I haven’t been on the forum since early yesterday, so this was a very enjoyable thread to read in its entirety (so far). I am retired, and still with more camera systems than any non-professional should require. But I own each for the enjoyment it brings in trying to make images. And I have often asked myself the future version of OP’s question: what will stay when the luxury of many systems actually becomes a burden on the pleasure of making images? My wife and I travel a fair bit, and then on top of that I travel more, including 2-3 photo workshops per year. They keep me moving forward and learning from others. At some point, some or all these systems will become surplussage to weigh against the other joys of what is left for life.
Along the way, I have learned certain things about this activity (profession for some, avocation for many, and both for quite a few here), and what it means to me. Alain Briot has taught me this is my “art,” or at least as close to art as I am going to get. My wife is very artistic; she can pick up almost any medium, from iPhone to mud on a cattail brush, and render something beautiful. When we travel together, my images are better from her compositional input. And when I shoot XF or tech, my images are better, because the simple process of using these devices slows me down and makes me think more about the image I am making (that slow process being well documented here in the forum). Even the size of the files in MF is part of slowing us down. Slowing down helps me be more artistic. Using a tool like a Cambo with T/S lenses (at which I am a very unskilled novice) expands and elongates the process further. And increases the pleasure of it—even if I don’t capture the image that was in my mind; and moreso if I do. I have realized that what makes it my art is what went into it more than the end product (a scene in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was a real gobsmack moment on this point).
As a kid, I loved science fiction—Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, and a host of others—and I still enjoy them. One writer in particular really fired my imagination: Jack Chalker and his Well of Souls. I have believed for a long time that the world is actually digital, and that analog is the crude approximation, not the other way around. I have pursued that belief in audio, the only other place I have spent more money than photography (over at Head-Fi, they have a slogan similar to this forum’s Dante: “Welcome to Head-Fi; sorry for your wallet.”). Here, we know where our passion is headed: more and (hopefully) better pixels, Human Dynamic Range, supercomputer post processing, etc. it’s like revealing new layers of reality. Over the past few weeks, another photog and I have worked hard to try to make the most of a HiRes 80mpx file out of Lumix G9. Not a bad pic, but the limitations of m4/3 are painfully apparent. It’s like looking at the world on a dust speck level, while working with files from my Nikons is more molecular, and the Trichromatic and now IQ4 feel like we are getting to atomic and subatomic fineness. Can’t wait to see what’s next. In the meantime, I am giving my m4/3 system to my budding videographer stepson. Panny-Leica & Oly make really nice glass for it, but in use, it is no more gratifying than my Sony RX10iv, though moderately more impressive in appearance. ;-) Even if I never printed them large, the IQ is insufficient to justify the lesser pleasure in capturing and making the image.
OP’s question is a wonderful one for reflection. If I could only pick one camera to have (perhaps along with the “iPhone of the day”), it would actually be one I do not own (the implications of which are patent): the Hassy X1D. I won’t get many pictures of running cheetahs with it, but it’s compact enough to have with me all the time, produces beautiful images, feels like a fine tool, and speaks back to that little bit of my soul trying to come out in the image.
P.S. Sorry for the long-winded op-ed. This thread just really spoke to me.