I shoot with a Canon 80d. I replaced a Canon 5DMark4 with it, when that one died on my about 7 years ago. I was more than impressed with it, I shot over 126,000 shots with it, then the mirror started acting up and wouldn't open all the way. Canon wanted over $1000 to repair it, so I retired it and bought the 80d instead. It's a crop sensor camera, but it still takes my full frame lenses. I've been saving for a new Canon R5, but it has a $3500 price tag on it.
I started taking photos when I was in high school. My first camera was a Pentax K100 that my uncle gave me. We were shooting on film then, of course. I spent most of my high school journalism career winding bulk film into canisters and developing film and exposing photo paper in a real dark room. My senior year in high school, my parents gifted me a new Canon Rebel film camera, I was in heaven. I have no idea how many exposures I took with that camera, but it traveled with me throughout the rest of my high school, college and trade school career. Sadly, that camera was ruined when I was camping in Arches National Park and a freak thunderstorm washed our camp about two miles down a gully. I went without a camera for over a year while I saved up to buy a new digital camera. The canon 40d had come out, but I by then I was married and had a little one on the way. I came across a guy selling his 30d for $400, along with a couple of lenses. I sold a couple of black powder revolvers I had to come up with enough dough to buy it. That 30d was a decent camera, but the technology in it quickly became obsolete. Fate was smiling on me a couple of years later when I happened to be in a local camera shop in Omaha, looking at the new 6D full frame cameras that had just come out. They were expensive, like $4000 for just the body. I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who was a wedding photographer and had come in to buy a 6D. He was going to trade in his 5d Mk4 for it, but the camera shop was only going to give him $500 for it. I offered him $600. He sold it to me, and then I had to explain to my wife why I took $600 out of our savings account.... she wasn't all that pleased with me. The funny thing is that after I started taking photos with it of our kids, she remarked how much nicer the photos were. Ebay turned into a great resource for me, I was able to buy several really nice lenses on there for a fraction of what new cost.
My dad is a big photography hobbyist as well, and he has always been a great resource for me to learn from. He shoots on Nikons, but he also drives Chevys and I drive Fords...
