"Again, and often, I don't see the point of all this testing."

There are a two reasons for this testing: 1) The gear does matter, to some people more than others. Some prospective buyers want to know what kind of performance to expect from a camera before they buy it. If all you care about is whether a camera is capable of making great photographs in the right hands, then by all means skip these tests. Any camera made today can do that. 2) I am interested in the gear itself, to the point where I enjoy testing it from a technical standpoint.

"Why not just go out and take pictures?"

I do that too! An interest in gear and an interest in making and enjoying photographs are not mutually exclusive.

"Also, shouldnt the test shots be of subjects you would be likely to take real photos of so that you can adequately judge what you might use the lens for?"

When possible, I do test this way. For example, my resolution tests are done with a landscape subject. However, certain tests are prone to different types of error. A typical indoor, low light high ISO subject would be a person. I don't have models who will pose still for me, nor do I have a full studio in which to shoot controlled comparisons.

Still, your points are well taken. This is meant to be a site focused on all aspects of photography with compacts. Recent content has been skewed towards the gear/tech side, and it is good to hear your perspective.

Could be. I did focus bracket, but I think I see a touch of backfocus here as well. Not enough to substantially affect the results IMO.

I don't think much of DPR's dynamic range testing. Also, the results you are pointing out relate to JPEG performance, whereas I shoot RAW.

I have tested the D700 against the G1 in dynamic range, and looking at the RAW files, the D700 clearly has more dynamic range. DxOmark shows this, although I did not find quite as great of a difference as their results suggest: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Qualit...

Hi, thanks Rondo. I think it's the nature of the internet. People tend to be critical and also take it personally when they perceive that a test makes their particular camera look worse. For example, one might conclude that this test makes the G1 look bad, whereas I don't see it that way.

The periods with less frequent posts cannot be helped. I know you understand this and that some others don't. Reality is that I have a busy job, wife and kids, and maintain this site as a hobby. When my job gets busy, and I have to pick between posting here and spending family time, there aren't going to be a lot of posts! Fortunately others are also contributing interesting articles/posts to the site.

I feel that I get a lot of nice comments here. The rude ones are relatively infrequent. Also, folks buy things occasionally through the affiliate links, which helps pay for some of the gear being tested. I actually enjoy doing and discussing these sorts of tests, but the comments are an important part of what makes it fun for me. Thanks for reading!