| Joined: | Wed Apr 11th, 2012 |
| Location: | Melbourne, Australia |
| Posts: | 525 |
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I am constantly amazed at the increased cost of cameras today. I like pro quality equipment and when I was employed always managed to afford it. Leica's and Hasselblads were my preferred tools. When SLR's came about I could finally manage to do what I had always wanted to and that was afford long lenses as most everything was ,of course, manual focus. When auto focus finally became a reality film was on it's last legs so I never changed. When Digital became King I was very reluctant to change ,but I did finally but found to satisfy my desire for Pro level bodies and long lense preferences I should stay with DX bodies. I started digital with D1x's and have now progressed to D2x's which at my age will probably be the last bodies I buy if they last. They somewhat satisfy my desire for long lenses though REALLY long lenses such as the Nikkor 600mm are far beyond my wildest reach. It seems to acheive the finest quality photos today you require the best pro level body and highest quality lense to achieve this quality of image. When you consider the top of the line Nikon body is in the $6000 range and the 600mm Nikkor is about the same you are talking about a goodly part of my ANNUAL income so there is no way I can afford it. They have to get prices considerably under $2000 for a body for me to have any interest at all no matter whether FX or DX. Of course this will never happen and in actuality I find it difficult to achieve much interst in photograpy as I once had. That's probably a combination of old age and lack of skill in digital taking it's toll.
In real terms the top price bodies are the cheapest they have ever been, however they are still veyr expensive, and I think you have actually under priced the 600mm lens!
The interesting thing for me is the point you make about quality. In reality there is not that much difference between a modern budget body and a pro body in terms of image quality. You get into the law of diminishing returns and a lot of the benefit is more about ergonomics and build quality than just image quality.
I have always thought is someone wants to buy the top it's their money and they should be free to do what they want with it, but the truth is hardly anybody at all can really claim to need the top end, and if you just want to make nice images then you can so perfectly well with entry level bodies and lenses.