Denise


To go backwards to a 50D (downgrade your equipment) will not help and as pointed out replacing your batteries and CF cards will a hidden cost.
Try not to make any drastic or impulsive changes in your life, these never help.
Do not limit yourself to what you have done before (work that is), broaden your horizons. Whenever you change job you must always look to reinvent yourself because you now have more skills and experiences to offer.


Neuro


Thank you for correcting the design date of the 7D, I was working from memory (now close to the design life).


All


My reason for buying equipment like lenses and bodies when they are first released is not a technology issue but design life. I know a number of colleagues who have had issues with camera parts failing (shutters and apertures). While none of these where Canon (Sigma, Tokina and Nikon) you should always take this into account when thinking about buying both new and secondhand. While my camera (350D) doesn't have a shutter counter it has a design life of 50K. As I have over 25K keepers and considering how bad a photographer I am, that can be multiplied by 3 as a minimum. I have taken 2K shots of one bird only to keep <20 (taxidermy was invented for photographers who try to shoot a Superb Fairy Wren).


As for the price dropping when the new version is announced, I’m in Australia, where the prices drops on the old version before the new one is announced and then increased afterwards. I brought me 70-300L in July for $1,830 so as the exchange rate improved (both for USD and Yen) the price should be going down, wrong it’s now almost $2,000.


My purpose in providing the link to CR was the Canon CPS event on the 18th (this is not a rumor), not to provide any credibility to anything else on this site. What this site is good at is providing one source of Canon news around the world as well as Patent filing info. Canon have posted a number of patents for the 24-70 and lately a 100-400. If Canon are releasing an upgrade the patent comes out before the lens, if they are releasing something new, the Patent is released after the lens is announced (200-400 1.4TC).


The problems for Canon are not just the issue of direct damage from the Tsunami but its impact on Canons suppliers and infrastructure. Canon is still months behind on new product production and we should cut them a lot of slack when it comes to product announcements. If I remember correctly this one coming on the 18th will be the first since the tragedy. So there may be something new that impacts their product line and 7 days is not long to wait.