Do You Now Own Your "Forever" Camera?

A old 6mp image from a Nikon D70 shot in 2004.  If image quality was this good then, how much better is it today and
how much better do you need your cameras and lenses to be in the future? (click to enlarge)
Nikon D70; 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens @ 24mm; 1/320th sec. @ f/9; ISO 200

Thinking again about my last post on pixel peeping, a question arose in my mind.  Is the camera(s) you now own good enough to do everything you need a camera to do for the foreseeable future?  Can you consider your present camera a "forever" camera?  Forever meaning that you really don't need to buy another camera until your current camera wears out from use, needs repair, your photography changes or can't serves needs you may have in the future?

I ask those questions because I think digital cameras have gotten so good and are armed with so many features that future upgrades can't bring huge improvements as they did in the infancy of digital photography.  Improvements most likely will come incrementally instead.  I think we are now starting to see that from all manufacturers.

It seems that we are getting close to the point where more pixels on sensors, even for the highest demands, is unnecessary. Focusing is pretty darn fast and accurate for almost all of us.  Focus points now cover the entire frame in many cameras.  Frames per second are starting regularly exceed 10 and image stabilization is becoming the norm.  I think new features that will be becoming will be more "gee whiz" than really useful. The size of cameras is about as small as is useful for most of us.  In fact, many cameras have been criticized as being too small.  Most lens lines have pretty much been built out.  So what is left to add or improve that the broad photographic market will "need" versus "want?"  Not much.

This notion was reinforced by the introduction yesterday of the new Olympus E-M1X.  By all accounts that I've read and seen, this is one terrific camera.  It is an improvement on the E-M1 Mark II, but I see it as an incremental improvement, not a radical improvement.  This camera is most certainly not aimed at mainstream photographers, the vast majority of M4/3 users or the general enthusiast photography market.  It is really large and very expensive and the improvements come to serve a very specialized market.  

What I see Olympus added in this camera that they hadn't had in the market previously is 7.5 stops of image stabilization (versus 5.5) and the ability to handhold the camera while creating a 50mp composite image.  Focus is most certainly faster and more sophisticated, but I see this a a niche camera because their regular cameras are already so good and meet the needs of almost all of their customers now that, I think, they had to come up with something to introduce to try to generate additional sales.  After all, the flagship E-M1 Mark II is not more than two years old and I'm sure sales have slowed.

Do you really need 7.5 stops of image stabilization or is it one of those "oh wow" type of features that, in reality, don't bring much more value than the current 5.5 stops of stabilization?  Do you need artificial intelligence (AI) in your focusing system or is that for highly specialized use cases that really don't much apply to the general photographic population?  You see what I mean?  The improvements are there and are real, but do they bring significant value for you to shell out $3000 US for this camera or will the "almost the same" E-M1 Mark II nicely serve your purposes for half the price?

I'm not bashing Olympus.  I've been an Olympus owner and user since they introduced the OM-1 film camera.  I currently own three Olympus cameras and more lenses than I should own.  Their cameras and lenses have always been terrific.  But I predict what I said about Olympus here will apply to all of the other manufacturers as well.  We have the best photographic tools in the world today and there is not much room to better them.  Computational photography is certainly available but I'm not one who wants my camera to do all the thinking for me.  Photography is a skill and I don't want to turn that skill over to a machine versus my brain.  What satisfaction in producing a nice image will be left?

Back to thinking.  How will the industry move forward to create sales in the future when we pretty much have all we now need?  What could be improved?  I can think of three things that could be improved that would bring value for me:  more dynamic range, less noise at higher ISOs and better battery life.  For me, there isn't much more that would be of interest that I don't already have.

So, do you think you will keep your present camera for a long time or will you be swayed by features and advances that may or may not bring value to your photography?   Of course, is you just wwant as new camera that is okay as well.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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