Why a Longterm Relationship (with your camera) Makes You Feel Good

Bravo. Short but pithy. A koan. Gear Acquisition Syndrome puts people on a treadmill to acquire some new [to them] tool that will « improve » the images they make. But like money, it is never enough.
As the modernist architect Mies van der Rohe of « less is more » fame said « No design is possible until the materials with which you design are completely understood. » And that takes time to know their limitations and affordances.

Is a long term relationship with a camera good or bad? If you subscribe to projects or exercises like those proposed by Mike Johnston in his post "The Leica As Teacher" on his The Online Photographer blog, then it could be considered good. The idea is that, over time, you begin to learn more about photography because you are learning better how your camera works and how to get the best out of it. But, it could also become a form of stagnation because you are learning only how "that" camera works, not necessarily more about photography itself. Moving to a different type of camera, such as from a rangefinder to a large format field camera, could change your perspective about photography altogether. This could lead to a complete change in how you see things.

This is an article that people should print out and stick to the wall. I have had many periods of unfaithfulness, but I've, finally, realised that the Pentax MX and 50/1.4 is that camera for me. I bought one in about 1991, dropped it five feet onto concrete a couple of years later (don't let anyone tell you that certain German cameras will laugh off such an accident: they won't), bought another one ... which I still have and use today.

I don't claim it is perfect for everyone, but using it is like coming home for me: everything is in the right place, I can, even at my age, carry it all day in one hand, the viewfinder is lovely, and the 50/1.4 lens is just perfect.

I now have to admit that I now have four MXs and three of the 50/1.4 lenses.

The term 'infidelity rate' when referring to cameras made me laugh out loud. If there is such a notion, then I'm damned beyond all hope of salvation. I prefer to think of my cameras in terms of a harem. My Nikon FE, Contaflex Super, Minolta X300 and Rolleiflex are my primary partners, while the rest are concubines.

I beg to differ. Less is not more. It's less. Very un-Buddhist, this. Also uber minimalist. But then who would claim that GEAR is minimalist anyway...

That less is better, is a far more workable approach to everything in life. Especially with cameras.

Let's just call it minimalist, and be done with all that.

For most of my life, I acquired cameras. Yashica TLRs, Rolleis, Linhofs, Pentaxes, Minoltas, Nikkormats, Hasselblad's, Nikons, Contax Gs. Usually button always but in pairs. The "not always" refers not to single units, but multiple multiples. Like four Rolleiflex TLRs, five Nikons, six 'blads. And please, don't get me started on lenses. Or darkroom gear. You name it, I had it. Often as not in quantities.

I look back on all this now and wonder, why.

I console myself with the thought of a friend, now deceased, who left behind 175 Pentax cameras, twice that number of lenses, and an entire room of accessories. Imagine what his widow is going through, trying to dispose of the lot. We do what we can to help her, but at times I've had to resist the urge to tell her to sell off that gear by the ton.

So yes, Andrea's excellent article is most exceptionally relevant (to me, and I'm sure many others), He mentions a wet plate camera.I had one of those, in fact a full kit. It's now in a museum in Australia. Ditto a 5x7 Home Portrait Graflex kit, the only one of this range of beasts I've ever seen in my long life. Also in a private collection, in Japan. These are the only two cameras I made money on. With the rest I was lucky to break even. The 'blads I actually lost money on, but that was my fault, for shelling out too much good money on turkeys.

One lives and one learns. When I retired in 2012, I took stock, mentally and physically, of all the things in my life, and realised the enormity of what I had on my hands. Mostly unused, a lot of it little used.

Like the good architect I was during my career, I started selling. Hello Ebay! Out went 50+ cameras and lenses. In the end I recouped about 40% of what I had spent. And became the envy of my collector friends.

In the photo gear industry, the ones who make the money are the dealers. Not the buyers. If you doubt this, go off and look at Ebay. Check the sale prices for photo gear. As 've already written, live = learn.

The notion that one or two well-chosen cameras and as few lenses and accessories as actually suit me, took a long time to seep into my thick skull.

Later this year I will be off to Southeast Asia for three months of wayward wandering around three countries. Mostly in Indonesia, long my favourite and still amazingly unique in its culture and its people.

With me will come a Nikkormat FT2 and two Nikons - my most oft-used 28/3.5 Biogon and as an 85/1.8 I've owned for 40+ years but almost never used. Along with 40 films which I already have in my film fridge. The metering on the FT2 is no longer reliable, so a venerable Weston Master V will come along, which I've owned since 1982.

Everything will easily fit in a backpack, my preferred way of wandering (a medium- size Holdall bag stays in my hotel, along with my laptop, money and passport in my room safe) as I can then easily go to out-of-the-way aces without worrying about 'things'.

I'm still a long way from being as possessions-free as a Buddhist monk. But I'm getting there, if slowly. In my next life, maybe. That is if I don't return as a cat, which may well be on the cards. Seriously! (Well half)...

Andrea, I hope I haven't derailed your thread with all this. I will now go forth and see if I can find more you've written for us. you are well worth reading and I hope you will be contributing more in future.

Best from DANN in Melbourne.

My changes are are or rather were usually knee jerks

Now what I have and what I’d like differ somewhat - financial constraints meant I was sticking with what I have but after years of an arranged marriage I think we have fallen in love and would never part

I have a lot of cameras. Not a monsterous volume that makes me lose sleep ruminating on what my wife and kids will have to do with them all if I leave this place sooner than I think, but I have a lot. The digitals and digicams are not on my worry-radar - these can be used with no expense, and can be moved on with relative ease. But my film cameras... And the cost of film, and developing film... I have a lot of nice, some quirky cameras of the analog persuasion. I sometimes wonder, is it like when I had too many clothes, or too many guitars... How can I use it all? So this piece made me think. I'm still young enough to "hold on" to what I have. But the volume, and the inability to get at it all as much as I would like, sits in the back of my mind when I catalog my collection so my wife and kids won't be overwhelmed if they have to deal with my collection of cameras!