Personal gear preview: Predictions for 2021.
Overall 2021 will see my income remaining the same, while my expenses are going way down so this can mean worrisome things regarding camera/gear spending. Camera gear is safe in the sense that you get so much back when you sell what you don't use, but worrisome it is anyway. I am planning on spending more on travel, that's a good thing right?
Leica M will remain my system. I will probably acquire new Cosina Voigtländer and Chinese lenses to fill in the gaps I have. I will
probably not make body purchases. I want to see if M11 or whatever comes about. I hope the busy Chinese would design another fast 28mm that would be more compact than the 7artisan one.
I won't sell my M4/3 gear nor is there any reason for me to sell it. I put all M4/3 acquisitions on ice after the dark season came; some blog posts I stumbled upon showcased Olympus 75/1.8 and I was immediately reminded how great the system is. I already made initial plans to spend a couple of days with a coworker's Olympus EM-1.2 and 12-40 Pro, see what it's like.
Regarding Panasonic and Panasonic G9, who knows. James Popsys is now giving discouraging new signals about G9, how it is suddenly too large a body and all that. I don't religiously follow every word a youtuber says but I do suck in the inspiration in their message and such. I know very well his status as a "Lumix ambassador" and how he is
probably being asked nicely to push S5. I already established through earlier research that Panasonic S5 is a superb machine so if I do want a FF MILC camera body, it's the strongest candidate. Except for, now that Leica SL2-S is out, ooh aahh.
Poor Nikon Df is not a system I use often. For fast telephoto lenses it would do well but I don't know. I would like to spend time with a casual 28-300 image stabilized zoom lens, even go as far as to make comparisons between it and a M4/3 superzoom (f.ex. Panasonic 14-140) but I don't think I'll buy one just to do that. Besides, I never actually like making comparisons on the field, I just enjoy the idea. If I just try to forget I own it, then there's a good chance I won't be selling it in 2021.
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Overall some wild cards to throw out there. As money will be even less of a problem going forward, some things might happen.
A film Nikon camera perhaps? A Nikon FG and some nice print color film? I have enough lenses to experiment. This would be a most financially devastating idea because it would escalate to film Leicas very quickly.
Depending on what Leica will or will not do with regards to its APS-C camera/lens lineup things might get interesting. Extra money would perhaps guide me expand more into the Leica family of cameras and perhaps M4/3 gear would be replaced with Leica TL/CL cameras and lenses. The big downside is that the current lenses or bodies are not stabilized in any way. But I've been ogling this direction; the crop cameras are looking
good. There's minor benefits also, being able to share accessories between M10 and TL/2 for example.
M4/3 will be the superb value choice regardless. 2021 will be the year of Gh6 and excitement about new successors to GX8 and G9 are very high indeed.
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One last thing before I forget. I won't predict that I will be a tripod fanatic from now on but perhaps the use of a tripod will change my mind about fully articulating screens and tilting screens somewhat? We'll have to see!