rook2c4 wrote:
It seems to me Canon is going down the same wrong path Nikon has taken. The DSLR market is shrinking, so they try to compensate by churning out more and more new models and new lens versions, with the hope customers will continue to buy and buy.
and that's the problem with digital devices. once you get to full frame, there is nowhere to go unless you want to invest in an incredibly expensive 645 digital system. with film, the transition to larger format was easy and inexpensive. not so with digital. down marketing lesser models with a flurry of lenses for those systems is also a dead end game, as the market is already overloaded with these type devices from other manufacturers. the "upgrade" game has finally hit the consumer wall, with the greater majority staying with the systems and digital bodies they already have, as they do fine for their needs.
when film was prevalent, there was an entirely different societal take on cameras. most people used instamatics and other various point and shoot cameras and were happy with them. mostly it was professionals using 35mm slrs, tlrs and rangefinders. for those of us who wanted "more" the fixed lens rangefinder camera was the next logical choice. once mastered, we then went to interchangeable lens cameras, mostly slr models in 35mm. from there, fewer of us continued on to larger film formats. yashica, mamiya and minolta made that easy, with very resonably priced 6x6 cameras, along with the kowa and bronica brands for slr medium format cameras. the mamiya line of tlr even offered interchangeable lenses.
and so, on to other cameras, particularly rangefinders using the 120mm roll film format to provide negatives up to 6x9 centimeters; with results rivaling the 4x5 format in some cases.
what i'm trying to say here, is there was not the late desire to "look like a pro" or "upgrade" every 3 months. simply because camera companies did not introduce models in less than 10 year increments. and those new models were significant, not merely offering some minor "shake reduction" feature.
and photographers still turned out great images, and birders had no trouble with getting great shots with their pentax, canon, minolta, nikon or whatever slrs with 35mm film.
there was no "consumer" market such as today. and so, production and introduction of new models were decades in coming, matched to the market size and built to last 60+ years. and during all this time, the users, pros, commercial, wedding photographers had time to master their instruments and benefit their customers with prints. and it was the users who drove the industry. and that is the greatest difference in today's world where the industry drives the consumer ever on to the next "big" thing.
naturally, some large electronics companies will go belly up in the coming years and digital consumers will simply move on the the next obsession.