Newest and Latest, but Is It the Best?

    Picture this:  You go to the mailbox, open the door, and you spot a brand new box from Amazon.com or your technology store of choice.  You have been salivating and waiting for this day to come.  Your new electronic toy has finally arrived. You run into the house, grab a knife and cut the top open to the package, yanking out the contents.  You open the product packaging, your heart racing.  Discarding the instructions, you begin to use your new product, your life is now enhanced beyond belief.
    That is how we feel a lot of times when we get the latest gizmos that we "have" to have.  Until we hear about the next greatest thing.  Of course many times these new products are genuinely helpful and contribute to our lives and our livings in positive ways.  But many things are just fads and are often impulse buys.  
    If we could go back in time and look at some of these purchases over the years, what would they be?  A video game system from the stone ages? Parachute pants?  Maybe one of the cutting edge cell phones back in the day like a Motorola Star-Tac. Or perhaps the first 1MP digital camera.  
    As a photographer, I notice that about every 18 months the camera manufacturers roll out their new line.  Just as car makers have to have horsepower and mpg to compare and contrast against others, camera makers have Mega Pixels, or MPs.  A 10 MP camera in most cases will make as good 8x10 photo as a 24 MP camera , everything else being equal. There are many other things besides MPs that make a digital image, though.  Other factors include processing, lens selection, as well as photographic fundamentals like exposure. But the camera makers try to make you feel like your equipment is outdated before you ever wear it in good, it seems.  
   I would of course love the latest camera bodies and lenses, as well as a plethora of accessories to go with, but for most of us, we stretch what we have to change due to failure or accidents, or for those lucky enough, until upgrade time. It is true that most equipment will need upgrading at some point, and it is at this point that we rely on these manufacturers to be in business to be able to have products to upgrade to, and to this end we support our line of choice.  
    Let us not forget the second-hand market.  Many bargains are available in locations we might not think of. In photography, the newest auto-focus lenses are ideal for many situations, I have some myself.  I have come across some lenses from days gone by, and these make me wonder what kind of improvement we have actually made in the last 30 years, aside from focus.  These images were taken with two lenses, the first a manual focus short zoom circa 1982, and the second two from a 135mm prime from around the same year.
    These are just some around the yard shots, but I intend to use these lenses in future pro photo sessions. I can't imagine getting much better images from the latest and greatest lens.