Dream Camera...Revisited

Today, I looked up the very first post I put up on this blog almost 3 years ago. In it, I said I had finally reached the end of my DSLR upgrade path with the acquisition of a Canon 1DmkII (the namesake of this blog). Reading it, I haven't change my mind...much. See my original post here.
Well 3 years later, I'm still shooting with my 1DmkII and still loving it. I almost pulled the trigger on the 1DmkIII last year but with all the issues with it's auto-focus, I stayed away. But not from buying a new cameras...
Canon G9 - so was my quest for the compact, high IQ camera fulfilled with the G9? Sadly no, not even close. While it's a really nice camera, it's one of the few camera purchases that I regret the most. The camera is not really that small, and the sensor is just too noisy at anything above about 200ISO. I thought I'd use it as a travel camera but most of the time I still bring my DSLRs - so the G9 has seen limited use as a video camera at the kids school and sporting events and some light macro work from time to time.
Canon 5DmkII - I decided to go full frame for the next camera. I figured the 1D is my sports camera, and the 5D would be everything else. And boy is it! Again, I wasn't looking for more Megapixels, 21megapixel raw files turned computer, which was blistering fast on the 1D files into a slug, My 500GB hard drives run for cover every time I come home with full CF cards. But boy are the files gorgeous - the resolution is so high, I feel like I don't need a macro lens - just zoom in 1:1 and see all the detail.
The full frame also gave me the wide angle coverage I'd been missing, my fisheye is a fisheye again, and I love the coverage of my 17-40 now. One downside is that one of my favorite lenses, the 70-200F4, vignettes on the FF! That sucks.
The low noise I get at high ISO's still amazes me after months of shooting with it.
So now is my upgrade path over? Naw, I know better now, a 1DmkIII may still be in the future. My quest for the pocket camera with a DSLR quality sensor is still far from over. Even with the camera makers getting closer, the Olympus Pen, Panasonic GF1, Sigma DP2, Leica X1 are cramming some real nice sensors into small packages - but each one has it's flaws. I thought we'd be there by now but maybe in another 3 years when this market segment gets as mature as the current DSLR market, I'll finally get my Dream Camera....

Pulled the 'pre' trigger

I've been wanting to go full frame for a long time but couldn't bear to spring for the cash for the 5D when a new one was right around the corner. So when my .rss feeds started to light up with all the 5d mkii announcements I read all the early reports, got all pumped up and went right over to Amazon and pre-ordered the body. Can't wait, This time November I should be rockin' 21Megapixels, gonna have to buy a couple 1TB HDs to go with it!

My Home Studio

Heck, it's my only studio. And since its in my garage it's not setup very often. But every time I do set it up I try my best to learn something new. It doesn't seem like a lot, but I sure my wife thinks it plenty for a hobby I think I have enough lights but what is really on my list is more light modifiers, some barn doors, scrims, and with that epoxied floor I could use some big black drop cloths to control the light.
My backdrop is only 12' wide, which at the time I thought was plenty until I learned that I shouldn't put the subjects so close to the background or else I get too much spill from the key light on to the background. I now put my subjects about 10-12 ft in front of the background but at that distance, I run out of background pretty quickly if there is more than one or two subjects.

Dream Camera...

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.