Most of my gear is getting old and some of my lenses have been repaired only to fail a few months later. I have been holding back for quite some time partly because the outlets where I used to sell images have become very crafty on how they get images for free these days (competitions). The small amounts of work I have had through news story coverage and tourism have mainly come from compacts and gopro's, it seems that most magazines don't have the budget and by standing your ground with a fixed price now means you don't get a sale at all.

I joined a camera club so that my two keen young daughters can come along to learn from different guest speakers. At first my girls were sort of looked down at as they use compacts but now that my eldest GBP (a member on here) won highest point score for 2013 as well as image of the year using compacts now half the club seem to have the same camera as her. Two weeks ago she had an image on the front of Herald and also has the front cover of the quarterly Brink UTS paper, all taken with compacts. I hear people comparing cameras iq etc, so last night at camera club with a very highly ranked guest speaker my daughter entered an image of a herons head to see if it would be noticed that it was from a powershot compact. The picture did very well with comments on how you could see every detail in all the feathers etc and came second in the competition.

So if compacts are constantly improving and so easy to carry at all times as well as many being shock and waterproof is it really worth investing in expensive new gear.
Jon