The correlation being that older cameras that are still working and performing well, may indicate they were built of a high quality. The OP asked about older cameras still being used regularly, not just old cameras.
All of my film cameras are long gone, but I still have my first good digital camera, a Sony Mavica MVC-FD98 a 2.1 Megapixel camera and I do still use it, but only a few times a year. I had to buy a USB external 3 1/2" floppy disk reader in order to keep using it, to continue to download my photos, but this was my first good digital camera, bought about this time of year back in 2000. The quality has always been quite good.The attached photo was taken in 2000 and is straight from the camera with no editing at all.
I don’t keep cameras all THAT long, though I do tend to use them for a decent period rather than upgrading every year or two.
Several of my old cameras are still in use by others — notably my sons, who like to shoot film. I’m pretty sure that they still have my old Pentax ME and/or my old Pentax MX. One of them also has the old Rollei 35 that I inherited from my father.
On a more contemporary matter… I still use my Canon 5DsR (introduced almost 11 1/2 years ago) as my primary landscape camera system, and it still works beautifully for that… and a few other things. I’m getting to the point where I plan to replace it soon (this year), but it will continue to work fine well into the future… in some else’s hands.
