Camera Confusion

So.  I got this new job writing and taking photos for a magazine.  It's brilliant.  I love it.  It gets me out of the house and going new places.  I meet new people and get to escape the kids for a while (!)  For example on Saturday afternoon I tripped off all the way down to Fish Creek in South Gippsland to interview a lovely couple at Amber Creek Farm and Sawmill, where they have paddock raised pork and a sawmill producing quality timber.  I took off in my husband's ute (which is fun in itself), and yelling "Weeeeeeee" out the window....I buggered off for the afternoon. 



Amber Creek Farm and Sawmill, Fish Creek, South Gippsland

 



The only thing is that I know that I am taking photos with a camera that is a little, well, old.  It's a Canon 350 D, I got it almost 10 years ago, and get this....it is 8 megapixels!  Ha!  In a world where your phone now has more megapixels than this trusty old camera of mine, for magazine work it isn't really going to cut the mustard.  It actually does take brilliant photos.  There is certainly nothing wrong with the quality and I've even had a full two page spread of a single photo published in a magazine.  The photo came up great.  It's just that I feel a little unprofessional and know that my editing process is limited by using this camera.  It is kind of amusing, as I have gone into two different shops to talk to the assistants about cameras and both of them hadn't even heard of my camera model.  Actually they both made me feel old by stating "Wow, that was before my time."  Grrrrr.   They kind of make me feel that I've gone out into my back garden and dug up a fossil then proceeded to traipse around and record images on it.



So this is where I come to the confusing part.  What camera do I buy???  There are so many out there.  What I do know is that I definitely want another Canon and I also want something that is for more of the semi-professional photographer.  (I've seen the 'professional' cameras and they are well beyond my budget).  I do keep coming back to the Canon 70 D and I have had a look at it.  It is a lot heavier than my current piece of equipment and it looks 10 times more confusing to use with all the buttons, bits and bobs.  The LCD screen is enormous, which would be lovely when checking out shots immediately (unlike mine), and it does have a video camera, although I know this will just serve to confuse me even more because I am, frankly, a bit of techno bimbo.  I do figure these things out eventually but try and explain it to me, and my brain just switches off. 



Camera still works fine!  Late afternoon shot, sun starting to disappear.

 



This camera has 20 megapixels (wow!?!), which to me sounds amazing because, as I said, I'm technologically impaired, and you can buy it with a lens that is more capable than mine.  Still, this does not mean that I am decided on what camera to buy.  Why is this so difficult??  Perhaps because it's a lot of money to spend, or maybe because I know that it will likely be another 10 years before I can update again.