where were we? ah, yes. i was spilling guts about one of my greatest weaknesses: my gear lust. and i was about to get to the crux of the point when i realized that the backstory had eclipsed the original purpose. and even now, i think more explanation is needed. in order to truly understand the magnitude of the problem, i need to lay it all out there.
before i get into it, i realized after posting the first post in this series that my timeline was a bit off, so i should rewind. sometime last year, i started to notice what looked like scratches on my photos, and i was convinced that these were a product of the scratches on my lens because i kept losing my lens caps on the road. as it turns out, what i was seeing was dust on my sensor, and i was able to get rid of it using a senor cleaning kit. i don’t know how much it cost since i bought it in store, but it wasn’t expensive, and honestly it’s something i didn’t realize i should have had anyway. but kudos to canon’s built-in sensor cleaning kit for successfully managing debris for four and a half years before finally meeting its match in the form of a formidable stray eyelash.
but i digress. earlier this year, my wife and i decided to take a trip to iceland, and one of the things we were most looking forward to on the trip was seeing the northern lights. given that at the time i was convinced it was time to replace my lens, and that i really, really, really wanted to take a picture of aurora borealis, i started to look into new lenses. so that’s really where it all began.
i eventually landed on the sigma 20mm f/1.4 art lens, and i bought a used copy from adorama about a week prior to our trip. it had some issues with what astrophotographers call “coma” which essentially means that stars on the edge of the frame get stretched out a bit, but i figured with 20mm to work with, i could always crop that out.
well, two things happened in iceland. first, i realized that i am not a big fan of prime lenses. i had gotten so used to using a pull-focus technique (zooming all the way in, focusing on the subject, and then zooming out to frame while holding focus), and i was not impressed with the need to use live view zoomed in digitally 10x to nail my focus. seriously, who’s got time for that? the second thing that happened was that we never saw the northern lights. so i basically spent $860 on a new lens that was really too heavy to be a travel lens, not versatile enough to be a travel lens, and to be completely honest, not even very well-suited to astrophotography, which was kind of the reason i bought it in the first place. so i returned it. thankfully, adorama is pretty cool about returns and took it back no questions.
but as a result of that purchase, i now had $860 to spend at adorama from in-store credit (i used the adorama credit card to purchase the lens since they offer no interest financing on purchases over $500), and i was still feeling a pull to get a new lens. at the time, i was gravitating toward the canon 70-200mm f/4 image-stabilized lens, and adorama had a decent used copy of that lens listed as in stock, so i initiated the return. but this was during sukkot, and adorama didn’t get my order for almost two weeks, and by the time they did, that lens was gone. i’m actually really glad about that, because as great as canon’s glass is, i don’t think i’ll ever be a fan of their bright yellowish white telephoto lenses from an aesthetic standpoint.
to rant a bit about that, first of all, gross. they’re just plain ugly. second, they’re like a beacon for anyone who might be prone to snatching a camera in the seedier areas of the world. might as well just wear a neon sign that says “my camera is super expensive and you’ll make more by selling this than you’ve probably made all year on nabbing travel wallets from hippies.”
ok back on topic. so in the interim, while i was waiting for my telephoto lens to ship out, wifey and i went camping in new hampshire, and as i said in my last post, that’s when i broke my canon 24-105mm f/4 lens. had that not happened, i might have just bought a new telephoto lens and not spiraled down the drain of gear lust as i have over the last couple of months. so how bad is it? well, let’s just take a tally of how much i’ve spent on new camera gear since, let’s say, august this year, when it all began, and you tell me.
tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4: $652.16
canon 50mm f/1.8 STM: $136.09
tamron 70-210mm: $795.82
sekonic flash meter: $163.75
cowboystudio remote flash: $19
yongnuo 560 flash: $60
neweer softbox: $34.99
glow handheld speedlight:/softbox grip: $10.89
light reflector: $10.99
flashpoint stands (9.5’ and 13’): $31.57
LED string lights: $7
Rogue Flash Gels: $33
tamron TAP-in console: $54.44
peak design L-2 leash: $37.95
peak design capture POV: $43.60
peak design eos lens kit: $45.73
peak design micro plate: $21.72
kenko macro extension tubes: $79.00
lexar 32GB compact flash card: $56.00
squarespace website (12 months): $129.60
thumbtack lead generation fees: $64.60
godaddy domain registration: $27.33
eBay selling fees: $8.50
ok, so obviously some of this stuff isn’t gear. but if you want to be a hired photographer, you need to have a professional portfolio website, and thumbtack has been a pretty successful platform for me to connect with new customers, so that portion of the investment has already paid for itself. but how much as all of this set me back? try $2,523.37.
holy shit, right?!
now, let’s put this in perspective. i already own a canon 5d mark iii, which has been fully paid for by previous work for customers. today, you could get your hands on a used copy for about $1,500. i’ve also already got a couple of backpacks from lowepro, the bp250 that cost around $100 when i bought it and the bp160 that i bought recently for about $30. and i have a davis & sanford travel tripod that cost about $76 (just a plug here - that tripod is great if you’re in the market). i’ve also got an amazon basics remote trigger for my camera that was about $10. oh, and a couple of five-pound sandbags that set me back $15 or so. so let’s just round it up and say that my photography set up has a present-day value of about $4,300. keep in mind i paid about $3,000 for my 5d mark iii when i bought it in 2012. accounting for the $850 i spent buying my 24-105mm lens off craigslist, that brings money out the door to right around $6,650.
even more holy shit, right?!?!?!
that’s a literal fuck ton of money. and you would think that with all of this gear (and i haven’t even gotten into my iphone photography kit and video gear yet), my thirst would be sated. that i would be able to comfortably say that i have everything i need. and you’d be right. but i still want more.