General comment on this topic. Some people like to stay current with changes/upgrades in technology. Some people like to retain a piece of gear (camera, car, garden rake, hammer, you name it) until it is dead in its tracks. There are also lots of folks who fall in between. Everyone has their own reason for going to something new/different. I don’t believe it wise/necessary for someone else to critique or pass judgement on another's action in this regard.

This story may illustrate my point: A journalist was doing a personal interest piece, noticed an old, worn-out carpenter doing his thing. The reporter took note of the old man’s hammer, a beat-up, worn out tool. Reporter inquired of the old man, “How long have you had that hammer, old timer?”

“I’ve had this thing forty-seven years.”

“Ever have any problems.?”

“Yeah, replaced the head twice and the handle three times, but this old hammer has lasted me so far, forty
-seven years!”

It isn't a question of whether or not a poor photographer will do better with expensive gear, even though many people seem to think that is what it is all about. It's about whether or not good quality high performance equipment will allow a competent photographer to do a better job and the answer is, unquestionably, yes. It doesn't have to be the very top dollar equipment either. It just has to be equipment that the photographer can get the most out of. A good photographer can get good results from most any camera but having a more capable camera gives that same photographer more options in how and what they shoot. I defy anyone to take their cell phone or point-and-shoot out to shoot wildlife and then compare it to the work Regis does with his cameras. Sure, he could no doubt get some good results with cheaper cameras, but if you were to ask him I would bet he would have good reasons why he uses the equipment he does. Of everyone on here I consider him one of the best examples of an excellent photographer using excellent equipment to get shots that few others can. Lesser equipment just provides fewer opportunities to do that kind of work.

I agree with you too. No question that good equipment in the hands of a capable photographer is better than inferior equipment in the same hands. But I also know some really good photographers that have inferior equipment to Regis', namely he has a 300mm f/5.6 Canon lens and a Canon 7D, now a 7D Mk II, and his bird pictures are every bit as good as Regis. But this guy does this ALL the time and is very talented. I too do bird photography with a 100-400, 500mm f/4, and a 300mm f/2.8. I couldn't get the images I get without that great equipment. But that woman that I spoke of earlier has done some birding too, I've been with her, and she is NOT good - even with her $20,000 of Canon equipment.

I'm sure that rmalarz will reply for himself, but I will answer your question from my perspective.

I used a D200 for years. When I bought it, it was probably the best Nikon DSLR available other than the true pro models, and, in any case, it was the best that I could afford. I was very happy with it and used it for years, even after other, improved models were introduced. But for a good period of time, it retained its position in life. It served me well while I was doing photography pretty much in isolation. It captured the images that I was after. As I tried more things, though, and couldn't make some of them really work, the question arose about whether there might be something new that would do better. So I started shopping around a little. I was retired by that time, so it didn't seem to make sense to spend a ton of money. The result was trading a big box of old film equipment locally for a well-used D300 and nice D300s. Guess what...these cameras, although still not the latest, offered me quite a bit of new capability over the D200. Technology had advanced to the point that I could accomplish some things that weren't easily possible for me before. This further widened my range of interest so that over a few years I made some other equipment advances to gain some important (at least to me) additional capability.

So the short answer to your question (from my perspective) is that the best that used to be available was a far cry from the best that is now available. That's why today's preferences often don't include cameras that were used in the past. Besides that, most of them are lost, broken, or worn out. And there are some folks who do still like to use some of the ones that are left. Some of those folks do beautiful work with them. But I'll bet that if what is available today were available then, it would absolutely have been used by at least some of the photographers of the time.