Today, I ran into a fellow photographer who ALSO paid a ton of money for a digital camera a number of years ago. He has the SONY DSC-F707 (5 megapixel camera) and was looking for advice on whether to keep it or get one of the 'new' cameras. The Carl Zeiss lens on his camera made me tell him no! No, keep it - it's the sharpest optical glass on the planet - and any 8,10 or 12 megapixel camera produced today wouldn't compete with the sharpness and resolution of that lens. The glass itself on the camera is about 1 inch in diameter - and it's in the lens that the image is first created.
He laughed at my answer - and told me that he had made a 15 x 30 (foot) image for the side of a truck with that camera - with that lens!
Him trading in or giving up on this camera for the luxury of saying "I have one of the new ones" isn't even close to being worth it. He'll get many more years of professional use out of this camera. The design is unique - it's the best optical glass made, and the lens ISN'T only about 4mm in diameter, like on the 'new' technology cameras.
He paid $1400 for it when it came out, but the quality of the images has been worth it!
