I have one of these - Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR Camera. It's a brilliant camera, rugged, packed with features and has very good image quality.

But I'm thinking of selling it and getting one of these - a Sony SLT-A55V. This is a very high tech camera which ditches the traditional optical viewfinder for an electronic one. This has many traditional photographers crossing themselves and reaching for the garlic, but for me it has many plus points.

My eyesight is pretty poor and I often struggle when using optical viewfinders because even on very good cameras like the EOS 50D they aren't particularly bright. This makes it harder for me to judge composition and more importantly focus.

...

My ideal replacement for the 50D would be a Canon EOS 5D Mk II - as I already have some great lenses that would work with it. The 5D is a full frame DSLR with a very large and bright viewfinder - which my eyes would love. But the truth is that's way out of my price range - I don't have £1699 for a new camera¹.

The Sony I linked to above isn't full frame - but it's around £700 and probably of a size that makes it more likely I'd use it regularly. Thanks to the electronic viewfinder it would be a big boost over the viewfinder in my 50D.

The A55's finder is 1.1x in size and has adjustable brightness, meaning I could make it as bright as I need. If I sold my current camera and lenses I could buy one with change to spare. However I'd be losing some really brilliant Canon mount lenses in the process and wouldn't be able to replace in quality on the A55 with the money I have left.

So the alternatives are to stick with the 50D for now (after all I've got some cracking good lenses for it) and just put up with the eyesight issues. Or sell the lot and get the Sony - and replace the lenses with Sony mount versions at a later date. Well the A55 isn't out until October so I've plenty of time to decide.

_{¹I don't actually have ANY money for a new camera.}