These days seem to have a surfeit of feeding frenzies, LBA aside (that's a permanent fixture) we have CBA, speculation about what the next camera will be/should be, will Pentax survive, WendyB conspiracy theories (please don't let that thread die) and Sigma 10-20 mm threads (which was spooky to me as I've just bought one).

For those of you who were enthusiastic photographers way before digital, I have this question?

How long did you keep your cameras before upgrading, how often did new innovations happen that would cause you to even want to change cameras, did you change brands , how different was it?

[cdeakin]

"I remember in the good old days (when everyone had to walk 10 miles to school and vinyl ruled the music industry)..."

I started in photography back in the 70s with a K1000. I had that for some time and then moved up to the Super Program with the battery grip. I had that camera right up to trading it in for an ist D. At one point I owned the Super Program, PZ-1 and the Z1-P and a wide range of manual focus lenses from 28mm - 200mm.

The advantage of the good old days is any increase resolution came through advances in film technology and lens design. As a result "upgrades" were easy. Get you hands on the newest slide film and you were good to go. When looking at new models that came out there would have to have been some revolutionary new aspect to make me want to upgrade. Advances in camera design, for the most part, were evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary.

Now it seems camera bodies are as bad as computers. Every year something increases in either megahertz or megapixels.

Regardless of the "good old days" or the exciting new revival in photography we're going through, it is and always will be the vision of the person behind the camera that has the most influence. And that is something that is learned and not upgraded with each new model.

Good question. Be interesting to see some of the answers and opinions.

Chris.

[HGMonaro]

For those of you who were enthusiastic photographers way before digital, I have this question?

you young generations can't count... that's 4 questions!

How long did you keep your cameras before upgrading,

I still have my 2nd 35mm SLR I bough in 1983 (I think). It still works and until recently I used it as my slide film camera. I added bit'n'peices over the years. Early on I coverted the legendary Nikkor 105/2.5 short tele. Took me 15 or so years to have the cash to buy a NIB one.

how often did new innovations happen that would cause you to even want to change cameras

never... but I'm sure some jumped on the AF bandwagon Never seduced me!

did you change brands

Once, not including my Pentax. My first camera was a Ricoh which I broke when my flimsy tripod fell over. I bought a Nikon with the insurance (was a complicated deal with my father who kept the Ricoh replacement and paid me the $$$ which I added my current and future pocket money to to get the Nikon). I still have that tripod and use it as a flash stand occasionly.

how different was it?

My answer to this would be gear now seems to be looked upon as throw away or replaceable. Without the "internet" you didn't have 'brand wars'. If you we're a member of a camera club you might actually see and handle a few other cameras, maybe a friend had a camera other than a Kodak Instamatic. These days everyones an expert in everything.... how many people have shot with lots of different cameras for a decent period to understand their naunces?

I think you posed the question in one of those other threads about defecting to another brand, "why not just sell it and move on". In the old days not many people would do that because you'd loose money. Now, people, if you believe the forums, jump brands easily. Maybe they have more disposable income because you always loose out selling 2nd hand and buying new. Might get the occasion lucky person that scores a cheap unit 2nd hand, but they would be in the minority. For myself, I could go and buy pretty much anything I want (eg D300 or whatever) but I have a mindset not to just spend everything I (and the wife) earn. That's probably not a generation issue, more individual. I like everything about my K10D except it's inability to focus reliably. I've even decided it's (in combination with a AF540FZG) poor P-TTL ability is not a issue as it works pretty good on Auto mode.

Cheers, Nige

[Kerrowdown]

I'm that "old fart" that will try to answer your question from my viewpoint.

Technology advances seemed slower back then in film era and perhaps less important and not about who had the latest kit. I gradually upgraded to LX’s of which I still have two, for me it was a need driven thing and the LX did everything I ever needed.

It worked well with me under pressure, through many rolls of film without missing a beat; good dust seals, it had a fantastic metering system and could work without batteries. I never needed to consider brand swapping as the glass I own, IMHO is second to none and the envy of some (fast prime glass).

I have jostled, forced with elbows, in some very mixed company of Nikons and Canons and never feared to be different. It’s all about the image you get, not the equipment you use and Pentax for me has always allowed me to bring home the bacon.

I now use K10D’s for the same reasoning they perform without drama, do what I need to do and get the job done. I do not foresee the need to upgrade just now, perhaps if higher ISO ratings become available or better noise control, but these would be nice to have, alone, not enough to change for.

But in real terms I may consider change should FF become a reality with Pentax, especially in the lens mount system maintains backward compatibility.

Anyway enough inane drivel from me, I hope this helps.

you young generations can't count... that's 4 questions!


Cheers, Nige

I only used one question mark.

I may be a younger generation to you, I'm 48 this year, not so young.

Thank you for the answers so far. As I am a late starter (or restarter, did photography for a year when I was 12 or 13) it has been interesting to see what has passed me by. In general what you have told me has been much as I suspected and that's a good thing.

[flyer]

I started in the seventies with a Zenit B (all manual, not even a lightmeter in it), then upgraded to a Konica Autoreflex T3. That one had awesome glass (I'm pretty sure it could lick a Pentax Ltd lens anytime), but the body was not to "strong". It regularly went to the repair shop for lightmeter problems. But you have to remember Konica was first with an auto-exposure reflex camera. Got some outstanding pictures out of it when the body worked. Then came the Olympus OM2. Small, light and rugged. Still use it. But the lenses don't compare with the Konica Auto Hexanon lenses. I then started doing weddings (still do, occasionally) and working as a photographer for an insurance company. So, to look more "pro", I shifted to Nikon with a Nikon F3, then an F4. I still use all of them (except the Konica, which I sold, stupid me). Now, I use a K10D and a K20D, and also have access to a Hasselblad H3D31. They're all superb cameras, but I miss the Konica lenses. When I was working in photography full time, I made a good living out of it for a while, but a College in Montréal (prov. of Québec) started the "option" professional photography, with no pre-requisites for admission. So every body who wanted a colleghe education and couldn't get admitted anywhere just went for photography. The end result was about 150 new "photographers" a year in the street of Montréal, and every body trying to undercut each others, so I pulled out. Would you believe some of those guys were doing weddings for less than $300.00. You have to remember that those guys had to deal with labs to get their prints, and those were a lot more expensive then than now.

[Canada_Rockies]

These days seem to have a surfeit of feeding frenzies, LBA aside (that's a permanent fixture) we have CBA, speculation about what the next camera will be/should be, will Pentax survive, WendyB conspiracy theories (please don't let that thread die) and Sigma 10-20 mm threads (which was spooky to me as I've just bought one).

For those of you who were enthusiastic photographers way before digital, I have this question?

How long did you keep your cameras before upgrading, how often did new innovations happen that would cause you to even want to change cameras, did you change brands , how different was it?

I bought my first Pentax, used, in a pawn shop in Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 1961. I used that camera until the middle 70's when the shutter curtains were getting just a bit on the thin side.

I bought a used KX with the SMC-P 55mm f/1.8 lens, and a Pentax M42 > K mount adapter for use with my 135mm f/3.5 preset lens. WOW! there was a meter needle in the finder! what luxury!

I began to get more interested in sport photography, thanks to my two children, and to a job as the accountant for a weekly newspaper chain. I really wanted to get an LX with winder, but found the SF-1 with built in winder was less than the LX winder alone. I bought it in 1979.

I bought a small ME and a 28-80 FA lens for my wife in 1991. It was compact and she used it in Europe on a cycling tour with our daughter. She used the camera until about 2002, when she discovered that here eyes were not what they used to be. She appropriated the SF-1 and mounted the FA28-80 on the front. Auto focus was very helpful to her.

I bought a MZ-S to replace it, and the FA 24-90 about the same time.

When my father passed away last year (at almost 103 years old) I used some of the small estate to buy my k10d and the three DA lenses. Claire now uses the MZ-S and 24-90. The rig is lighter and more flexible.

I have been completely Pentax because I started with Pentax. I consider myself very, very lucky to have chosen by sheer chance the only brand with virtually 100% lens compatibility. An FA lens from the early 2000's works just fine on a 1970's ME. My old M lenses work pretty well on the digital body. Errors are mostly mine, not the lens/camera's. If I trip over a reasonably priced M42 SMC 500/4, I will buy an adapter and use it on the k10d.

Using the M lenses is a history lesson - I use manual exposure. It worked 40 odd years ago, and still works now. It also works better than with a separate meter, or at least easier.

[Jimbo]

These days seem to have a surfeit of feeding frenzies, LBA aside (that's a permanent fixture) we have CBA, speculation about what the next camera will be/should be, will Pentax survive, WendyB conspiracy theories (please don't let

I think a lot of what we see on forums like this, [not including the WendyB fan club] where people communicate about something they love to do.. Prior to the internet, all this type of talk, I bet, was done through camera clubs and more through the professional side. Up to a few years ago there were only a small precent who could afford a decent camera and shot pictures with over half of them a total wasted shot. I like the questions though Gary and it will be interesting to see some of the answers.. I think you will find that most stick or stuck with what they started to shoot with... cheers JIMBO

[Nick1946]

I bought my first 35mm SLR in 1967(Sorry but it was a Canon FT QL), I chose it because I could not afford a Nikon at the time and I just didn't want a screwmount lens system), I was in the Air Force serving in Germany. Myself and many of my co-worker friends had the various Nikon,Canon and Pentax models and didn't argue or "ding" each other about what brand we used-we just went out together, had fun and enjoyed the countryside,and people of the area. I had two lenses: the 50mm 1.2 that came on the camera and the 200mm F4 telephoto, which was all I could afford at the time. I have so many slides I shot that I am slowly scanning into digital so they can be enjoyed later in life and by my family. When I went digital it was in 2000 and was a Nikon point and shoot, then a Canon G6, then a Fuji S5200 and finally the Pentax K100D. I have enjoyed them all and taken many good photos with all. "To each his own" I guess.

[Wheatfield]

These days seem to have a surfeit of feeding frenzies, LBA aside (that's a permanent fixture) we have CBA, speculation about what the next camera will be/should be, will Pentax survive, WendyB conspiracy theories (please don't let that thread die) and Sigma 10-20 mm threads (which was spooky to me as I've just bought one).

For those of you who were enthusiastic photographers way before digital, I have this question?

How long did you keep your cameras before upgrading, how often did new innovations happen that would cause you to even want to change cameras, did you change brands , how different was it?

My first camera was a Camera Obscura that I made out of my bedroom when I was about 10 years old. Unfortunately, it had a rather boring view of the next door neighbour's roof.
My next camera was a Fujica ML35 rangefinder camera with a surprisingly good lens. I kinda borrowed it from my dad when I was 13. That was in 1970. They gave me a Simpson's Sears Home Darkroom kit for Christmas that year as well.
It shut me up and kept me in the basement.
I suspect this is where I learned to be antisocial.
But I digress.
I still have that camera beside me, though I haven't used it beyond exercising the shutter in something like 35 years.
Dad was quite supportive, he went out and bought himself a Spotmatic II, which I promptly borrowed, and used for a couple of years until I bought an Olympus OM-1 from money earned as a wedding photographer's assistant.
In 1975, Dad (who coveted my Olympus) sold his Pentax, bought my OM-1, paving the way for me to buy a Nikon F2s.
So, I owned 4 cameras and changed 3 times in 5 years.
That is about the same rate as I've changed digital's, BTW.
I kept the Nikon for 5 years or so, and sold it to finance a Bronica ETRs. By then I had a few mid range Nikons (FE, FM, FM2).
I always regretted selling that F2s, and so a few years ago I found a nice one on eBay and bought it.
But I digress further...
Anyway, the Bronica took a nasty fall, and I bought into the Pentax 6x7 system in 1986. In 1988, I sold my Nikon gear and bought An LX and K1000, and a few lenses, and over the years added several more cameras and lenses to this.

I think most of the camera upgrades I did earlier on were centered around camera body qualities over features, though the F2s was a very large jump ahead of anything I had used prior, both in features and quality.
Moving from Nikon to Pentax gave me a drop in camera quality (by then I was using an F3HP), but I felt that I would get an increase in the quality of my photography with Pentax lenses, a view that I still hold true.

[MRRiley]

I would have been quite happy with the K110D but for one thing.... the missing front dial. So, it was an upgrade to the K10D for me. As I prefer to shoot in manual when possible that dial on the K10D gives me a closer level of ergonomics to traditional SLRs. At this point I see no real "need" to upgrade to the K20D.

One thing people tend to forget is that old DSLRs will not stop working just because they are a couple of versions out of date. My goodness, people around here still use istDs... Point is, just like the old film cameras, if DSLRs are well maintained they should work for decades. The only real difference is that people will generally shoot a lot more photos digitally than they did on film (due to the lower per-image cost of digital after the initial purchase costs) and thus the shutters may wear out faster.

[wlank]

For those of you who were enthusiastic photographers way before digital, I have this question?

How long did you keep your cameras before upgrading, how often did new innovations happen that would cause you to even want to change cameras, did you change brands , how different was it?

1954 Argus C3
1970 Pentax Spotmatic
2008 Pentax K100D Super

The Spotmatic was the big upgrade - range finder to SLR. The choices where I was at the time were Spotmatic, Minolta SRT 101, or the Nikon F. The Nikon was too expensive, and so down to two choices. The Spotmatic just felt and looked right. The K100D S was NOT really an upgrade, more of a lateral move or even a downgrade. There are conveniences with digital, but since I found out about Eric Hendrickson on this forum, the Spotmatic is still the leader of the pack. It has possibilities which are way beyond my talent level. Oh yeah, I got a K1000 just because (it's the cult thing, you know).

[davef]

From my perspective, I bought an entry level SLR and then upgraded to a pair of used Nikon F's that I used without trouble for over 20 years. I toyed with the idea of upgrading to F2's, F3's and finally, F5's but the cost was too high for what it would give me. Changing brands is/was not something to be taken lightly as it means/meant replacing lenses as well as bodies. In addition to being an expensive proposition, my experience is that lenses have their own "personalities" and it takes time to understand what each does well and what the weaknesses are. Film emulsions were the same -- each has its own quirks but experimentation was much cheaper and something we did when it wasn't a critical shoot. Film bodies were pretty genereic so long as the shutter and meter were properly adjusted. Over the years, I've also used a bunch of other systems -- Olympus, Zenit, Pentax, Minolta, Bronica etc. as we used to swap gear for a change or when someone needed a specialty lens or medium format for a shoot.

DSLR's remove the film "personality" from the equation but replace it with a sensor/firmware variable and it takes time to get used to each new body. It seems chasing the technology has a price in both out-of-pocket and learning curve so there has to be material improvement to warrant changing.

All that said, I believe there is one key difference. When I started with film 30 years ago, it was a very mature technology. DSLR technology is maturing rapidly but I believe it will be a few years (and a couple more body upgrades) before it reaches the level of stable maturity. Dave

[Mike Cash]

I would have been quite happy with the K110D but for one thing.... the missing front dial.

Just goes to show how there really are different strokes for different folks. When I had the K100D and said I didn't see the point of a front dial, some posters led me to believe that the presence of one was the handiest invention since the shirt pocket.

Now that I have a K20D with a front dial......Wow!

Wow!....I was right!

It's handy for adjusting the auto ISO range and that's about it for me. The way I shoot and the mode in which I shoot mean that the front dial is as worthless as teats on a boar hog. You could take it off and it would be quite a while before I even knew it was gone.

God bless Pentax for providing them for those who use them, and for making the camera perfectly usable without them. We're all covered.

[HGMonaro]

I may be a younger generation to you, I'm 48 this year, not so young.

sorry, my asumption you were younger... I'm younger than you