A practice of silliness.

[Anbesol]

As we all have well demonstrated - there are very good reasons to hold high-iso image grain to a high bar, and to be picky and enjoy a cleaner grain at higher ISO.

I am not emphasizing my point properly though - I used to be the kind of silly consumer that I am criticizing here. I used to overvalue high ISO grain, then the years of practice showed me how much more important 100-400 is than anything else, I very rarely find myself going beyond 1000, even though I'm comfortable with the grain at 1600-2000. That is why I even have this thought, because I know it was a miscalculation I made earlier on. Some people have more use than others for high ISO grain, but we shouldn't ever forget the importance of grain at 100-400 either.

Franglais, awesome shot.

Asmarlak - I do believe that people are capable of learning, as well. Being good at photography I don't think involves being good at it from the get-go, if that were the case I should have given up a long time ago! No, better gear doesn't make a better photographer, but it does afford them a better leverage over the craft.