I must hate my money because I keep buying camera gear

[Light Fandango]

To me, cameras and lenses are tools towards the goal of taking great (or at least good) pictures.
To that end, some carefully-chosen lenses and a fast pro body camera do the job for me. One lens comes in, one goes out.

My current collection:
Two digital bodies: my Z9, and, as an unlikely backup, a mint D200, given to me out of nowhere by my neighbor who never used it.
Two 35mm Nikons.
My wife and I each have a Leica X-Vario for city and walkaround.
A total of 8 Nikon-mount lenses: two Z-mount zooms, five matched fast primes and a 300mm/F4 tele.

I don't function well in clutter anymore. I like (and have) good tools, and I appreciate quality engineering and fine esthetics, but if I don't use something, either it gets sold or given away.

Much as with my music recording, things are pared down to what gives me an efficient, high-quality workflow. That helps me stop thinking about the hardware and concentrate on the outcome.

Some of this is very much an internal "sea change" in me, as I was (possibly still am) capable of gathering enough hardware for a museum, be it in film, photography or audio...increasingly, I just started feeling choked by all the "stuff", so my life went towards streamlining instead.

A small number of older cameras still sit on my shelf as decoration....

C.

 

[Don Fischer]

Not even sure where to start
I made custom pool cues and sold them internationally , plus other custom cue makers besides other well know custom cues makers cues.
I started with A Canon G10 , a Canon 3TI and now a Canon 5 D II photographing pool cues . and custom wood working.

I like wild life and land scape photography, some fish eye photography commercial and now Macro photography.
adding on a canon 100mm macro L and the EF MP-E 65 MM macro with 5 times magnification and electric focusing rail .
Table top Tripod and a Gear head. And different Bugs and small critters on there way.
Right now I am guessing I have spent more then 2300.00$ just for marco Photography , Not including lighting and

All my lenses are Canon , not sure how many,,, I have 6 or 7 L lenes .

So do I sound nuts ? And so feel the same as me ? ?

Sounds to me like your simply trying to improve something by buying new gear. All your really doing is spending money. I don't do macro stuff but if I were to try I'd start with a lower power zoom lens and see if I couldn't get a bit farther back and zoom in to make the shot. Of course there are those that simply like to spend money, I've never had that much to fool with so don't worry about it to much. I think I'd try something like my 18-200 Tamron zoom at 18mm and focus in close as I could. Specialty lens may work for pros but less than that I think the smaller zooms can easily fill the void.

 

[minoltaguy]

Tell me about it. I have so much equipment I had to dedicate a whole room just to house them.