Buy the camera, not the badge. A man paid $2,000 for a compact whose shutter controller died eleven months later. No replacement part exists. The lens is still perfect and it will never take another photograph. This is the map that stops that happening to you — 51 pages, 130+ exact models, dated August 2026 price ranges, and the honest catch on every single pick. Twelve parts, including the one nobody else writes: the parts-extinction hall — nineteen failure modes each ranked routine, terminal risk or terminal, so you know which repair is a bill and which is a funeral. Plus the buy-it-for-life list, the brand map, the investment shelf, three complete kits at three budgets, and three printable field cards. No sponsors. No affiliate links. Nobody paid to be in it — which is exactly why several famous names are listed as things to walk past. 30-day money-back guarantee.