What has been lost?

A Nikon FTn cost about $300 new, even after I imported it from Hong Kong. Allowing 10X for inflation, that would be $3,000 now? The downside is that I don't have the smell of acid fixer to wake me up in the morning!

I use the empty flash card boxes to carry my daily dose of prescriptions in. They fit flat in my pocket, I can see how many doses I have taken without opening them and they are big enough for 2 four a days and a two a day prescription. An excellent container for my drugs.

What does this have to do with the things photography has lost with the decline of film?

That depends on what you kept in your old film containers

The price of today's cameras may not be as crazy as we tend to think after we factor in inflation.

I bought a hot-rod tricked-out new Chevy Camaro 396 in late 1969 for $4100. I cannot imagine a similar car going for less than $30,000 today. That's a 7X drop in value of the money if car pricing differences represents the typical inflation over the period.

If I recall correctly, my Nikon F bodies (I still have both of them) cost about $260 each when I bought them in 1967 if I recall correctly. 7 times the $260 from 1967 is $1820 which will get a darned fine DSLR body today.

Another thing - I can use all four of my super-good 1967 Nikkor lenses on my 20D with a very inexpensive adapter. They still work as well as they did back in the olden days.

In Jan 1964 the CPI was 31, in Jan 2010 it was 216...a sevenfold increase.

Okay so we've discussed price and inflation regarding new DSLRs, and SLRs back in the day.

How about prices of used equipment for the hobbiest? Most hobbiests don't need to shoot with a brand new 60D, 7D, 5DmkII, or whatever. How about a used 40D or 5D at almost a third of the cost? They are between 3-5 years old, which is really not old at all. How much would a 3 year old SLR be back in the day? Surely not 1/3rd of the price as they did not change very much through the years (exemption to AF cameras in the late 80s.)

The prices for digital camera is not as expensive as cameras before digital. I remember buying my Canon A2E for $800 and that was a prosumer film kit. Nikon had the F4s which was over $2,000 brand new? Some of the auto-focus cameras where very expensive when they first came out.

1. Cost - I think it has been shown that inflation adjusted, this isn't true. Plus if you factor in film and development cost, it will easily pay for that computer you edit photos on.

2. Size - I agree. There should be more attractive smaller options, but this is changing. The Micro 4/3, Samsung NX and Sony NEX are addressing this market. Give it a couple years to mature and I think it will be a real alternative for someone not shooting professionaly. There is also the new Fuji rangefinder styled compact coming out soon that could be a trendsetter. As far and the consumer compacts, they have never been smaller. Literally plenty of options the size of a deck of cards and my pocketable Panasonic ZS3 has a 25-300mm equivalent zoom. Try that with film!

3. Wide angles? While there are no primes, the zooms available are likely way better than any wide angle prime you had in the past.

Here's a suggestion - just buy an S95, G12 or LX5 and skip the DSLR....

DStanic wrote in post #11196544
Okay so we've discussed price and inflation regarding new DSLRs, and SLRs back in the day.

How about prices of used equipment for the hobbiest? Most hobbiests don't need to shoot with a brand new 60D, 7D, 5DmkII, or whatever. How about a used 40D or 5D at almost a third of the cost? They are between 3-5 years old, which is really not old at all. How much would a 3 year old SLR be back in the day? Surely not 1/3rd of the price as they did not change very much through the years (exemption to AF cameras in the late 80s.)

Try to find an SLR sold new three years ago!

How about a Medium Format SLR sold individually as body, accessories and lens new in 1995 for $2600, and sold now being sold as an outfit from KEH for merely $250-500, depending upon condition?! But this is due to digital causing loss of interest in film.

As for depreciation, dSLRs truly suck at the rate of 36% compound annual depreciation and be worth 22% of the original value after 5 years (only the 5D defied that 'rule'), and this happens to perfectly fine cameras like 1DsII and 40D...SLRs used to lose maybe 20-25% total, like lenses, and hold at that level.

True Wilt, but if you want to buy a film body there is an abundance of perfectly working camera out there for lens than a day's wage. Comparing film to digital in 2005 or 2010 is very much irrelevant, film is obsolete. This does not mean that film is crap, just as LPs are still great for music even though they are "obsolete".

Compare the depreciation of a SLR- use the FD mount as an example- lenses produced from 1971 to 1987 (introduction of EOS) and they made FD mount bodies until 1990. That's the better part of 20years in which you could use a 5 or 10yr old body with little change in technology, and would hold their value compared to digital EOS bodies.

Film bodies back in the day held their value better because despite incremental advancements in controls and features, the "sensor" didnt change. A 1970's era camera was just as capable as a 90's era 35mm camera in terms of IQ as the limiting feature was the film. Now the digital sensor is constantly improving and bodies depreciate more on a scale like computers, which they are essentially. At some point we will reach a point where the sensor is "good enough" and perhaps the depreciation rate will slow down some. Some would argue that perhaps the 5D is in that class as its 5 years old and still holds a greater percentage of its value than other dslrs.

Wilt wrote in post #11197711
As for depreciation, dSLRs truly suck at the rate of 36% compound annual depreciation and be worth 22% of the original value after 5 years (only the 5D defied that 'rule'), and this happens to perfectly fine cameras like 1DsII and 40D...SLRs used to lose maybe 20-25% total, like lenses, and hold at that level.

dSLRs are new technology that is still going through a period of rapid change. Older bodies lose value because the new ones offer better performance.

I'm willing to guess that this will not go on forever and if the performance stabilizes then the used prices will too.

JeffreyG wrote in post #11202813
dSLRs are new technology that is still going through a period of rapid change. Older bodies lose value because the new ones offer better performance.

I'm willing to guess that this will not go on forever and if the performance stabilizes then the used prices will too.

Hope so, as this current depreciation situation is sheer insanity.

I appreciate the larger size of the 7D over the smaller Rebel series just for grip alone. I just feels better in my hand. My wife's T1i, even gripped, just feels too small to hold all day long at a wedding.

I do miss being able to manual focus in the viewfinder though. With digital I have to use live view (then zoom in 5x, 10x, to make sure it's crisp) which is great on a tripod, but I wish I had the ability to magnify in the pentaprism for better viewfinder focusing. My Pentax K1000 was great for manual focus with the split screen, 7D not as much without something like that.

-John