bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

If you buy cars, trucks, furniture, electronics, etc. for life, I guess your habit would carry over to cameras. But I doubt very few people buy a camera for life (unless of course you don't expect to live very long)!!

Buy the camera that works for you. Let future technology and your future needs control what comes next!

bwa

crazydaddio Loc: Toronto Ontario Canada

Auto=P&S.... Recommend a Sony RX100II.

I got hooked when I tried to recreate artistic images I saw online and discovered the joys of full manual control and composition, angles, blur, single AF pt,...get on your stomach, get on a ladder, shoot through leaves in the foreground, drag the shutter, play with speedlights, High FPS sports action from 200yds away etc etc
Keep shooting, keep learning!

..and by all means, shoot in Auto....on day 1..... and then never, ever again :-)

...or just save some money and use your iPhone....in good light, it will take as good a photo as a $3K camera on Auto posted on Instagram.....and yes, I use my Galaxy S6 to take the odd photo and post pics from it but it will never be able to do low light, do decent PP , or get bokeh like a good lens on a DSLR will allow.

BebuLamar

I found I don't know enough about my camera to use it on AUTO yet! I don't know what it's going to do in a given situation.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

It can be learned, but learning control over the variables is more useful in the long run. When you use auto, save raw files, or raw plus JPEG. Raw has many times more exposure latitude than does JPEG.

therwol Loc: USA

You don't buy a camera for life. You buy a camera based on your needs and budget. It will certainly become obsolete, and then you have to decide if you want to invest more money in something else or just live with what you have. If you bought a "classic" camera in the past such as a Nikon F, you might very well hold onto it for life, but you've probably moved beyond it and bought something more capable. (Okay, some people do prefer using such cameras "for life" and I have one myself, but when my dad gave me the Nikon FTn that I've kept for sentimental reasons, it wasn't with the idea of using it forever. It was the best gift of a camera he could afford at the time. I have a Nikon D810 now, and there have been a few cameras in between.)

IBM

Trying telling that to a pilot who fly,s the big jets . If it wasn't for auto they couldn't fly them

therwol Loc: USA

Comparing apples and oranges. Besides, ask Sully if he used the autopilot to guide that plane into the Hudson. Pilots sometimes have to actually do something themselves.

bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

in this day and age the last thing the camera makers want is people buying one camera and keeping it for life. back in the day people shooting large format studio and field work bought cameras that they used for 30-50 yrs. I guess that's close to being a "rest of your life" camera.

sr71 Loc: In Col. Juan Seguin Land

Sully is a great pilot if it wasn't for his experience of flying sailplanes the out come could have been a lot different.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Good points, and I can't disagree, but many new and improved cameras and lenses are more new in advertising than in practical fact. This was especially true in film cameras, when most changes were fashion or style. Every year the new film cameras offered great new products that did not necessarily make better pictures--an old Leica was as good as anything newer, and a view camera was still a view camera. We might say that in digital photo products (and electronic things in general) there are two kinds of improvements--those that improve pictures, as the science developed, and those that merely improve sales through hype. Once you understand the digital criteria, such as control of aperture, shutter, ISO (the new meaning, not the old), and lens characteristics, there is nothing (much) new under the Sun. A top line Rolls or Mercedes from many years ago in excellent condition is still a fine automobile if you don't care so much about the latest look or the bells and whistles--the latest fashions.

Take a look at this interesting and informative article that shows how digital lenses are often adaptations of designs from the old days--Tessar designs (1902--now in most cell phones), Planars (1896--and all 50mm prime lenses ever made), wide angle Distagons (1953). It does not require a lot of scientific knowledge.

http://ilovehatephoto.com/2014/12/30/a-guide-to-optical-lens-design-and-zeiss-nomenclature/

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

At the start how could new or inexperienced photographers possibly know what camera they should keep for "life". And even is such a camera existed at the point in time of the original purchase, technology advances so quickly these days that it would be outdated in not too many years. Unless you are talking about a classic and manual film camera, the answer is buy what you can afford and what will meet your needs for the next several years. Then if you're still serious you can look at more upscale cameras, which too will have a finite useful life.

IBM

Not to mention the trick photoes of people doing things on bikes, snow boards, surf boards sky diving , and hundreds of other shots
You could never get with the older cameras , some thing as simple as a tennis match ,you would never get a prize winning shot of the players as now it's a common acurenace, every pro. game

mikenolan Loc: Lincoln Nebraska

Pro sports photographers did a pretty job covering sports with those old film cameras, but these days nearly every second of an athlete's life, on and off the field, seems to be on camera somewhere! I'm not sure that's an improvement.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Some things that are praised, acclaimed, or given good reviews in cameras are not necessarily good things. They counted light weight as a plus in the 35mm film days, but I liked a firm, solid body that seemed to hold still better. And other things like self-focus are also mixed blessings. The ability to shoot lots and lots of pictures, fast, means you will never produce a picture that you could produce when you took awhile. I recently got out my old Speed Graphic 4x5 (it can accept my Canon digital on its back with adapter), and although no camera is best for everything, I was amazed to rediscover how very practical, adaptable, and all-purpose that camera was--first made in 1912 with shutter speed up to 1/1000th second (accurate). It is the only safe way I have found to use the big flashbulbs with a Canon digital (because the current is fired through the Graflex shutter, not through the Canon--the Canon shutter can be locked open with electronic remote cable while the exposure is made with the Graflex shutter).

IBM

It works both ways focus fast and shooting Fast gets you more keepers , shooting flying eagles or sports , of all kinds there is not one person shooting sports of any kind , BIF or any other fast action is doing what you say , I don't think there missing any where near the shots
You think they are , there getting a lot more than sport shooters did in the sixties , or later . It gets better every year . Just look through
Any sport mag or wild life mags.