Officially relegated to the "Old gear" group.

[skilsaw]

Last year I caught the camera bug and bought myself a Canon G1x. I had great fun with it for a month and it triggered happy memories of my film SLR days so I followed up with a Canon 7D.

Now both my cameras have been eclipsed by their respective Mark II models. I had a fleeting desire to keep my gear "up to date" but sanity intervened and I have decided to stick with what is now "old gear".

I know I won't be able to use these cameras for 30+ years, like I did with my Pentax SP1000. There will come a time when a battery or data card will fail and a new one will not be available. Just maybe I will use them until that day comes. Modern electronics have contributed to us being a "throw it away" culture. Cameras are just one part of it.

[Shadowman]

Last year I caught the camera bug and bought myself a Canon G1x. I had great fun with it for a month and it triggered happy memories of my film SLR days so I followed up with a Canon 7D.

Now both my cameras have been eclipsed by their respective Mark II models. I had a fleeting desire to keep my gear "up to date" but sanity intervened and I have decided to stick with what is now "old gear".

I know I won't be able to use these cameras for 30+ years, like I did with my Pentax SP1000. There will come a time when a battery or data card will fail and a new one will not be available. Just maybe I will use them until that day comes. Modern electronics have contributed to us being a "throw it away" culture. Cameras are just one part of it.

Try for maybe 10 years max but it won't be a failing battery or data card that spurs you to upgrade, most likely it will be slow response time, lowlight quality, or image quality that creates the fever.

[Geoff F]

The one thing which forced me into a new camera upgrade was shutter failure. They have a limited life span.

But after going from a Canon 40D to a 7D, I did send the old 40D to a repairer for examination and it cost a little over £100 for a new shutter. Labour costs, there was no charge for the shutter. So I eventually thought that was worth paying in order to have a spare camera, which I now use for those riskier shoots.

There isn't anything on the newer models to tempt me to change again. So it will be down to totally failure or extreme carelessness on my part before I even look at a change.