Oh Cr&p! New Cameras - Official!

[JB]

Warp,

I haven't upgraded yet. Hek, I'm looking at the PowerShot G9 as a quick-fix...

[TonyK]

I still shoot with my 20D. Its over 2+ years old as I was shooting with it before moving.

If I win the lottery all my photography equipment decisions will be revisited. But like a lot of things, I'm not banking on it.

[WARP]

I'm still shooting my Oly E20 gang. So I'm waaaay overdue. My gut feeling is telling me to wait a bit longer and hope that within 6 months what I want will be hitting the market. I don't want to wait a whole year though and if that's looking to be the case I need to get something now.

Thing is, I consider myself a serious shooter (STOP Laughing Matt!!!) and I want a serious camera that will pull off the things I've been envisioning. Now I know that a lot of it is the photographer but I think a lot is to be said about putting great equipment in the hands of good photogs. Just look at the great stuff Joe is pumping out. So actually somewhere down the line I will be looking at a 1Ds class of cam and the 5d for me is the entry point.

I have been getting some things done while waiting though. We've redone 2 bathrooms, (man that Jacuzzi is nice ) , Redone the kitchen, Painted and trimmed the house, new 8ft privacy fence, new carpet, and various other big and small projects over the last few years.

I do find myself not shooting a lot because I've wanted to get the new cam before shooting some projects. Anyway I think I might sit a bit longer. Good news with the Nikons coming out though. Maybe that will speed things up a bit from Canon.

Regards: Will

[JB]

Well, I'm pretty sure everything has been announced for the next year, unless Sony or another not-so-known company creates something stellar, better than Canon or Nikon. And what are the chances of that. Maybe another higher megapixel Rebel, which would be nice. Other than that, all the models have been upgraded. At least I think so, except for the 5D, but I don't expect any upgrades to this until next Fall.

I agree, this is best time for those sitting on the fence and to just sit tight for a bit. We're starting to see some more revolutionary cameras being created versus the same old stuff.

I'm personally interested not only in images, but creating HD videos. Like going hiking and taking along an HD videocam and then going home and watching it on a 50" plasma. But these suckers are as much as a 40D.

[TonyK]

I'll be painting a bath, including putting KILLZ on the walls. Then new shower doors to compliment it.

Eventually a new medicine cabinet and lights above that.

Will, any suggestions on the shower doors?

Take care,

...

I have been getting some things done while waiting though. We've redone 2 bathrooms, (man that Jacuzzi is nice ) , Redone the kitchen, Painted and trimmed the house, new 8ft privacy fence, new carpet, and various other big and small projects over the last few years.

I...

[mattchase]

JB, I've been wanting to get a new video camera for sometime too. I have an old Sharp Viewcam 8mm that is pretty blah, and very nearly bought the Canon HV20 HD camcorder earlier this year. I had envisioned doing exactly as you, taking it on hikes and doing some National Geographic type sitting in the forest / field / side of mountain shots, and making my own DVDs with it. Only problem is I have a hard time justifying the cost for such a use, it would be almost exclusively a toy, and I have enough of those already that I'm still paying for!

I've also considered just buying the best consumer grade miniDV camcorder I can find, but in the last couple of years miniDV has really gone down the toilet on features and the camera I would want is only available used...for more money than most the new models! Dammit!!

[JoePhoto]

Well - you've gotta have priorties. But I can see that both of you (Will & JB) are very due for an update. At this point my advice to both of you is deffinitely sit tight until we see D3 and D300 image quality. I have a feeling the D300 may be more of the same in terms of IQ, but maybe not as they haven't revealed yet (that I've read) if the D300 gets the on-chip NR or is it's still using software NR. If that happens, then that means Nikon has caught up with Canon in terms of IQ and you can concentrate on other things like what features you want or more importantly, what lenses you want.

Skip the powershot JB - that's money you could spend on a good lens like an 85mm f/1.8. Once you pick a path, you can grab a D40x or Rebel (both have good IQ and noise control) to hold you over while you get some nice glass. Glass is the bar none most important thing. Don't go cheap. People can preach all the "it's the photographer not the gear" stuff they want, but good glass will allow a good photorapher to make even better photos. But right now, I would say this should be the biggest determining factor in which direction one chooses.

PS - Thanks for the kind words about my stuff, Will! :)