My advice: never buy any camera because "it's cheap". Of course price is a factor, but it should not be the main determining factor. Because to buy the wrong camera, and then switch later, you'll pay dearly, which eliminates the whole basic premise. There are many factors: which camera feels best in your hands; which lenses render the way you like; which software workflow you relate to; on and on and on. And once you get knee deep into workflow, the tiny savings either way become a moot point. Best to demo a camera in your own shooting style, and do not get in a hurry to purchase. Buy once, and buy right.
I agree with the not cheap part, but I doubt if the user experience of an hd 31 vs a hd 40 is that much of a difference in function and look.
If you are positive your gonna keep (and use) a camera for 5 years (and turn a profit with the camera) then buy what you exactly want, even if it's the latest model, but if your gonna get a bug and turn it in on something else in a few years then remember expensive stuff usually depreciates faster than the less expensive stuff.
I looked at your link and since you shoot most everything with what appears to be open faced flash, or a lot of strobe, then the differences between a 31mpx camera and a 40 mpx camera are not gonna show in print, except maybe for moire and if you are moving to fashion* you will see pattern moire in all of the non aa filtered cameras.
You may not see it for a week, a month, even a year but when it comes, brother it's gonna come.
Just a note of experience. Did you ever see those trailers for end of the world movies? You know where New York is being attacked and everyone is stomping over each other at full speed to get out of the way of the monster storm, or the alien space ship that's flattening Manhattan? Well freeze frame that visual cause that's the way we used to buy the latest digital backs and cameras.
We'd go on waiting lists to get the latest and greatest, calling our dealers with the secret handshake code to make sure we were the first in line.
Now it's the opposite. That freeze frame is the way we now work in 2010.
200 mph, location, to location, to location, to studio in a day, so just make sure your camera is reliable, the software simple and nuthin' slows you up.
BC
P.S. For commerce I don't think there is a spitting difference for any of these digital cameras. 22, 31, 40, 60 mpx, may put a bulge in your pants but it don't change what the photo looks like.
But stepping away from commerce and looking at why we became photographers in the first place, if there was a "digital" camera that would do this, then maybe I'd write a new check.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RSknnxOalsP.S.S.
I'd love for the world to get back to the Sarah Moon video, or just back to 2007 where we didn't have a gazilion setups a day, but blame digital, blame the economy, blame Steve Jobs, blame AIG, it don't matter cause I don't think the world is going to step backwards.
I'd love for it to be that nobody could really see the final image until we delivered something by hand. With all the angst labs and film produced there was still something magical and deeply personal in seeing the results hours or days later.
Now it's not as personal because everybody is staring into that damn 30" electric polaroid.
I love photography, learned to do the biz, learned to adapt and keep going forward, but you gotta be realistic about everything you do, every resource you put into your career and time is as big a resource as money.
There is a reason that faster cameras are used more and more and it's not just my time, or the AD's time, or the client's time, it's everybody. The world is now compressed. If a 4 day shoot will fit on a 500 gig portable drive you save yourself a world of hurt down the line.
If someone steps on a firewire cord or the computer goes silly, having a real 900,000 pixel lcd with a real processed preview can save your bacon.
Look at the interest in the Pentax. Why, when at 9 grand you can buy a blad for 10 grand? I think the main reason is (beyond the money) functionality and it has features that photographers have begged for in medium format for years.
It's not a tale of whoa, or a sky is falling philosophy, it's just the fact that for still cameras of any format to be high on the list they either have to produce some kind of look that no other camera does, or they have to be dead on perfect at nearly everything.
It doesn't mean that a blad, a phase or a leaf isn't good. In the right setting they are very good. It just means you gotta use something that will allow you to clear the day intact, on time and on budget, because anything over budget becomes your money.
If the photograph is beautiful, I'll spend my money, but on the photograph, nothing else.
Now with all this logic I try to spout, the real truth is I still own my contax' and two backs and probably will never sell em. I like em, actually love em, and though they're slow, eat batteries, take two chargers, have a tiny dark viewfinder, an lcd that makes an armpit warmed polaroid look detailed, I still love the damn things and sometimes I gotta tell myself using what I love is a lot more important than anything. else.
So if you love a blad, go for it. Do it today, get it over with and go make beautiful images.
IMO.