Thanks for your input Daniel, everyone else too.


To keep the golf analogy going and explain why I think the 5DmkII is reasonable even for a person who is relatively new:


3 summers ago I took up golf because the guys and I realized we can't play basketball forever (I'm approaching the wrong side of my 30s). Most of the guys I golf with have been at it for years. I immediately spent about $500 on a set of golf clubs off the rack which were designed for beginners and had a lot of forgiveness built in and proceeded to hack my way around the course scoring what a hack usually would score - not good. The next spring I decided to get properly fitted for clubs and spent close to $3000 on clubs designed for much better players. These clubs are not unlike what the pros or at least club pros use. The clubs were not very forgiving at all and a slight mis-hit resulted in lots of yards lost - but there was much better feel. Some would say I was nuts to move to the tougher to hit clubs. Needless to say, my 1st round with my new clubs was terrible - scored several shots worse than my avg. but I started to understand what I was doing wrong because the better clubs provided better feel and instant feedback when the club struck the ball. By the end of my 2nd summer, I improved my scoring by an avg of 15 shots. By the end of this past summer, I improved another 10 strokes. Using the better clubs was a step back at 1st, but allowed me to feel what I was doing wrong, make adjustments and improvements and now that I have put in the practice time and gotten some lessons, I can do more with the ball (control ball flight and trajectory) than I could have had I stayed with the clubs that I started with.


I know what you might think 1) I just sucked that bad at golf that I had nowhere to go but improve my golf score and 2) It was the lessons not the equipment


Well I score in the 80s in golf now so if you follow the sport - that's not bad and the lessons? Yes the single best expenditure in golf was lessons but the equipment certainly helped a lot. My golf shots have so much more variety because I have the more difficult to hit clubs vs the forgiving clubs. I can now make shots I simply could not have with the old clubs - regardless of skill or practice. That is my thought process behind getting a better camera - Yes there will be struggles and poor pictures. The hope is that I will eventually be able to take pictures I otherwise would not be able to without the more advanced equipment.


Hope that explains a bit.