They're quite a bit more than that to me. Some of them look so wonderful, they're works of art. Some are so ugly, it hardly matters to me what functions they have. I'm not a rational actor from an economics textbook, I'm a human, with human foibles, and I said upthread, I have a light-tight box with very good lenses that I never use because it gives me little joy.
That's fine to enjoy the looks or have other reasons for buying a camera, but I think it's important to explicitly state and understand that extra money spent on nicer Nikon film bodies will
not result in better images. This may not be immediately clear to those migrating from digital because more expensive digital bodies can sometimes offer better sensor technology, increased dynamic range, etc. that may actually improve image quality.
I do think you're reductively assuming people want the same thing from photography as you, though. Not everybody sees the camera as a box, and a technically excellent image as the goal.
I have neither assumed anything about anyone nor said anything factually incorrect: at its core, the camera
is a device for recording light.
And, when put side by side, the Nikon FM, for instance, will
not record light any better than a Nikon F801, although you will pay 8x more for the privilege to do so with it. You'll pay even more on top of that for cameras such as an FE2 or F100, even though photographs from all these cameras will be 100% indistinguishable.
Knowing this, is the extra expense worth it? I think that's an important point to raise and a good question to ask when considering cameras such as these and helps round out this discussion, which has been predominantly gear based so far. Only each individual purchaser can answer this question for themselves and decide what they want from their camera.
(personally, and I stress this is a personal opinion, I've think I've done better by buying cheap film and cheap processing and home scanning, and spending the difference on books about art, photography, philosophy, and criticism. One day, maybe I'll learn enough to justify the £20-a-roll buy-process-and-scan)
My point was that other things in film photography, such as (but not limited to) good film and scanning can actually improve the resulting image, while a better body cannot. It would be up to each individual to decide whether the gains from better film or lab scans are worth the additional costs (I'm certainly not paying £20 per roll for the record though), just like it's up to them to decide if they have reasons to purchase a more expensive body.
I would say that books on art, philosophy, and photography constitute other worthwhile purchases that would benefit one's photography more than the purchase of a nicer camera body.
)
