Has digital camera development hit the wall?

well the only way I could get a new thread started using an iPad was to act a bit surprised, or some other emoticon, or type everything in bold/italic.  But now that I am here ... (grin)

I expect an argument about my topic heading.  The obvious answer is "no, look at Fuji, Sony and Leica - some tasty new gear on issue, surely more to come".  However I look at this gear as well and the old excitement for new product is more an excited pulse than a big base drum.  Surely I would really like a Sony RX100, RX1, NEX6 as much as one of the new Fuji offerings. The Olympus OM-D seems a pretty nice camera and I thought for a short moment when it first released that I should make room on my camera shelf for one, but the moment passed.  I have a pretty little straight-forward (superseded) NX10, but I have not exactly been looking over hard for a peek at a NX20.  Panasonic? what in tarnation is their current model line up?  They seem to spray out new models like tar chips surfacing a new road - pick your own tar chip - Panasonic fans would know them all but this ex-Panasonic fan is simply confused.  Sony is getting much the same way, I can just keep track of Sony's multiple offerings, for now but it is getting harder to do so.  At least their model numberings make a little more logical sense than those from Panasonic.  Guaranteed: that anyone buying a Panasonic or a Sony will have it three times superseded before Ricoh can even manage a single model cycle.  At least your GXR will be the "latest model" for a few years ...

Canon bring out a workmanlike half-model digital body that struggles to work out whether it is a compact on steroids or a true dslr replacement.  I am not sure whether Canon know either.  Nikon busy themself with a big-Q and Pentax has the little-Q.  The majors struggle along refining their dslr offerings, but they have been pretty good anyway for quite a while now.  A new one would be nice when the old one wears out in some years time.

Ricoh is still thinking about something.

Therefore I can reasonably ask - there might be some nice gear on offer but surely it is getting harder to give up a perfectly good working camera in hand to plonk down a fistfull of money for something with a new feature or two?

I agree that sensors get better, cameras get smaller, (maybe) lcd displays can get better, certainly there is room for a better evf.  But surely we are increasingly at a situation where if you have yesterday's wonder camera then at the very least it will remain acceptable until it wears out rather than being ditched for a new camera with capabilities now becoming beyond our abilities to fully utilise them?

My answer probably is - "no, digital cameras have not hit the wall, but increasingly many users will find that their present shutter squeeze is lovingly familiar enough not to be divorced for that promising new flirtatious model with bigger sensor and no intuitive "brains" that has been beckoning".

Are we in truth coming back to the future where you saved for the best film camera you could afford and kept it for a lifetime?  Where masses of snapshots were made on Box Brownie and Instamatics, prints made for friends and relatives, ooh-ed at a bit then shoved in a drawer and forgotten?  It is a brave new, but shallow, world and my GXR looks prettier every day.

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Tom Caldwell