Do I Need A New Camera?

Wow, my Canon 20D is nearly 7 years old. It’s almost hard to imagine that I’ve owned a dSLR camera for that long. And it’s almost equally as amazing that I still haven’t upgraded, after all these years.

Lately though, I really don’t even pull out the Canon unless it’s a “special” occasion .. which seems to only happen every couple of weeks or so.

I’m not even planning to take the “big camera” with me when I deploy to Afghanistan later this fall.

For day-to-day picture taking, I’ve found that it’s much easier to just rely on my Nexus S phone. Sure, there are quite a few things I can’t do with the phone camera … like zoom, or get a nice shallow depth of field, or have enough pixels to blow a shot up into a poster … but really, how often do I need that kind of stuff anyway?

I’m actually looking forward to the idea of having my camera, post-processing, and storage all in a little 4″ x 1/2″ mini computer, that I can keep in my pocket as I travel to the other side of the world.

That said, when I get home, I think it really is time to get a new dSLR.

Don’t get me wrong, amazing as it may sound, even after 7 years, my Canon 20D still works really, really good .. for what I need it to do.

But …

Having a few extra pixels to play with in post processing would come in kind of handy.

I miss the tilt screen on my old Sony F-717. A few of the newer dSLRs have this.

While I’m not a big video guy (and actually my Nexus S makes pretty nice movies), the idea of slapping my Sigma 50-500mm, or even my 70-200 F4L lens on the camera, then shooting a video, just sounds too cool not try at least a few times.

So, I guess early next summer, I’ll be in the market for a new camera.

And electronics being what they are, I’m sure I’ll get more for my money then, than if I was in the market now.