Erik_7Xi wrote:Iwan Bogels wrote:What seriously surprises me is that about 25% of all respondents has owned four or more DSLR bodies. Especially since DSLR bodies have only been available for just over 10 years, and the first models were introduced into our hobby on a larger scale in 2003 - 2004.
I think it reflects the vast improvements those camera's have made in terms of image quality, speed, AF and ISO and they may have also become cheaper than film bodies were a decade before that? (I remember the EOS 1n to be hellishly expensive, along with the Minolta Dynax 9 and Nikon F3...)
I think something else happened with the introduction of digital cameras.
First of all, they were certainly not cheaper than their film counterparts. If I remember correct the Canon EOS 1-series film cameras had a price of about 2000 euro (of course back then we still had guilders and the amount was higher) whereas the 1-series digital cameras costed between 4500 and 8000 euro depending on the exact type.
Would it then be the improvements? Well, not the purely "camera improvements". Shutter, AF system and metering have been improved in each model but steps were very small. Is the metering, shutter and AF system so much netter in present dslr's compared to say an EOS-1v? Yes, slightly but not enormously. Because people these days shoot enormous quantities of images, shutter life has improved.
Then what could be the reason people nowadays keep buying new cameras? I guess two things. First and most important is that camera manufacturers have turned their cameras into pc style products. Products with a short product life cycle that need to be replaced regularly. Just like you need to buy a new pc every three years because it gets "old" and because there are newer, faster models, cameras are updated much quicker. In the past the film models would last about ten years before a new model was introduced. These days it is about 2-3 years. And what the camera manufacturers are extremely good in, is making us believe we NEED that new camera. They do that of course with the help of a growing group of enthusiasts on the internet, who discuss every detail and push each other to a new camera every time. This kind of peer pressure combined with short life cycles simply did not exist in the analog days.
A second reason would be the economic growth of the past decade. While people complain that everything gets more expensive since the introduction of the euro, personal income has also grown very fast. There may be a crisis now, but we are so much more wealthy then about then fifteen years ago. Now nearly everyone can afford a dslr and that meant huge numbers of people have bought them. In the past hardly any amateur owned a "big white lens" costing many thousands of euro (back then 10.000 tot 20.000 guilders!). The ones who did were often wealthy (doctors etc). Now you see for example truck drivers or construction workers with such equipment. Personal wealth has increased. Just look at the numbers of people who buy dslr's with (expensive) lenses and do aviation-, model- or bird photography. These numbers have exploded. Ten years ago I could spend an entire day in a bird hide and maybe see one other photographer. Seeing another "big white lens" was something that only happened very rarely. Today photographers are nearly fighting for a spot in certain hides and dozens and dozens of them show up with the most expensive cameras and big white lenses. And it often is a game of "who has the biggest", pressuring each other into buying new equipment. That simply did not exist in such a way 10-15 years ago.
By the way, my "camera career" started, as with so many, with a Praktica MTL-5. In 1980 that was replaced with a Canon A-1 which I used for about 20 years. Later it was joined by two F-1n bodies which were the main workhorses. Only around 2000 I switched to EOS with two EOS-1nHS and later EOS-1vHS bodies. Since I bought these bodies used, I could buy them for a reasonable price and sell them later for almost the same price. My first dslr was the EOS-1D mkII which still use together with an EOS-1Ds mkII. The EOS-1D mkIV is a wonderful camera (the only reason for me to buy one, would be the higher ISO usefulness), but is simply too expensive now and both mkII bodies still do all I need them to do.
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