Originally posted by eddie1960 My oldest camera is older than me (i'm 50 it's 56) and still works well.
My oldest camera is older than anyone alive in my family, a pre-WWI Kodak Monitor 6x9 folder, and it still works fine. Respooling 120 film onto 620 spools is a bother, though.
In 1976 I owned 8 or more still film cameras in various formats: 135 FF and HF (half-frame, APS-C size), 6x6cm, 9x12cm, etc. Each was a different tool for varied purposes. (And photography was my job then.) By 2000 I was down to just one 135/FF camera; but then I started gathering digicams, varied P&S's of 1-5-8mpx, each again a tool for different ends. (And I was beyond employment by then.) Some of those digicams died, or were killed. RIP.
And in 2008 I got my K20D, and I started buying used lenses on eBay, and odd lots of photo gear that sometimes included film bodies, of which I now own about 40 (and hope to sell-off 10 of them). I never intended a collection -- it just happened. Six were inherited. A few are thrift-shop or yard-sale box cams that echo back to my youth. The rest are mostly happy accidents. The only other camera I think I 'need' is some 645 folder, but those are getting costly. Ratz...
NEED: I've already differentiated between GOTTA HAVE and REALLY WANT. How much does anyone 'need' another camera? That's similar to: What do you want to do that you can't do with what you have? If one REALLY wants (or needs) to do something that's beyond their existing gear, then it's time to 1) get more gear, or 2) reduce one's expectations, or 3) find a workaround. Do I *need* an ultrawide lens, or can I stitch together panos? Do I *need* a high-ISO body, or can I make-do with a tripod and PP work? Et cetera.
So the answer is: I need a new camera whenever I think I do, if not before.