What do you look for in your gear.

A] Affordable. I want to replace it if I need to. My five kids are my priority, not accumulating gear.
B] Enjoyable to use. Ergonomics that work for me. Small, light, simple. Full creative control is critical.
C] Image quality. Acuity, good colour rendition, and in B&W.
D] Reliable, robust.
E] Constraining. I like the discipline that a single social length forces on me. In my case 28mm FOV.
F] A big enough sensor to create selective DOF.
G] Responsive. Nothing worse that being a little late with the power-up, AF, or shutter.

As you can imagine, I feel like there's a lot riding on the future of the GR line....
 
I want gear that has to be taken apart to make it work again...

One of the first couple hundred lenses marked "Canon"

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Canon 13.5cm F4_3
by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Late 1947, $45. About 90 minutes to take apart and clean it up- came out quite nice, probably never had the glass cleaned. Also bought a Carl Zeiss 135/4 in Contax mount for $22 and a Leica 90/4 Elmar for $43. About the same amount of time for each.
 
What do I look for?

I am looking for a piece of gear that helps me visualize the world in a new way, because I have nearly NEVER created a truly great phoot. There's a handful that I'm happy with, but I'm looking for a piece (lens or body) that helps me see things in a new way.

Unfortunately, that vague driving concept leads me down many wrong paths. Today I bought a Yashica Mat 124.....long after acknowledging that I don't want to ever shoot film. It was just TOO sexy. And I love the form factor....can I just jam a digital sensor in there?
 
Very interesting question, especially because the answers necessarily will be very personal, so thank you @Bobby Tingle for starting this thread.

The pictures you want to make, ideally determine the choice of equipment to do that. That sounds very much like what the teacher wants to hear from his pupil and of course it doesn't always work that way. In my long photographic hobby history I didn't have a clue what I really wanted to do, and now that I'm a little further I seem to have slid into a very narrow field ( or dead alley? ;) ) of making street stills. And that largely dictates my lens choices, for instance. Gone are the days where I took the Sony FF wide/standard/telephoto F4 zooms with me. The last half year I just took the Sony A7R2 with a Zeiss Loxia 2/35 and 2/50.

I'm in the fortunate position that I can spend enough money on something photographic. I won't just flaunt my Euro bills around but if I really, really want something, I buy it. Latest example: Voigtländer presented us with a native FE 1.2/40. A while ago I told my wife I had an awful lot of 35mm lenses (Sony FE 1.4/35, FE 2.8/35, Zeiss Loxia 2/35) for someone who doesn't really like that focal length and that I owe it to myself to get a native FE 40mm now that Voigtländer has one in the program; 40mm feels right to me, period, always had that experience. I decided to sell off the 1.4/35 monster because I hate its size, moreover I really didn't need such a fast lens. I also sold my adapted Olympus OM Zuiko 2/40; the latter one not because it's not as fast but because I really like the convenience of having the EXIF data in the raws without any hassle. The Voigtländer 1.2/40 max. aperture is a nice bonus but I would have happily settled for an f/2 or f/2.8. I simply let time decide how the usage patterns will develop, I can't say which lenses will stay or go, and in fact it has always been that way.

As a side-step, money is an important parameter in our hobby for a lot of us, but it often is about what we think we should or shouldn't spend, not what we can or can't. It's about personal or family priorities really. For instance, I can't bring myself to spend 20k€ on a car even if my bank account would allow for it, while others will happily do that and cap camera purchases at € 500. As I said, personal priorities. My best purchases have been the ones that were conscious, sometimes long-whining decision processes; coincidentally these purchases were mostly not on the cheap side, as you can see from the stuff I already mentioned.

Well then, let's cut to the chase: what do I look for in gear?
1. Image quality
This is key for me. I wasn't happy with µ4/3 and the jump from the Panasonic GH2 to the Sony NEX-6 provided a big improvement in dynamic range, resolution and noise performance. Enter the Sony A7 late 2013; I immediately went for it, also with the idea of using my Minolta lens collection to its full potential. Again a big step up in image quality. Then came the A7R2, primarily to get rid of sensor reflections and now I feel I have a camera that provides the finesse I want. I have thought long and hard about getting a Fuji X100F for street photography and tried one out at a fair, taking home the raws for further processing. And I'm pretty sure I would have been confronted with way too many occasions on which I regretted not taking the A7R2 instead of the X100F. And upon that insight I took our household scale up to attic and weighed my bags and quickly discovered that my favorite bag is over 1 kg! That same day I bought a small CaseLogic one of only 300g. That's a difference of 2 Loxia lenses! Moreover, I didn't have fun with the X100F, simple as that, it's just not my type of camera. And see point 4: I'm a one-system guy! That put that idea solidly to rest.

2. Must be a joy to use
Best example: the Zeiss Loxia lenses. Smooth-silky focussing, no sideways displacements of the viewfinder image during focussing. You immediately see what the lens is set to, no clever operating mode will disturb that. Image quality is superb too. Yes, even that of the Loxia 2/35. Pixel-peeping at 200 % on my iMac 5K screen will reveal defects but if I just view an image at a full-screen image of 50 x 33 cm I must look carefully for those defects. Mostly the decision to use f/2 is wrong for other reasons, mostly too little depth-of-field.
Is the A7R2 a joy to handle? Errrm... let's say adequate. I could think of a few simple UI changes that would make it way more enjoyable. Some of them are offered in the Mark III successor but I plan to at least hold off until the Mark IV series comes along. Would Fuji for instance offer me a better user experience? Most probably, but you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to give up on 42 MP FF. Point 1, remember?

3. I want my bases covered.
For instance, family is an important part of my life so I want to have the gear to adequately cover a day out. That means I'll keep the native AF zoom lenses, even if they mostly gather dust.

4. I'm a one-system guy.
I have had multiple systems alongside each other on various occasions in the past, the latest iteration being the Panasonic G and Sony E system. I ended up invariably selling off the second system. I just can't bear switching between different camera systems. I admire people that will take a µ4/3 camera one day and a Sony A7R2 the next day.
 
This is the $43 Leica Elmar 9cm F4.

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Elmar 9cm F4 Teardown
by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Advertised on Ebay in "as is", debris in the lens, heavy fog...

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Elmar 9cm F4 Teardown
by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

"What do you look for in gear"... literally in this case... It was black paint that had come from the lens element, used to reduce reflections. Found after popping the front element out with a Suction cup from a "Barbie Sun Catcher" that Nikki had years ago. What looked like a ring fell off the lens when removing it, the black paint had separated from the glass. Use a Black Sharpie marker to touch it up.

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Elmar 9cm F4 (coated) Test
by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

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Elmar 9cm F4 (coated) Test
by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

An hour well spent.
 
10 years ago, I would have had a totally different list. The tech has advanced to the point where they are all pretty good. At this point there are a few broad categories that matter to me.
  1. It has to be engaging to use - This is about the ergonomics, the access to direct controls and the feel of those controls. Since I am a hobbyist, I will often trade absolute image quality for enjoyment.
  2. It needs an effective autofocus system - When it comes to capturing moving subjects, I find poor autofocus kills many more shots than stabilization or almost any other factor.
  3. I have to be willing to carry it around - I sold all my FF gear because I didn't use it anymore because I hated having to lug it around.
I usually have 3 cameras. A compact, a "small" system and a "large" system.
  • I have downsized to the point where Fuji APS-C is my "large" system. It is what I take when I am leaving the house with the primary intent of taking pictures or when I am taking pictures around the house.
  • Olympus m43 is my "small" system. It is what I take when I am travelling with the family. I also use it for telephoto.
  • A Sony rx100 iii is my compact camera. It is what I take when I want something I can stuff in my pocket. It's not very engaging, but I haven't found anything better that fits in my pocket.
 
My main criteria seem to be image quality, handling, video capability, price, and 'fun'. There are thresholds to what I deem minimally acceptable, and sometimes a camera can have a lot of one factor which overrules deficiencies in others.

For example, I carried the Ricoh GRD III as my EDC for a few years. It was always with me regardless of any other camera I had. The image quality was decent enough, but the Canon S90 was smaller and had much better video, and the Canon G10 had a nice zoom range. But I loved the GRD III for the way it operated (user interface), the haptics, and the 'fun' of shooting. It became so much a part of me that I dreamed about shooting with it.

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GRD3 - State Library 1
by Archiver, on Flickr

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GRD III - The Time Traveller IV [explore 2014 05 14]
by Archiver, on Flickr

As another example, the Leica M9 is my favourite camera, despite being 8 year old technology that was probably a few years behind when it was released. The image quality is stellar and has unique aspects which I've been unable to replicate in other cameras. It's manual focus, the image buffer locks up after only 5 or 6 images, and it's a bit too heavy to carry all day, every day. But it's just such a gem of a camera, and I haven't had the same emotional bond with any other.

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M9 + ZM 25/2.8 - The Cullen
by Archiver, on Flickr

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M9 - Valentino
by Archiver, on Flickr

When my Ricoh GR started to pack up, as did my LX7, I looked for an upgrade which would fulfill these criteria. The Panasonic LX10 has reasonable image quality, it's small, has loads of features like flip out screen and a fast lens, and has great video abilities. But unfortunately, it doesn't handle/feel as good as a GRD III or GR, not even like a Canon G10, so I use it because it's functionally good but not because it's haptically satisfying.

Then there's the Sigma DP1. It's slow as molasses and barely usable over ISO 400. It has unrealistic colour shifts and a f4 lens. Battery life is poor, with only about a 120 shots per charge if you are lucky. But it is light, feels nice in the hand, and the files are incredibly rich and satisfying. It's like shooting slide film with a perfectly sharp, distortion free lens. It's small enough for a jacket pocket or corner of a bag, and for some reason, it is FUN.

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DP1 - A Space of Dreaming
by Archiver, on Flickr

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DP1 - The Pinnacles
by Archiver, on Flickr
 
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