by Ravi Mistry
December 15, 2018
In this digital age, we see a lot of technological advancements happening at an electrifying speed every other day, in every segment of our lives. Same with photography and in our camera world, there is always going to be a new camera within the time period of a year, which is promising that it will change (your) photography forever.
There will either be some new feature added or there will be a major shift in the technology. With every new camera, It's like the company's are saying "There is no way you can make a good photograph without that new feature that was recently introduced recently".. yeah sure!
Each new device (not just cameras) comes with it's own set of limitations and advantages, and rules which you have to play by. With each new camera (body/system), to operate them at their full potential there will be a whole new learning curve required for the new system, from menus to ergonomics and not to mention the time you will waste on things you are already familiar with in the previous system.
Owning a brand new camera will not suddenly make your subjects interesting nor good looking, or not even make your lighting skills perfect, forget about god level Dean Collins perfect. In fact it will make you even more lazy towards learning new things in our field or developing your skills towards composition, subject communication, lighting control, utilizing colors to your advantage etc.
Now you have to understand that it is going to be heavy on your pocket by unnecessarily upgrading to the new camera, which will make you invest in it's own set of peripherals or/and lenses (how we all love to spends thousands of dollars on those bokehlicious glasses) and of course keep in mind this is how companies make money.
Wait a sec, I completely forgot about how a faster computer system you will need to buy to work on those higher megapixel files (picture my face with grin here)
While you take your time to adjust to the new camera, it will reduce your hit rate as you will be learning all new (or moderately new) system. It will slow you down (well not in way the film photography does) as you fiddle through the new menu system, figuring out how the RAW files behave in low light, high iso, how you can recover when it comes to highlights and shadows, how it will behave in different kind of light sources etc.
In verdict you will be wasting your time in re-learning the skillset rather than focusing on things that really matters when it comes to producing good photography.
If you're a professional photographer making your living with good number of shoots then it is very much understandable that buying that new awesome camera will fetch you that extra mile against competition, add some comfort your shoot and becomes more helpful when it comes to post production.
But we all know those 80% of the people who are buying these new awesome must have cameras is not what you call strictly professional requirement of replacement, yes I am looking directly at you guys who is suffering from GAS.
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