Camera Lust....

I love to take pictures. I was bitten by the photo bug years ago, and never really got over it. As any good photo-geek should, I've got more than a couple of cameras (an old 35mm Canon T-series, a Mamiya C220 Medium Format, and a Canon EOS 20D, among others), and as all good photo-geeks know, you can never have too many or one with enough buttons. I sold my old Canon EOS Elan 7 a few months back because it hadn't been used in a couple of years. Before that I used to use an old Canon AE-1 which I loved dearly. I almost hated parting with those cameras, but since I wasn't using them, it was time for someone else to give them a new life. Now that my 20D is getting on up there in years, it's about time to start looking for a replacement for it as well. I can't really say too many bad things about my 20D. When I bought it about 4 1/2 years ago, it was the highest-rated prosumer (I hate that marketing term) Digital SLR's on the market, and seeing how I had some nice lenses from the Elan it was a logical choice. Since then, I've taken nearly 14,000 photos with it and it has never once let me down (the majority of the pics in the photo gallery were taken with it). Newer cameras now outperform mine by quite a factor, and the choices for a replacement are about endless. Nikon has a ton of models which are crazy-good,(me likes the D90, but since I've already got some nice lenses and a nice strobe, I'll probably stick with Canon. I've never been a fan of Sony but they've gotten much better since buying out KonicaMinolta's camera business. Canon has both the EOS 40D and EOS 50D out, and both are pretty attractive to me. I really like the EOS 5D Mark II but can not justify spending $2700 on it (although thinking of it with a nice L-series lens does make me drool....). The 50D is 15.1MP, and from scouring around the web appears to be a great camera (although many say it doesn't do as well at high-ISO as others) but at the limit of what an APS-C sized sensor can do). The 40D is an excellent camera from all counts as well, but I think that I like the 50D better as it has some better features. My birthday is coming up -- anyone want to buy me one? I won't complain about the EOS-1Ds Mark III either....;o)