I'm reporting my own husband today.His car was hit in the parking lot at work, and because it was caught on security cameras, he was able to get the damage covered by the woman's insurance. (She did not leave a note.)His car is 8 years old so after replacing the car seat, we chose not to repair the cosmetic damage.I told him he should buy a new camera lens and we could invest the rest. Instead of a bumper, he's now the proud owner of a 100-400 mm lens. And invested $15.I think I was thinking more low end when I made the suggestion. 😕
Quote from: iowajes on November 08, 2017, 09:58:34 AMI'm reporting my own husband today.His car was hit in the parking lot at work, and because it was caught on security cameras, he was able to get the damage covered by the woman's insurance. (She did not leave a note.)His car is 8 years old so after replacing the car seat, we chose not to repair the cosmetic damage.I told him he should buy a new camera lens and we could invest the rest. Instead of a bumper, he's now the proud owner of a 100-400 mm lens. And invested $15.I think I was thinking more low end when I made the suggestion. 😕Just make him take on sports shooting or wildlife tourism guide gigs for a positive return on investment.
Cameras are an expensive hobby. Body, glass, tripods, digital storage, backups, weather gear, travel gear.... ad infinitum.
Simple solution: get other people to pay for the gear!(full disclosure: I'm a full time staff video producer)
The best of the breed folks are still talented even without the best gear. All I'm likely to notice as an amateur between "consumer grade" and real "professional grade" is durability. My DW does some amazing things with low end cameras.
Quote from: Just Joe on November 09, 2017, 08:29:28 AMThe best of the breed folks are still talented even without the best gear. All I'm likely to notice as an amateur between "consumer grade" and real "professional grade" is durability. My DW does some amazing things with low end cameras.A sub $1,000 lens is hardly the "best gear". I take shit photos no matter what I'm using. He takes very nice ones with crappy gear and amazing ones with good gear. There is only so much one can do with wildlife photography when you don't have a good telephoto.
Quote from: iowajes on November 09, 2017, 08:37:27 AMQuote from: Just Joe on November 09, 2017, 08:29:28 AMThe best of the breed folks are still talented even without the best gear. All I'm likely to notice as an amateur between "consumer grade" and real "professional grade" is durability. My DW does some amazing things with low end cameras.A sub $1,000 lens is hardly the "best gear". I take shit photos no matter what I'm using. He takes very nice ones with crappy gear and amazing ones with good gear. There is only so much one can do with wildlife photography when you don't have a good telephoto.+1GF takes better photos with her iPhone than I can take with her fancypants camera gear, but she still uses her fancypants camera gear. Once your skills hit a certain point, pros actually are limited by lower-end gear. Most people are not. In fact, plenty of people that buy the fancy cameras don't derive any extra value from them at all. The upside of that is that it means you can find plenty of fancy camera with very low use on the used market. GF's previous camera (5D Mark II) was bought on eBay with about 5k shutter actuations, and she was able to put another 270k actuations on it in 2.5 years before upgrading to a Mark IV (and keeping the still-functional Mark II as backup).
Quote from: ketchup on November 09, 2017, 08:49:06 AMQuote from: iowajes on November 09, 2017, 08:37:27 AMQuote from: Just Joe on November 09, 2017, 08:29:28 AMThe best of the breed folks are still talented even without the best gear. All I'm likely to notice as an amateur between "consumer grade" and real "professional grade" is durability. My DW does some amazing things with low end cameras.A sub $1,000 lens is hardly the "best gear". I take shit photos no matter what I'm using. He takes very nice ones with crappy gear and amazing ones with good gear. There is only so much one can do with wildlife photography when you don't have a good telephoto.+1GF takes better photos with her iPhone than I can take with her fancypants camera gear, but she still uses her fancypants camera gear. Once your skills hit a certain point, pros actually are limited by lower-end gear. Most people are not. In fact, plenty of people that buy the fancy cameras don't derive any extra value from them at all. The upside of that is that it means you can find plenty of fancy camera with very low use on the used market. GF's previous camera (5D Mark II) was bought on eBay with about 5k shutter actuations, and she was able to put another 270k actuations on it in 2.5 years before upgrading to a Mark IV (and keeping the still-functional Mark II as backup).The same can be said of musical instruments.
Turns out he thought he was one of those assholes who buys ridiculously priced gear and then shoots on green square instead of learning how to use it. (me- I'm a big fan of green square. But mostly, I stay away from his cameras.)
Quote from: iowajes on November 09, 2017, 09:22:20 AMTurns out he thought he was one of those assholes who buys ridiculously priced gear and then shoots on green square instead of learning how to use it. (me- I'm a big fan of green square. But mostly, I stay away from his cameras.)There really is a shocking amount of that. My favorite was when I witnessed a (very well-dressed) guy taking a photo with a fancy DSLR, of a mountain 20 miles away, with the flash, through a glass train window. >__>
Quote from: iowajes on November 09, 2017, 09:22:20 AMTurns out he thought he was one of those assholes who buys ridiculously priced gear and then shoots on green square instead of learning how to use it. (me- I'm a big fan of green square. But mostly, I stay away from his cameras.)This is really common. I'm totally guilty of it myself. I also get salty about paying for school pictures when it's clearly someone's SAHP side-gig using some basic umbrellas, a Canon Rebel and $500 worth of backdrops.Any time someone starts talking about photo/video gear, I kind of just smile and nod politely. The pro photo community is super insular/cliquey, even amongst the different varieties of shooters.
Could've done worse. High end lenses usually hold their value pretty well. I've scored some pretty sweet lenses on eBay/used classifieds that are all currently worth more than what I paid. Obviously you have opportunity costs with money tied up in lenses but he could've done worse things with that windfall.
Quote from: ketchup on November 09, 2017, 09:34:00 AMQuote from: iowajes on November 09, 2017, 09:22:20 AMTurns out he thought he was one of those assholes who buys ridiculously priced gear and then shoots on green square instead of learning how to use it. (me- I'm a big fan of green square. But mostly, I stay away from his cameras.)There really is a shocking amount of that. My favorite was when I witnessed a (very well-dressed) guy taking a photo with a fancy DSLR, of a mountain 20 miles away, with the flash, through a glass train window. >__>Denali?
Quote from: NoStacheOhio on November 09, 2017, 09:31:25 AMQuote from: iowajes on November 09, 2017, 09:22:20 AMTurns out he thought he was one of those assholes who buys ridiculously priced gear and then shoots on green square instead of learning how to use it. (me- I'm a big fan of green square. But mostly, I stay away from his cameras.)This is really common. I'm totally guilty of it myself. I also get salty about paying for school pictures when it's clearly someone's SAHP side-gig using some basic umbrellas, a Canon Rebel and $500 worth of backdrops.Any time someone starts talking about photo/video gear, I kind of just smile and nod politely. The pro photo community is super insular/cliquey, even amongst the different varieties of shooters.I was apparently the only Mom at the preschool to not buy a photo of my infant. The ones I have from home are better. Though we maybe want to look into some backdrops. Now that she's sitting up we need a bigger blanket, and annoyingly we didn't iron it the last time!I am going to assume the umbrellas we now have are "basic" though.
Quote from: ketchup on November 09, 2017, 09:34:00 AMQuote from: iowajes on November 09, 2017, 09:22:20 AMTurns out he thought he was one of those assholes who buys ridiculously priced gear and then shoots on green square instead of learning how to use it. (me- I'm a big fan of green square. But mostly, I stay away from his cameras.)There really is a shocking amount of that. My favorite was when I witnessed a (very well-dressed) guy taking a photo with a fancy DSLR, of a mountain 20 miles away, with the flash, through a glass train window. >__>When we were in the Galapagos, we had people on our (ridiculously spendy-pants) cruise with cameras that cost 2-3x what his did straight out of the box asking him how to use them. Uh...sorry, too late to help with that.Would have done better with a point and shoot. At least it wouldn't have been so heavy.I think his biggest disappointment is that housings for the DSLR are just too expensive to justify for scuba diving, since we do so little. So we found a point and shoot that at least shoots in RAW.
"Waterproof" consumer grade cameras are worthless in my experience. I've had two of them fail during snorkeling. At best, they can withstand some rain or splashing.