I don't understand the logic. I can understand that YOU don't need them now, but to say that "no one" needs them defies logic. I, for one, am finding that I do need them, and did not feel I needed them last year, unless you mean that anything to come in the future we automatically need.
What is happening here, at least in my photo world, is that I am outgrowing (for my work) the 35mm DSLR and looking into something larger, like MF and LF cameras. And they are reaching down into mirrorless territory and becoming more affordable. For me, this is a big change.
There is nothing
at all wrong with wanting to use larger formats. The point is not to confuse wanting to do it with having photographic reasons to do it.
For example, shallower depth of field is often given as a photographic reason to move to medium format - but the X1D's 90mm f/3.2 portrait lens does
not offer shallower depth of field or a larger entry pupil than an 85mm f/1.4 on FX.
Wanting 50MP instead of 36MP to print larger than 24 x 18 without compromising print resolution or stitching images
is a photographic reason to move to medium format (though not for long). But there is a difference between a photographer who was printing larger than 24 x 18
last year by making do and printing 36MP at 260 dpi instead of 300 dpi or by stitching images, and a photographer who has never printed larger than 13 x 19 and been perfectly happy.
In the same way, Ming Thein may be right about the colour and tonal subtlety of the 44 x 33mm sensor, but it had exactly the same colour and tonal subtlety last year, so a photographer who did
not want that sensor
last year because she was happy with the colour and tonal subtlety of her images has no reason to want it this year. Sure, if she was unhappy with the colour and tonal subtlety of her images last year and did want the bigger sensor but could not afford it, a cheaper incarnation is welcome, but the point remains that no one who did not
want the bigger sensor last year has reason to want it now. (And there are people who had never seen a good print from a large format camera until recently, so last year they didn't know what greater tonal subtlety looks like and
that is why they didn't want the larger sensor last year, and now they do know so they want the bigger sensor - but I think we can neglect that possibility in this forum).
Sure, people can change the kind of photography they do, and that is different. To do underwater photography you need an underwater camera. But there are no
kinds of photography a medium format camera can do that a 35mm camera cannot do. The reverse is true, because of the superior AF of 35mm cameras, and in the case of the X1D the very limited lens choice.
