In article <4ifnt9$4dq@agate.berkeley.edu>, murthy@rice.eecs.berkeley.edu says...
[most of a good and sensible post deleted]
>[..] Look at the Pop photo issue that had 16-18
>top Nat. Geo. photos. There were Leica, Nikon, Canon, and Olympus >shots in those. Apart from the fact that you would be comparing apples >to oranges (different lenses), there was still no appreciable >difference between the "subjective quality" of any of the images. >[..] After seeing many, many pictures (lots of wildlife photo books,
>travel books, audubon appointment books etc), I am unable to find any >real differences.
>[......]

I think you make some good points, if reproduction is involved (it
is a great leveler of quality). If you are more concerned with the
quality of the original images or in producing the highest possible reproduced quality (though many people don't seem to care about it
much at all...), there are differences. In one example you gave (the
Pop Photo article on Nat. Geo. photos), the thing that struck me is
how technically poor most of the photos were. Given the huge number
of images taken for each story, and the reputation of the photographers
and of Nat. Geo. for high-quality images, the number of slightly soft
images, slightly misexposed images, and images which showed obvious
lens defects like unequal left and right edge sharpness, soft corners
and edges, etc. (which did show in the reproductions) was REALLY
surprising!
Hope This Helps