History of cameras used (a love story)
Pentax K1000
First 'learning' camera, this is the one I made all kinds of mistakes on, along with failed experiments. But I started finding direction. Used 35mm film, with slightly wide-angle 35mm lens
Canon AE1
Better camera operationally. Took 35mm film, with 35mm lens. Slightly wider and more useful lens than the standard. I made a lot fewer mistakes with this one and began focussing more on landscape.
Minox 35EL
A miniature camera with 4-element retractable lens, fits in a pocket. Fairly wide lens too, I had a lot of fun with this. I learned how much I like spontaneity, and I still am like that even with the larger cameras I use. I try to be free with my points of view.
Mamiya RB67
This was a fully professional camera that had a waist-level viewfinder, my main camera for many years. The camera back was removable so that you could have preloaded backs for in the field. The film was 120mm, much larger than 35mm. It captured about 8 times more detail. The back held 12 frames in a roll, so that trained me to shoot carefully and sparingly. The film was much more expensive to have developed. I eventually just developed my own. I used this for over 40 years, pretty much wore it out. I had only 2 lenses, a standard 90mm and a longer 180mm.
The Chromega enlarger to the right is what I used to enlarge the negatives from the RB. It was a sad day when the enlarger finally broke down after 40 years. The Durst print machine to the right of all that was my color print processor. It finally broke down also after all that time, along with my camera. All of my prints that I sold for 40 years were made with this trio and I miss them.
Widelux panorama camera
This was a fully mechanical spring-loaded camera with a lens that spun through 165 degrees when you pressed the shutter release. The lens was moderately wide-angle so a person could capture nearly 180 degrees of landscape. It took a full roll of 35mm film. I practiced many panorama photographs using this. It was lightweight too, and I grew to love its character. Very freefrom.
I traded this camera off for an originally Russian design, the Horizon 202 panorama camera that did almost exactly the same thing. The horizon turned out to give almost identical results, It was a sleeker design overall. These two cameras were normally used handheld, therefore the images were free-style and tended to be quite creative. Prints cannot be much larger than 20 inches, although improved printing techniques today could extend that.
Noblex panorama camera
The design for this camera can be traced back to Carl Zeiss. It began manufacture in 1992 at the German Kamera Werk Dresden. I owned the 120mm film version. It was sharper and the images could be enlarged much further. I used this for panoramas for an entire year, gaining much experience in how and what to try to capture. This camera was larger, and one wanted to have the sharpest image, so I generally used a tripod and shutter release with each shot. That enabled me to photograph in low light.
Mamiya C220
Leftmost camera: a Rolleiflex twin-lens. I had this for quite a while but only used it for special occasion where a light quiet camera was needed. Mostly I rented it out to painters who needed to make reference photos. It was easy for them to use, but I liked my RB67 for field work.
Rightmost camera: a twin-lens view camera, the Mamiya C220, that I had for awhile but had to have repaired. Once that ws done I started using but by that time I was forced to go to digital.
I really loved how completely quiet both of these cameras were. Pressing the shutter release took little force or movement, and there was no flip-up mirror to make a big noise . Very accurate cameras too, with the larger 120mm film and sizeable viewfinder.
The Rollei was fully automatic, the Mamiya was completely manual.
Finally, although the camera tale may not yet end, I was forced by the marketplace to move into digital. Supplies in all areas, from film availability, to processing equipment and materials, were all disappearing. I had to begin all over with a Canon 5d MkII 24mpx digital camera, and a digital darkroom instead of chemical processes.
Canon 5d MkII 24mpx digital camera
This is a full-frame digital camera, now my main camera. I purchased it in 1994 along with a 24-105mm zoom lens. 24mm in full-frame is the same as 18mm in a normal crop frame digital camera, so it was quite good at wide-angled shots. Over the course of 1 1/2 years I learned to take panoramas with this setup,. I did that along with learning to use a digital panorama printer. Many mistakes, much loss of materials through failed images, and finally i was functioning completely and to my satisfaction. 
Because I see abuse in the marketplace from part-time photographers, I need to stress that at no time did I cheap out with lower-grade inks or printers as I see others do. (I am full-time and full-on) Instead I went for the best professional printing equipment from the very beginning years ago. I have no regrets for doing that. The extra expense was worth it, for high quality archival images, and peace of mind.
I myself have not seen the need to upgrade the camera itself, but with printers I have indeed kept upgrading every few years as new technology becomes available that will make even better prints.
Print sizes:
With negatives from 35mm color film cameras I was able to print to 11 x 14 inches or a bit larger sometimes.
With negatives from 120mm color film cameras I would typically print to 20 x 24 inches, although I could have easily gone larger. My print processor could only go to 16 inches wide, and I rented a local pro lab to print 20x24 inch work.
With images from the digital Canon 5d I can easily print to 7 feet long, and I have done 10 feet long. The installtiion I have at the Gasoline Alley Farmers Market in Red Deer County is a full7 ft high by 39 ft long. It is a quality wallpaper image on the upper southwest wall that looks perfectly fine at those dimensions. Does not seem possible, but there is no evident loss of anything at all.