I exclusively shoot in RAW - it makes editing much easier and produces better pictures for me.
Please comment briefly on your thoughts on Nikon's move to offer a full-frame sensor and how it might affect your buying decisions in the future.
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The FX sensor is good for wide angle photographers. It makes the rest of us buy longer lenses to compensate for the 1.5 factor not in the FX sensor. A DX sensor on a high quality camera gives high quality results. I don't see much of a need for live view on the monitor since a camera that heavy would be difficult to hold away from your eye to take a picture. If it were an articulating monitor it would be far more useful for high/low perspective shots.
Full-frame promises less noise with more megapixel, but is still too pricey. I will still need a medium format to get the quality I want but an SLR with 16Mpxls++ is adequate when mobility speed and weight are important to getting the picture at all.
As a wildlife shooter I love the 1.5 digital factor that Nikon offers. However, there are wedding photograpers, landscape photograpers, etc that love the full sensor. Nikon offers both the 1.5 in the new D300 - which is an awesome camera. It is so good I had to get 2, replaceing my D2Xs & D200. And now Nikon has the full sensor too in the D3.
For the moment full frame sensor is more about continuity from old to new rather than image results. It provides a more viable bridge from film to digital that the APS-C size because an entire lens selection can be carried to digital. Not everyone has switched to digital and it will allow those still using film to concurrently move into digital. Full-frame may further promote the transition to digital by allowing film to be more easily used as a backup to a digital primary camera. As far as image results for full sensor vs APS-C: there probably is not yet a quality difference between the two given similar pixel sensors but a larger sensor structure to work with should give engineers the potential to enhance image fidelity in future sensor generations. For mem full sensor is an evolution not a revolution, a continuum not the quantum change produced by APS-C. It provides a bridge to digital not the APS-C leap into digital.
I thought that I would regret not having a full-size sensor until I saw the quality coming from the APS-C size sensors. I often shoot wildlife, so the magnification factor is welcome. The smaller sensor also evades the lens edge effects. I would only go to full size if I chose to move into what would have been large format film cameras, which I am not.
Smaller sensors are merely a crop of what the standard lens is capable of and not a multiplyer as is often suggested. Furthermore, the full size sensor provides the opportunity to have less noise and greater color definition due to the larger size separation of the pixel sites.
I am, still, shooting film, then scan and E-processing. However the larger-size sensor will result in me purchasing a second-generation 35mm-size DSLR. I prefer having 'hard' film in my hanging folders and that, alone, keeps me shooting film.