In this day and age of yearly camera releases, there are always new camera bodies coming out with better this or better that. In the past, this was not always the case. You used to be able to count on a good 3-4, sometimes 5+ years with a single camera body before a “replacement” was announced.
But those days are gone. Now it seems that the ‘point-n-shoot’ market mindset of constantly pushing out updates, even if the ‘updates’ are not much over a previous model, has crept its way into our DSLR/Mirrorless markets.
So should you be upgrading every year with the latest model in your camera line of choice, or maybe on some sort of every other model kind of rotation? It seems like a silly thing to upgrade so often, but camera manufacturers sure make it hard to hold out and stick with one model for any period of time.
Personally, I have it worse than most. Being the Product Reviews Editor, I am constantly bombarded with the latest and greatest (not that I am complaining), but this makes it extremely hard to stick with one camera. It’s one thing to read about the latest tech; it’s another to get to use it for 30 days and then have to send it back, and go back to whatever you had before.
[REWIND: CANON 5D MARK IV COULD BE FARTHER OUT THAN WE HAD HOPED…]
That being said, upgrading more often than every two years seems extreme to me. I mean, these are not cheap $100 P+S models here; we are talking about $2,000+ cameras. We may be professionals, but even for someone making their living from photography, that is a lot of money to be spending every other year.
What are your thoughts? Please elaborate on the answer you gave to the poll above in a comment below. I am curious where this community stands on the matter. Do you buy into the ‘upgrade often’ mantra camera manufacturers are pushing or are you sticking to your guns and using your gear as long as you can before you upgrade?
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