisan/Chinese culture that
one should work hard and disregard his own desires and feelings . The
common wisdom is the the wellbeing of the society is above the
wellbeing of individual. So, I presume, aNdY worked hard for a long
time and saved some money, and now he wants to reward himself for his
hard work. He wants to buy a "good digital camera". He presumes that
once he gets the good digital camera, he will have an unstoppable fun
with it. However, he has no idea what exactly pleasures he wants to
receive from the camera because his society prohibited receiving
pleasures. So that he figures out that, being unable to figure out what
are his needs, he just buys a good camera and this will ensure that it
will address his probable needs. Thus, he figures out, the challenge is
just to find a "good" camera.

However, the westerners know only too well that there is no such "good"
camera by itself. One has certain needs, and the "good" camera is the
one which addresses this particular needs. For everyone, what makes the
camera "good" is different. Thus, aNdY will be unable to find a
universal "good" camera. Many people (myself included) recommended him
to go to the shop and see which camera feels good in his hands, and to
look at the pictures made by other people and thus find out what are
his interests. Obviously, aNdY has no photographic interests. This is
his tradegy of an Asian. I am not loughing at him, I am sorry for him.
I myself know what I am talking about, because culture-wise I am
sitting on a fence between the western and oriental cultures.

So, not expecting that aNdY would discover in himself any time soon
what are his interests and needs, I gave him a best possible advice in
another thread. Go and get the camera with the best lens possible (as a
rule of thumb, the best lens is the largest (i.e.,m widest) lens). The
camera with a good lens will surprise its owner with the quality of
pictures regardless of his photographic capability (as compared, say,
with the camera of the same clas but with less-then-good lens). The
other advice which I would give is to get a camera with the best
(easiest) possible ergonomics. This will ensure that the person will be
motivated to take the camera in his hands and to go and snap few shots
rather then let the camera collect the dust on shelf. This is how a
path to self-discovery and self-development starts. There is no other
way.

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