You can’t future-proof your camera purchases, and if you try to anticipate what you might need in the future, you risk guessing wrong and spending money on things you don’t need.
For example, you might imagine that one day you’ll need to shoot 8K video and you’re nervous about spending money on any camera that doesn’t do this. But will 8K video definitely be a thing? Or will today’s 4K content prove the plateau for video resolution?
Nobody knows. The only sure thing is that choosing a camera for what you do now will give you a proper return on your investment straight away.
Maybe you lust after the 102MP sensor of the Hasselblad X2D II 100c, but do you actually need that resolution right now? Will you EVER need it, given that the world is shifting inexorably towards digital display and consumption?
And will you ever need 30fps continuous shooting and AI subject tracking? If you need it right now then get it right now, but if you simply think you might need it some time in the future, then why not just wait until you do?
The problem with ‘buying for the future’ is that by the time you get there the future might have changed – YOUR future might have changed.
There’s another problem. The ‘future tech’ you’re buying today will be at the expensive cutting edge, yet by the time the future you’re planning for arrives, this tech will have become a whole lot cheaper or may have been overtaken. You can end up buying too early at prices that are too high. This is another reason to buy what you need ONLY when you need it.
So how far ahead should you plan when investing in camera gear? My advice would be:
- If the gear you’ve got is working fine for what you do right now, don’t change it
- Don’t buy new gear in the hope that it will get you out of a rut. It might provide some brief motivation, but ultimately the rut is the problem, not the camera
- If you need to pitch for new work and the gear you’ve got won’t cut it, by all means invest in new equipment – but only if you have a definite promise of work and definite camera requirements to do it with
- Similarly, if you want to branch out into a new line of work, for example video rather than stills, this is also a good reason to invest in new gear – but keep the costs real. Novice filmmakers don’t need pro cinema cameras and will struggle to get proper benefit from what they do
- Don’t over-spec your camera. If you’re already downsampling your 24MP images, you don’t need 50MP, if you only shoot at 10fps you don’t need 30fps, if you upload to YouTube at 1920 x 1080 then 4K is already more than enough, and if you don’t color grade your video then you don’t need 10-bit All-I ProRes
Camera makers depend on the rest of us constantly buying new gear, and the whole creator economy is driven by affiliate sales, so it’s no surprise we’re continually bombarded with the Buy Buy Buy message. Every new camera is the best there’s ever been, a ‘cheat code’ for pro results, a technological breakthrough that will revolutionise photography as we know it. Of course it’s not true, but it’s so easy to get swept along.
All I’m saying is, spend your money on what you need right now, and don’t splash it on expensive gear for a future that might never arrive or which might turn out very different to what you expected.