Staying on Brand ???

This kind of stuff is beyond my pay grade and interest.  I've shot with Olympus since the OM days (film era) and my cameras remain more capable than I am.  Each brand has strengths and weaknesses, the same as with any product or service.

I'm not brand loyal but do have preferences based on past history dating back to childhood. When I was child in the 60s, Nikon SLRs were being used by famous photojournalists covering the Vietnam War, and I always heard older family members saying Nikon was the best. The first camera I ever owned was an Olympus XA. The first color TV we had when I was a child was a Sony Trinitron and it lasted for 15 years. My parents were still using it when I was in college.

My Dad and several uncles owned Pentax SLRs. I don't remember a particular Panasonic device in my family but remember reading a case study in business school about Matsushita which was of course the owner of the Panasonic brand. Those are the camera brands I own today.

Of course, I actually used Fujifilm film as an analog shooter way back since they were usually cheaper than Kodak. I also remember a lot of Andre Agassi ads for Canon, but I own neither of those brands today. It is amazing to think that all those brands have been around for decades. I do miss Minolta since I remember owning one or two in the past too. I make up for it by still shooting some Minolta lenses adapted to mirrorless. Their colors are still my favorite to this day.

Never a loyalist, although I have certain brands that I shall avoid whenever possible due to my bad (unfortunate?) experience over the years.

Including camera, these are tools only. I use Panasonic for many years because its products suit me. When one day there will be better option, I shall change without second thought.

I shot/grown with Nikon film slr for >30 years before moving to digital camera. While I moved on, I picked Panasonic because nothing from Nikon suited me at that time.

Over the years, Nikon 1 had my close attention for a smaller size system but it was discontinued before I had enough faith to change .

Not brand loyal

panasonic for the last 6 years has fit the bill for hybrid shooting for me video is equally if not important than photos ( you can pull out a good photo with any brand)
however I don’t see sony or canon catching up soon so may be here a while

Brand loyalty comes when you get what you want from your whatever brand thing you have and disappears when whatever new you want isn't available within your brand's catalogue.

So, yes but until you're good with it. People switch because they are either unsatisfied with what they have or because something else is available elsewhere.

There is always a cost in changing but if you factor that out i would say people are generally not brand loyal (and i am definitely not).

Adrian Harris wrote:

Are you brand loyal or a potential switcher?

Not so sure I would switch brands, so much as I would add a new brand to my kit. Of course, if the new brand proved itself significantly superior, in ways important to me, then I would likely sell off the other brand and make a complete switch eventually.

For the record, I have been a Nikon shooter since the early 70's.

JasonTheBirder wrote:

Adrian Harris wrote:

[...]

Are you brand loyal or a potential switcher?

I first used Pentax. But I switched to Nikon when Pentax could not provide the lenses or AF that I wanted. Then I bought a Panasonic G9 for better video. However, I still use Nikon for birds. But if a third brand provided something I really wanted, I would switch to something new and just sell all my old stuff.

I wonder if being brand loyal is more about some kind of emotional way to ease the cognitive dissonance of not being able to get something new due to being locked in with a lot of lenses, and the cognitive load of having to manage selling all of them is too much.

I think that's probably often the case. + after experiencing lots of adventures together with X you naturally develop some fondness. Though for me it's only about specific models, not brand.

ahaslett wrote:

In thinking about another piece of kit, software etc, my experience leads me to drawing up a cost-benefit like table of factors. The “weighting” of each factor is personal and usually implicit.

Cost, weight, filling a known requirement, frequency of use are all relevant. I have a table for potential replacements for the aging Zuiko 50-200 SWD, to guard against an ill-considered purchase when it fails.

One challenge is to decide what value to place on something that extends my photography, for example an anamorphic lens or the Sony 100mm STF. Tilt-Shift made the cut, those two didn’t. It’s hard to value the unknown.

You also have to decide what penalty function to apply for the learning curve, especially software. I might decide that the learning experience is positive or a chore, up to me.

Then you have life’s eternal questions - would a better tripod and head be more useful than a body with HHHiRes? What new technologies and functions might be coming that would alter the answers? Might new requirements emerge, for example different holidays now I’m retired. How much might buying older technology used save me, if I just wait?

On the whole, just waiting is looking more and more attractive, not least because you can learn a lot from the extended experience of others. Seems like a good moment to thank MEDISN for his work on HHhiRes and jalywol for her cross-platform examples of flowers.

Andrew

I would like to add one more item to your list which I always ask myself: How frequently am I likely to use that new 'improved' feature?

'X' may enable me to take better surfing photos - which I would like to do more of, but will I get the opportunity to shoot any surfing in the next 10-12 months!

I currently want a few Arial images for a fun project, so have been thinking about a Mavic 2 pro Drone. But am weighing it huge cost against all the restrictions and rules and wondering how much use it would actually get?

Adrian Harris wrote:

I currently want a few Arial images for a fun project, so have been thinking about a Mavic 2 pro Drone. But am weighing it huge cost against all the restrictions and rules and wondering how much use it would actually get?

Some months back I went out with a friend of my daughter, and he showed me how his Mavic drone works.  Very cool!  I was seriously impressed, but I'm not going to buy one for exactly the reasons you mention, plus the learning curve (both rules and operation).

Brands, nah, but clearly I'm biased toward the m43 format. I have minimal interest in equipping more than one system with the lenses I need to keep photography fun. It's got nothing to do with brands, just the incompatibility of one format with others.

There is something, however, in the tendency of certain brands within the m43 ecosystem to build products I like, which makes me partial towards them. Olympus, for example, tends to make smaller high-end cameras. Panasonic, on the other hand, offers more small lenses. And I guess this is why most of my cameras are built by Olympus and most of my lenses are from Panasonic, though I'm certainly not a a brand purist who won't consider the other side.

Adrian Harris wrote:

Are you brand loyal or a potential switcher?

I am somewhere in the middle --- mostly M4/3, mostly Olympus, but also open to exploring other possibilities.

Here's where I am with other systems:

Nikon: I had a Nikon d90 before I went down the m4/3 path in 2014. Nice camera, but too big for travel. A few years ago, I started pushing the limits of m4/3 for some nighttime street shooting. My options were ~$1200 for an f/1.2 Olympus prime -- a one stop improvement -- or ~$1500 Nikon d750 -- a two stop improvement. I went for the Nikon. No doubt that the Nikon is terrific for moving subjects at night, and I am glad that I have it for certain situations. Hearing all sorts of wonderful things about the buttery, malleable RAW files on the Nikon Z series, I am sometimes tempted by the Nikon Z's. But then, well, I don't need thousands of dollars worth of butter. So, I am holding off for the foreseeable future.

Fuji: I got a Fuji X100V this summer, and it's a joy to use. It's a great little go-everywhere camera. Gotta say that I love the ergonomics and the UI. I also miss IBIS more than I expected. Do I really like it? Yes. Do I like it enough to switch systems? No. If I were starting from scratch, Fuji would be a strong contender, for sure.

Canon: I debated between Canon and Nikon when I got my first dSLR. I went to the store (back when we still had camera stores) and tried both systems. The Nikon was simply more comfortable in my hands. I picked Nikon and never looked back.

Sony: No, no, and just no. I have never been happy with any Sony product that I have owned. I curse the UI on my Sony A/V receiver daily.  I looked at an RX100 once, and found it fiddly and uncomfortable.  I don't care what the spec sheets say. No Sony for me.