The end of an era: bodies have become more important than glass.

sthlm wrote:

Re: The end of an era: bodies have become more important than glass.

But you then argue that we also replace the glass.

What exactly is the argument?

Clearly the glass lasts longer. There's a huge difference between NEED and WANT. You can shoot just fine with old glass. Some of the old manual focus lenses really are more fun to use than the newer lenses and have a great charm to them. Maybe you can't shoot into the sun and maybe they're not quite as sharp at max aperture but it's still very good glass.

The same really can't be said about an old camera like a D40. A D40 almost warrants a NEEDED upgrade due to DR, ISO performance, and MP. Really depends on what you're doing though. If all you're doing is shooting ISO 100 on a sunny day then even that will work.

Open up your photo albums. As a kid all the photos were smaller than 3x5, eventually 3x5, and only those really special photos were 4x6. 8x10's were rare and framed. Today we print much larger and more often and that warrants these newer cameras. The glass though is just fine.