Remember when.......

[OldNoob]

Remember when you bought a camera body and could use it for years, sometimes even a decade, and stay on a somewhat level competitive playing field, having equipment, like tools that remained useful with the only limitations being the photographer, the lenses and the changing film qualities.
Now, every year, Digital cameras are released with more pixels or better image quality making that awesome camera you bought just a year ago not so hot.
Wish there was some way we could bring that lasting value back to the prosumer range of cameras.
But alas such is the nature of commercial competition.

[leuius]

Now, every year, Digital cameras are released with more pixels or better image quality making that awesome camera you bought just a year ago not so hot.

I would say that most everything "digital" is in the same boat. Personally, I don't feel compelled to follow the ongoing latest technology craze. Because something is new doesn't make it necessarily better. Faster/smaller perhaps, but you can't cheat the laws of physics and sometimes it's just a different compromise. I don't view the "more pixels" as a compulsory advantage for example. At a certain point, "faster" really means that the system is spinning its wheel more waiting for us mere mortals. And wasting energy doing so.

This is also a matter of attitude towards consumerism. I will probably drag along my current A6000 until it dies (at the rate I am going, I give it another two years - if I'm lucky - before mechanical wear affects the shutter irremediably), maybe adding an extra chassis as a precaution when a reasonably superior (performance/cost) product comes along. I rarely jump on the newest technology right away, I give it some time to mature and avoid the hassles of being a glorified beta tester. It's still interesting to see how innovative companies can reinvent the wheel sometimes and package unheard of features in attractive/comprehensive products. These are my inflection points; there has to be a user advantage.

I have been very content with what I can achieve with the existing technology. I need the time to improve to a level where I could truly justify an upgrade. It has been quite a step up from the film days and even the digital products of, say, a decade ago. In the older days, a camera would last 10 years easily, film was the brake to improvement. Today, my replacement cycle is probably roughly half that and it straddles 2 units. What remain are the lenses. It's a testament to the quality design/construction of the time that most of my inventory is 35+ years old and working like a charm. So when I use them (quite often in fact), I do remember when...

... life flowed more in tuned with the human spirit/capabilities and less with some digital time clock.

Those were the days!!