I've been lurking here for about 4 months. This thread finally tempted me to make my first post
I've been shooting film since I was about 10, like many here I'd guess. In 1991 I bought an EOS 10S, and I was still actively using it when I finally took the plunge into digital and bought a 5D2 a couple months back. I've had to replace the shutter on the 10S once for around $150, but other than that it has been absolutely 100% reliable.
As an amateur shooting maybe 20-30 rolls of slide film annually, my costs were low enough that I found it hard to justify the leap to digital, especially since I really wanted to stick with FF. For a long time I made do with inexpensive lenses but in recent years I gradually started to invest in some decent glass (within a somewhat limited budget, so sticking to the cheaper L lenses). I didn't want to have to start over with EF-S lenses.
What finally convinced me to get the 5D2 was that I was looking at investing in a new L lens, and had settled on the 24-105 F4L. I realized that if I bought it as part of the 5D2 kit that effectively meant I was getting the 5D2 body for about $1800 (lucky I pulled the trigger before the price went back up). That's equivalent to about 3 years of film costs for me, and that was enough to overcome my fear of owning a worthless outdated body when the new version came out
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I certainly don't see may people keeping a 5D for 20 years and not feeling the need to upgrade, like I was able to do with the 10S
So now I have taken a couple thousand pics on the 5D2 and I'm still learning how to get the best out of it. I really love this camera (and the kit lens too), but it is clear that it will take some time for me to adapt to the digital paradigm. Yeah, it is great that I can shoot thousands of frames without any film costs, and I'm trying to take advantage of that to learn how to take better pictures. But oddly, the ability to see the shot right away instead of waiting a couple weeks for developing, I find is actually not as liberating as I thought. Yes, I can check that it is sharp, composed and exposed right, but I actually find myself spending too much time second guessing, trying to get the perfect shot when with film I would shoot two or three frames and forget it. Either I got the shot or I didn't, but I worry about that later. I guess this will become less of a problem as I get the camera set up for the way I shoot and get used to it.
The relevant question here is will I continue to shoot film? I think I might, after the honeymoon period with the 5D2, but only for certain subjects. There really is something about film that digital can't quite match, even though it has come a long way and surpasses 35mm in many respects. I also have a pretty comprehensive selection of Bronica ETRSi equipment which I have made far too little use of. I may decide to use that for my film shooting and the 5D2 otherwise. I have a good selection of macro gear for the Bronica and would like to give it a proper try.
