Back in late 2004, early 2005 a couple of friends of mine invested in Canon 300d’s. The primitive yet powerful little Digital SLR’s were the first of their kind.. canon had previously only released fairly expensive, mid range and pro range DSLR’s and these little beauties were affordable and great entry level camera’s. The two friends of mine who purchased the camera’s had also bought Canon Speedlites with the intention of bringing the things out at weekends, being students this of course meant they captured weekly intoxicated events which would have otherwise now been distant fuzzy memories!
It wasn’t long before I wanted one, luckily it took me the best part of 6months to save up enough money from my student loan to buy the camera, this also happened to be long enough to persuade my mum and dad that the purchase wasn’t going to be a crazy one off toy which id only play with for 5minutes. I eventually bought the Canon 350D and a speedlite 430 EX, I’ve never looked back!
Five years later and my quest for the newest, feature packed Camera body is still relentless, I personally blame Canon and Nikon for such strong competition and the radical, super quick paced development in technology. Back when the first Digital SLR’s came out 2 or 3megapixels was the norm, now 10years on and we’re talking 15-22megapixels, one questions how much larger camera sensors can become!? Since my initial DSLR purchase I’ve had a few cameras, namely the Canon 40d, a strong, tough, mid range camera which I’ve now been using at a semi professional level for over 18months. Technology advances and Canon churns out attractive cameras on a regular basis. I’ve realised its now time to upgrade and most importantly make the move from a mid range camera to a pro range, full frame camera. The jump is substantial, both in quality and most importantly price. I’ve always had Canon equipment, mainly because once you buy one make of camera and accessories it becomes increasingly expensive to change.
At present Canon’s pro level camera’s include the 5D Mk2, the 1D Mk4 (the 7d could also be classed as a pro camera, however for the sake of this argument I’ve decided to leave it out) and the 1Ds, both the 1D’s cost over £4k and this ultimately restricts me to the 5D. The 5D mk2 is approximately two years old, it was released to replace the highly successful 5D mk1, a truly revolutionary camera, the first pro level canon camera in a smaller more portable sized body with a more widely accessible price tag. Im currently looking into buying this camera, however I worry that as soon as I buy it canon will replace it with a newer version so the question is… do I wait?!
One of the friends I mentioned in the above post was called Adam, Adam has since gone on to become a talented full time photographer, his website can be found at http://www.adamrobertson.co.uk/