rmalarz wrote:
...Back some 40 years ago, Nikon offered two 35mm cameras, the F and the Nikkormat (Nikomat in Japan).
--Bob
My first 35mm was a Nikkormat; after a year or so I sold it and bought a Nikon FM and later added an FE2. Those two cameras served my 35mm needs as a pro for many years, but I also had an F2AS as well as medium format Hasselblad and an Arca-Swiss 4x5. In all three formats the number of models was pretty limited, and that made it easy to choose, and mostly they were all pretty much "best." Nowadays, you not only have the extreme complexity of DSLRs, with various sensor sizes and various sensor qualities, you have many models with many different features.
As Bob has pointed out, any given year of the 35mm film era Nikon only offered perhaps a couple 2-3 models and the differences made some sense: the F2 being a heavy rugged pro camera with interchangeable finders and so on; the FM, a lightweight easy to handle manual camera, and an auto exposure version of the FM, the FE. All used 35mm, no APS (yet), all took the same photographs when mounted with the same lens. If you wanted some different quality you used a different film. I used an Ilford ASA/ISO 1000 color transparency film occasionally, specifically for the graininess of it. Kodachrome 64 for portraiture, fine grain and for red tones; Ektachrome 100 or 200 for some landscapes, for a gain in speed and blue tones, Tri-X 400 for low-light and action black and white. Film made the difference, not the camera.
So why do we need so danged many different models? Sensor/lens combinations lock us into a particular quality, and there are many combinations with many different qualities. If you want low noise you need full-frame and amongst full-frame offerings there can be a lot of difference. My Canon 6D is better than my Nikon D810 at ISO 200, 400, 800 or above. The D810 is sharper than any of them at f/5.6 or below. It's almost as if you have to have a different camera in the same way we used to have different films, to achieve different results or for different shooting situations.
I tend to think that it would be better for the manufacturers to have fewer models and focus (pun intended) strictly on achieving only the highest quality photos. All full-frame, one high resolution model like the D810 for dynamic range and large prints; another model for high-speed action photography; one for high ISO shooting in extreme low light, and so on. Much correction and different effects are now easily achieved in post with all the various applications and plugins now available from folks like NIK Dfine (highly recommended), DxO and ON1. Limited models would bring the manufacturing costs down and make quality cameras and lenses more affordable for more people.
For me, there are three or four best DSLRs: The Nikon D810, The Nikon D750, the Canon 6D, and maybe the Nikon D7200 or Canon 80D for APS-C, but then I haven't tried the many, many different brands and models. I am sure there are many other cameras that would serve the purpose; I agree with the sentiment of others— it's not the camera so much as it's the eye behind it.