You knew it was gonna happen. A new camera body has hit the market from Canon. It was only a matter of time. The latest? The Canon 1D Mark IV! (That’s four in Roman numerals…) What’s it got going for it? Lots of features and functions. Everything is being discussed ad infinitum from Megapixels to frame rates, to video, to shutter speeds to ISO’s, and everything in between. In the end, I’ve come to one conclusion: the camera market is always changing, always advancing, and new gear is coming out all the time – from all the vendors. Want some proof? The Canon line-up of Digital SLR’s in its entirety is little more than 2 years old – with the oldest being the 1D Mark III which was introduced in early 2007. Take a look at the current active line-up of Canon DSLR’s and their dates of introduction (from Wikipedia):
- EOS 1Ds mark III – Mid 2007
- EOS 1D Mark IV – Two days ago
- EOS 1D Mark III – Early 2007
- EOS 5D Mark II – Mid 2008
- EOS 7D – 2009
- EOS 50D – Mid 2008
- EOS Rebel T1i – 2009
- EOS Rebel XSi – 2008
- EOS Rebel XS – 2008
That’s a lot of cameras! And that’s only their active lineup! Others that have been “deprecated” (taken out of production) include the 40D, 30D, 20D, 10D, Rebel XT and probably more. It’s funny actually that the two SLR’s I have owned are the XT and the 40D – neither of which is in production anymore. And both of these cameras were absolute cutting edge on their release roughly 2 years ago and 5 years ago respectively. The XT marked a new era of consumer grade SLR’s and the 40D marked a significant advancement to the 20D which was the most popular camera for serious enthusiast shooters for many years. (Apparently, the 30D was only an incremental upgrade…)
A lot of people have been asking me: “Are you going to upgrade?” What does the new MP count mean? What about the video? Do we need to be concerned about this? Is it priced fairly? What about this? What about that?” Lots of techno-babble is going around, and to be honest, I can’t keep up anymore. For me it’s about one thing and one thing only: Does it take good pictures? In both the active and the deprecated line-up, the answer is a solid yes!
For what it’s worth, for me, I will continue to use my current camera until one of two things happens:
- It breaks
- My needs exceed its ability
Having said that, I am always interested in hearing what others think about the latest developments in the camera and photography industry. It’s always fun to talk gear talk, and prognosticate, and “oooh” and “ahhh” over the latest gagedtry. If I had a million bucks, then sure, I might look at all the stuff and buy every time a new one comes out, but until then…the above criteria fit the bill for me just fine. What about everyone else though? Does this make sense? Am I being curmudgeonly? Am I burying my head in the sand? Is there something I am missing? What are your thoughts on the “latest and greatest” in the camera world? I’d love to hear, so sound off in the comments and via email – who knows, you may get your name featured on a podcast! LOL
In the meantime, as always, Happy Shooting! 🙂 (We’ll see you back here on Friday with hopefully the latest podcast and some weekend nuggets (like a winner for the Flickr Monthly Giveaway!)