Well after many years of taking pictures and upgrading my way through many cameras, I think I am at the end of my upgrade path...
Minolta XG-M: My first camera my dad bought me in junior high (yea I was a spoiled brat!) I used this camera for many years and went through many lenses always trying what I could afford (which wasn't much) and lead me to my current belief that you buy your camera body to be able to use the glass that that manufacturer makes. Third party lenses, for the most part suck. Once I could afford my Minolta glass - all things were better.
Olympus D2xx: 1MP camera: My first digital camera and used primarily as a way of getting images on the web easier never thought that digital was much back then when I really wanted quality it was always done with scanning slides taken with my film camera.
Kodak DC290: 2MP camera:Much better quality pics and was the main image taker for a while used to fill my family website with pics. Since it was much smaller than my SLR it traveled with me more than the Minolta. However, shutter lag and the huge depth of field really bugged me as not being very 'photographic'
Contax G1:Well as a 'grown up' I had much more money to spend on my toys and went back to film with this classic rangefinder. Fed up with the shutter lag of all things digital I went back to the instant response of a film camera and this little job was more compact than the Kodak. Carl Zeiss glass - I was in heaven. Now, I was just spending a fortune in slide film and processing.
Canon G2:Back to digital more pixels and much better response than I had with any digital camera in the past. It was enough to give up the Minolta - and the Contax (sob) It was with me for a long time until my boy started riding dirt bikes and shutter lag raised its ugly head again.
Canon D30: Back to an SLR- big, black and beautiful only 3MP but the images I got with this thing made me think I was shooting slides again. I still miss this cam.
Canon 10D: 6MP - while I really didn't need more pixels the focus accuracy of the D30 and low light performance started to really bug me so the upgrade became a 'must'. I stuck with This camera for several years amassing much Canon glass an eventually upgrading all that to L-Glass. But once again the upgrade bug bit when my oldest started playing tackle football and the 10D couldn't track focus to save its life.
Canon 1DmkII: 8.2MP - I had a smile on my face for days after opening this box. This thing is my dream camera - its a friggin' machine gun rapping off 8.5 frames a second and every one of them in focus - I still can't believe how fast this thing is. But performance comes at a price as this thing weighs a ton and is not very inconspicuous. But my God, the images are unbelievable. And all my glass is now up to spec: 17-40F4L, 24-70F2.8L, 20-200F4L,300F4LIS I don't think I'll be upgrading anytime soon (probably cause I 'broke the bank' getting this far!)
?????: what next, I don't know but I think a semi pocket camera with great optics and a large sensor ( after shooting the SLRs I can't go back to all the image noise that comes with even the best digicams ) Right now, there isn't anything out there like what I want Now the Richo GR isn't it and neither is the Leica M8, the new Sigma PS that uses the 14MP Feveron Sensor might be close but even if it isn't I know it's just a matter of time. For now my 'traveling lite' camera will be the 10D with a 24mm prime on it.
