Just a still life of the Canon F1n that I wish didn’t brake. The S.S.C lense is truly amazing! (Shot on Canon 7D Mark II and Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 Art)
One of the things that I find fairly helpful when I go to a new place is joining a local Facebook photography club. Now these clubs can be hit or miss and when I came to St. Louis I found a large club with a pretty good group of people. There have conversations about cool places to shoot, constructive criticism of recent work, the occasional photo meetup, and my personal favorite gear talk. When I say that gear talk is my favorite thing to read, what I really mean is it makes me want to smash all of my cameras on the ground and burn them.
Now I’m going to start with the fact that, all in all, I’m happy with the STL photoclub and really don’t usually mind the gear talk either. That being said there has been a recurring questions that just really sends me off the rails, one that I thought was worth sharing because I find it important and personally relevant. The question always amounts to something like: “I just bought X camera and X lens with this other X lens and I’m looking for a third lens. What lens should I buy next?” This question always gets answered by 15+ people with lens recommendations that range from reasonable answers to, “oh you should get the Canon 300mm F2.8L” (a $7,000 lens). No, no you should probably not do that.
What I hate about this recurring question is that it triggers and entirely unhelpful conversation and makes people focus on things that mislead them. In my opinion there is only one answer to this question and it is the reason for writing this. My answer to this question would go something like this:
“If you don’t KNOW what lens you want, save your money till you find out you lens you NEED. Be patient and let your process inform your decision (Not random people on the internet).”
The idea of talking the time to let what you do as a photographer inform the way you purchase photography equipment is a really important lesson for anyone to learn. I think in fact it is one of the most important lesson you can learn if you want to make great images. Doing this will not only save you money, but it gives you a healthy dose of artistic limitation. I know for me it definitely did, so I want to share my process for buying gear.
My process for acquiring gear requires me to answer the following question, does this piece of equipment allow me to make something I can’t with my current gear? This is a hard question to answer honestly sometimes and often requires you to take a step back. Milestones like needing a F2.8 constant aperture long lens, a large aperture wide angle for astro, or a camera with 10 frames per second are all things that let me take images I want to take. If I was a portrait photographer I would have boughten an 85mm F1.2 or a 400mm F4 DO if wildlife was my focus.
What I’m getting at is that if you answer that question above honestly to your personal style and process you’ll know the gear you NEED. The idea of wanting gear goes out the window. If you can’t honestly answer that question then you need to spend more time discovering or experimenting. Sometimes it takes a great deal of time to learn what you need and what options there are, this is an important part of the process. This isn’t always easy and I’ve definitely fallen into the trap of buying random things I shouldn’t have.
To be perfectly fair I can almost never answer that question honestly when it come to purchasing film cameras and equipment. Impulse buys happen often and I don’t usually get much capital out of these cameras. Though, they feed my photography curiosity, inspire me to go outside to shoot, and keep me thinking creatively. Making good images is all I really want, but fostering a sustainable creative process has quickly become the goal. This is what film often does for me further complicate the question above.
Not sure this helps anyone or just brought up more questions (it did for me). But, I think we can all agree to stop going onto photography discussion boards or commenting on Facebook about the gear you should buy because no one should be able to answer that question but you.
The mighty Pentax 67 with the 105mm F2.4 Takumar. (Shot on Canon 7D Mark II and Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 Art)