Mike Johnston, who used to write on his own website, The Online Photographer, now writing under that name at Patreon:
What is the camera you're happiest you bought, and which is the camera you most regret buying?
I loved thinking about this. It's hard to name one camera on either end of the spectrum, honestly, and probably the hardest on the "regret" end of things. But in the end, it's my Sony RX100Ⅴ. I can't say I hate—or even really dislike—it, which would be much more interesting. Instead, I'm almost completely apathetic about it. Looking at my Lightroom catalog, it appears it's only taken 315 photos since I bought it in 2018. Only one of them is something I'd consider a favorite, although I do quite like that image. I bought it to have something small and easy to carry around with while biking, as well as something to give my daughter to shoot with on vacation. In reality, if I'm going to bring a non-phone camera, I'm bringing a different one. And my daughter can't be bothered to use anything but her phone. So, it sits in a drawer unused. I really should sell it.
There were others I'd consider regrettable, I suppose. I briefly owned a Canon digital camera, which was fine, but I didn't love, and it was an expensive dalliance. I also briefly owned a Fuji X100 that I didn't gel with. That said, I made a photo with each of those cameras that I'd consider favorites.
As far as the camera I'm the happiest I bought, I have several contenders. I love my current Leica Q2, and the Nikon D700 is also right up there. I had a great time experimenting with the Nikon V1, which I wrote about quite a bit on this blog at the time. I made a favorite picture of my Grandpap with it, as he was looking at a photo book I had made for him.
That said, I think if I have to pick one, I'd have to settle on the Nikon N90s, my first Nikon. That, the 28mm ƒ/2.8 lens I bought with it, and the 70–200 ƒ/2.8 I picked up later really got me going for quite a while. Unfortunately, many of my favorite photos from that camera were stolen before I got a film scanner, or were never scanned. Still, I loved shooting with it, and I might still be shooting with Nikon if they'd taken competing in the digital realm seriously sooner. They're making good stuff again, but once I sold off my lenses, I decided I wouldn't go back.