Acquiring new gear: Growing as a photographer, or just a "Gearhead"?

[Jody_S]

I buy photo gear based mainly on whether I think I can make a profit selling it. But that has nothing to do with photography, other than the fact that I can do this with photo-related gear because I know what it is and what's valuable. For my actual photography, I tend to just pick up something off the shelf, and I don't really care what it is. 20 years ago I would have gotten into an argument over Canon vs. Nikon glass; these days, I'll pick up whichever of the two is closest. LF gear is much the same, I don't care if I'm using a Schneider or a Rodenstock lens, as much as I care what I paid for it and whether it's value is increasing or decreasing. And whether I can possibly truly take advantage of a lens' potential.

[Dan Fromm]

Phil, do whatever makes you happy. You're putting your resources into photography and hurting no one else (assuming that your spouse, if you have one, goes along with what you're doing). No one will look down on you for having little gear or for having a lot. Stop worrying and go shoot.

[RichardSperry]

Buying and selling gear is just an adjunct hobby. I bought an F100 just to burn the HP5 rolls I get with paper. Then got a holga lens for it for $25, then a lensbaby 3G for $100 for it.

It's fun, and not serious or anything. With the price of used film gear, why not?

I have an 8x10 pinhole camera made from a cardboard box, matte black paint, and black duct tape. Total cost was about $6.

It may take years to find deals on stuff I want, two years for my Saunders 16x20 easel then a second one just fell into my possession with an enlarger buy. 2 years I was searching for a dry mount press, and it came free with the enlarger and second easel.

I want a deal on a clean 65 or 75 lens and then a 300 lens, if it takes years to find them, so be it.

I use an app that searches Craigslist listings in neighboring cities, I've found a lot of my gear that way.

[rdenney]

I think anyone who says that they can do everything with one camera and one lens is delusional.

That's not the question. Who says they can do everything? They have just limited their vision to what they can capture with that one camera and lens. Or, perhaps their vision is so singular that they never have requirements that extend beyond the capabilities of that one camera and lens.

It's true that some just have one camera and lens and then deride others as being gear-heads, but the reverse is just as bad.

Rick "who has lots of cameras and lenses and still can't do everything" Denney

[Corran]

Of course you are right Rick. I merely suck at getting my point across.

[John Kasaian]

If you buy gear you use the gear, you're not a collector.
If you gear you don't use the gear, you are a collector.
If you buy gear you intend on using someday, you're soon broke.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't know, I am packing the car for a shoot today and it is full to the ceiling, with lights and props and stuff... but I only am taking a 150 for the 4x5 and 50s for the digi/35mm. Once you figure out what works why complicate things further?

[jcoldslabs]

If you buy gear you intend on using someday, you're soon broke.

Amen, brother! And my wife will tell you the same thing happens if you buy clothes in a size you hope to be someday. Aspirational spending is a fool's errand but a marketer's wet dream.

Six years ago I lost around 90 pounds and got all new clothes, but being a pessimist I put all the "fat" clothes in boxes in the garage. Well, the 90 pounds came back but so did the old wardrobe without dropping a cent. Thank goodness!

Jonathan

P.S. Oh, and I'm getting crowded out of the room in which I type this by all the gear spilling from the shelves. None of it has made my photographs any better, but I've had lots of fun buying it and shooting with it. Now if I can only force myself to shoot those fifteen-dollar-a-pop Polaroid 8x10s before they dry out all will be good.

[Brian Ellis]

I've bought a lot of photography gear over the years and I enjoyed researching, buying, and using it all. But I've moved to digital almost exclusively and for some reason I don't find digital gear in and of itself very interesting. Which is a good thing for me, I don't read about the gear, don't care about the gear, it's become what I think gear should be - a tool with which to make photographs. But I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying and buying photographing equipment if that's what you like and if you can afford it. There's many worse ways to spend your money than on photography equipment.

[Cletus]

About two years ago when I was in a depressing creative slump, I suddenly had this impulse and sold my Leica M6 and the few lenses I had for it - well, traded it really - for a pair of Nikon D2X bodies (that were already old, and way behind the curve) an 85/1.4 lens and some other stuff. I'd also been collecting lights and Chimera softboxes and various other studio lighting gear - oh yes, and an actual studio too - because overnight, I had decided I was going to become....wait for it....a COMMERCIAL FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER! Just made up my mind one day I was gonna do that and started buying (and selling) stuff!

So after almost a year (and several thousand dollars in newly acquired gear) it took exactly one shoot with a couple semi-enthusiastic, Craigslist ad-answerer, wannabe models and my ever so promising career as a soon to be Top New York Fashion Photographer was over.

How's that for "acquiring gear to fulfill your vision"? After owning them for a little more then 3 months, I sold off all the Nikon DSLR stuff (before it lost even more value), came out of "the little slump" I'd been in, and went back to my 4x5 and my darkroom. All dreams, wheresoever they had come from, of the previous year had vanished like artificial smoke on a fashion set. I still have a couple packs and heads and a softbox or two, just in case I want to make a portrait of somebody or something, but I rarely break them out.

The whole dizzying experience mostly served to educate me in what kind of photographer I really am, not the ideal - idea of what I thought a Real Photographer should be. Not too much risk of me trying THAT again!