AG, your extensive discussion on your "systems" choices is really
interesting and insight-producing. Specifically:
1. (At least until when both I and my wife retired this year, and
consequently put more focus on spending, led by my eagle-eyed spouse) I
have found myself in the " newer has to be better" crowd, leading to me
pretty much acquiring the latest models as they appeared. Yet you (and
others on this list) constantly amaze all of us with your ability to use
older systems, e.g., E-1, E-400, to produce really wonderful results. I do
think later software may have helped in this, but I'm not sure how newer
(hardware) systems would significantly improve your work as printed or
displayed, if at all. Maybe *convenience* would improve (e.g., less
weight, brighter EVF), but not the final images themselves. It is
wonderful to see. (As an aside, I've recently been going back 10-15 years
in my portfolios to re-work some oldies-but-goodies, and to my
surprise most images wouldn't have been much better in prints or displays,
if at all, with later equipment. Pixel-peeping may show some difference,
sure, but that rarely shows up - at least for me - in final outputs; I
can still get 3x5's from older images. Like I said above, software may
help, but the fact still remains, for me anyway, newer isn't necessarily
better in final results.)
2. But I have discovered the virtues of simplicity. As you may remember,
a year and a half ago I had the catastrophe of all my cameras/lenses being
stolen at the beginning of a trip. Something like 4 bodies and 9 lenses.
Insurance worked, but I ended up replacing just one body and one zoom
leaving me with two bodies and three zooms covering the ranges I need. (I
should clarify that I'm talking Oly here.) Yes, I did get an A7 on that
trip to give me a camera to use then, but this hasn't resulted in a new
system for me, I haven't used it since.
For me, while the quality of Oly glass (e.g., the 12-100, the 7-14) has
certainly helped in this, the main point here is that I don't have
decisions to make - my system covers my needs, as-is. I just grab the two
cameras. This simplicity has allowed me to be so much better at applying
the tools available; my understanding of them, since I don't have a
plethora of stuff to deal with, has improved.
But the underlying point: you have shown me that a) thinking about
equipment as a "system" is good, and b) that's more important than
"newer." This has allowed simplicity to occur. And c) I don't need to
obsess over "newer" per se. That is, until something really
transformative appears, and no matter what happens to Oly, it doesn't
really matter to me in terms of creating images I like. I can rely on my
system now and in the future.
--
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