I'm starting my seventh decade, six as a semi-serious amateur photographer. I still have the Kodak Retinette 1A I got for my birthday, but the darkroom kit went into mothballs circa 1973 when college started taking up a lot of the time I had been shooting. I had been anticipating digital photography since 1975, getting into it with a Nikon Coolpix 950 in 1999. I figured that it would take me a few years to make up the expense of the camera - I already had the computer and much of the software - but I underestimated the rate at which I would be taking digital pictures and had pretty much reached the break-even point about the time the warranty ran out.

I still have that camera as well, which I kept around mainly for its infrared capability that newer camera lack, owing to the better infrared filtering on them. I replaced the 950 with a 995 - I fell in love with the body hinge and the extreme closeup ability - for general photography long after newer and better models came out. I also replaced the 950's infrared capability with a modified 995 and, more recently, with a modified Canon Rebel XT. I also have an unmodified Rebel XT that I handed over to my son when he developed an interest in photography for a while. I had then got a newer model Canon dSLR 10D. I am currently using a Canon M3 when the church congregation where I was doing most of my people photography formally complained about noise the 10D was making.

Here is a Christmas picture of my wife's overcrowded mantelpiece display: