My wife bought me a new high end wok for my birthday and a new frying pan for chanuka. Yes the food is better, more evenly cooked, much more actually, that makes for better taste and a better experience in the mouth. More importantly however, they are an incredible pleasure to use, it's so joyful to cook with them and to clean them afterwards, I have a huge grin on my face when I cook with them.
My cameras (pair of 5Dc's) are now 5 years old, battered, scratched and dented beyond belief. I replaced the shutter on one of them today, it died in battle doing a charity gig after well over 100,000 frames. With the new shutter and a new LCD I replaced recently due to 5 years of rain damage, I intend to have these two bodies continue for another 5 years, no kidding. They give me pretty much all the IQ I need and after this many years and that many frames I can shoot them with my eyes shut, they are a pure extension of my hands whether I'm shooting weddings, architecture, street or landscape. Although new cameras on the market tickle my fancy, there has been nothing and there is nothing currently forecast that I can imagine would pursuade me that I needed to upgrade, even a brief flirtation with a 1DsIII, the most ergonomic camera I've ever used didn't last longer than 6 months before I decided that the 5D was still, more than good enough for my needs.
But 5 years ago you bet I read every single review, every single forum comment, I had the manual memorised before I had ever seen the camera in the flesh. I spent a year sending them back to canon until the focus was up to my standards.
Yes a camera is a tool, yes it's not the camera that makes the art. However, for me at this point to say that I bought a camera 5 years ago which I intend to use for a further 5 years depended on research and lots of what Marc is going through now.
I could point to my own situation and boast that the whole technological game, all the specs and reviews are nonsense, especially when an underspeced camera can provide a decade of pro service. It would be a lie however, without all the soul searching, credit card limit checking and all those reviews, would I be as satisfied today? Not a chance.
I can't remember ever talking specs with my fellow pro photographers, if at all it's usually lenses and radio slaves. Most buy a camera, use it mostly to death then upgrade. The digital revolution made things more complicated in the beginning as cameras appeared, bi-annually, which significantly reduced the very real compromises we accepted to be on the cutting edge of digital. I do not think however that this following decade will see all those 5D's and D700's, pro workhorses, disposed of anywhere near as quickly for all the new gimmicks the Canon, Nikon, Sony and all the rest try and sell us.
Guy and Marc excluded of course.. :ROTFL::ROTFL::ROTFL:
... and when she saw the big test print of the church interior at Christmas time she quipped that I have a good camera. "Glad you like it" ... and you know, she's right ... I do have a good camera :ROTFL:
