Mike Johnston recently wrote an interesting article about choosing to use one camera, and one lens, for one year. It’s a fascinating exercise, and I wish its participants well, but I’m not joining in. Not yet, anyway.

I have two particular quibbles. One is that I have a lot of cameras: if the power goes out in my apartment, I can keep myself warm with the heat generated by their depreciation. I typically buy more than one camera per year, so using only one for an entire year is a particularly bad investment. And yes, I realize that curbing profligacy is part of the point, but that leads me to my second quibble.

I don’t yet see a single digital camera that’s worthy of the attention that the exercise would give it. Film cameras are mature designs and last forever; digital cameras are still figuring out how to make viewfinders and where to put all the buttons. Bonding with a specific tool is fine, but I’m going to save monogamy for the long-term relationships that matter.