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Are we allowed to use our cameras for as long as we want to? Or are we required by law to turn them in and get new ones? If we are, what is the legal time we can have them?
Sound like a Facebook troll question? Well, this is still not a forum and I'm not writing this from under the bridge, so you can relax - but it is a pretty good question. Like all debates it has several answers - and some of them might be relevant for you.
a. You should use your old equipment until it cannot be used any more.
This is a fine and frugal answer for some - and it has echoes in the past. The users of Kodak 116, 616, 828, and 126 films might well have done just this - used their cameras until Kodak pulled the pin on them. The ingenious and hardy may still be using them - adapted to other media or using respooled film. If they do, whatever they achieve is a golden mark on their character sheet - they are stalwarts.
The same might be said for early digital gear. I started my digital adolescence on an old Nikon D1x and might be using it yet if my needs were served by the sort of file it produced and if the battery situation - dire at the time - could have ever been remedied. I suspect not, and I imagine everyone else with the D1 or D1x has hung it up as a wall trophy by now.
I do know that many older digital point and shoot mechanisms are doorstops by now as well - The electronics having been made to barely work in the first place.
b. You should use your old equipment until you can't lift it.
Okay, I'm not saying you have to be an old crock, though I plan to be, but eventually hauling the cutting-edge 4-kilo professional camera and lens up stairs becomes a real drag. Then going smaller and newer and lighter becomes a kindly act you can do for yourself. Resist the temptation to hang so much stuff off your new rig that it becomes as heavy as the old one. Once you find you need a Russian machine-gun trolley for your camera it is time to re-appraise the situation...
c. You should use the old equipment until the new stuff makes better pictures.
Well, Duh - new equipment always makes better pictures...or does it? The specifications and features always get bigger and better - that's what they have design bureaux in Japan for - but is any of it going to be making your own work look better? If, like me, you are making little old pics for little old columns, you may only need the little old stuff that you already have.
If you are making pictures for money, you may not have the option to wait - everyone else may have decided to buy the bells and whistles and you look bad if you're not ringing and tooting as well.
d. You should use the old equipment to save the environment.
Possibly, but remember that many new digital cameras are gluten-free. And you can recycle the old ones by giving them to the unsuspecting.
The only other thing to think about is whether what your digital camera puts out will be readable in the future. That's a whole 'nother kettle of trout but remember that one of the first ones recorded things on floppy discs. If you stood firm against change then, it left you in its wake, spinning like a top...
