To the older photographers here

jsrockit said:
Oh man, before the internet it was camera shows, camera stores, and shutterbug magazine... you old folks know what I mean. ;)
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Yeah, Popular Photography and Modern and Peterson's etc. were great GAS producers. But they were also very informative. Those Nikon F ads and Leica-M and Rolleiflex ads just made me pant back then. By the time I bought some of each of those cameras, I was already old-ish.
 
Calzone said:
Back in the 70's I had a Nikon F2 in art school. My camera made me very popular with the girls, and for me there was no better camera and I only owned one.

Eventually I grew into Nikon F3's and had three of them, but GAS only started only when I discovered this particular forum. I feel if it were not for the internet, EBAY and this forum I likely would not have gone nuts and spent tens of thousands of dollars.

Cal
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Ebay, Keh, Rff Classified do help out the GAS :)
Do you guys thing that Modern GAS is superior to Older GAS??? Like do modern manufactures know better how to make you have wet dreams?
 
J450N said:
I completely agree with this. I suspect this is related to behavior contagions, where individuals modify their behavior based on the behaviors of others in a group, much like a group of good kids walking home at night that end up vandalizing someone's house. I imagine there is a lot of marketing research into capitalizing on this (viral marketing, etc.).
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I think you are spot on with you observations. When I was an exclusive Nikon SLR snob I was captured by the Nikon Pro camera image and marketing.

When I discovered this forum I quickly became contaminated with the notion that there was another universe to explore the world of rangefinders and immersed myself in it. It seemed like I had been deprived for several decades and the result was gluttony.

Now I have grown to realize a newer medium for me: medium format. I wonder as a focus group how photographers might have a generally higher propensity for obsessive behavior that can easily managed, manipulated and exploited.

Cal
 
I recall going to used camera shows back in the early 1980's in Toronto (anyone remember the shows at the Holiday Inn Don Valley????). They'd have shows that took up this gigantic ballroom, and there were probably 300 people lined up to get in about an hour before they opened. Was definitely more exciting than the camera shows today (or at least in the DC/Baltimore area where I am), so while there wasn't eBay or online stores, the used camera shows made up for it.
 
Speaking only for myself . . . back in the old days (1960's - 1990's) I had gear lust, and attended all the camera shows and haunted the local shops, but raising a family didn't allow me to spend lots of money on gear.

Then 3 rivers merged to form paradise . . . my kids grew up and moved out, the digital plague fell upon us, and I retired. So now I buy and trade away new stuff (not very expensive stuff) all the time . . . so I got GAS in my "golden years" (which actually ain't as golden as they promised us ;) )
 
Since there was no Internet back in the day one had to rely on what was printed in the magazine ads...My first major camera purchase was a black Pentax MX body without the lens because I had also looked at the Vivitar Series 1 ads with the 70-210 & 35-85 zooms...(BTW, I still own all that equipment)
Also after you bought that camera you would get the pamphlets that contained all the accessories available for that system...for some of us it was like looking at your first Playboy Centerfold...
I did my homework before entering the camera stores...I had the money to buy either the camera or lens and just went in and bought them...in & out in less than 20 minutes...
My GAS came from the nice glossy ads, reading the details of what the product would do and also reading the reviews in certain reputable photography magazines...
I stopped buying for a long time...when I got my first Nikon FE camera I started looking at gear again...before any of the on-line stuff was real big & available for me I got a hold of a KEH catalog...that opened up a whole new world of what was out there...
 
I suspect the Shutterbug left black ink when wiping your derriere, butt never looked to see for sure?

Pun intended, no doubt! Ebay, and the rise of digital, basically has lowered the price of secondhand film gear and created ripe conditions for GAS.
 
You'd pour over pop photo mags like it was an issue of Playboy dreaming of having your way with that lens that looked so fine but just out of reach.
 
For me GAS in the old days was so expensive, that it was like thinking that you could buy a ticket to the moon. I still remember my father telling me, that his friend sold his HOUSE, in order to be able to buy a Linhof Technica outfit...
 
"When "Blow Up" hit the screens in 1966 "everyone" wanted a Nikon F, not to mention David Hemmings' car phone and Vanessa Redgrave!"

At that time I already had the Nikon F's. but I did lust for the dark-room and his Rolls Royce Mulliner "slanted eye" drop-head - big enough glove compartment to keep that extra F!!!!
 
My gear lust then, in my late teens in the late 70s, was generated by looking at books in the library. The Leica Manual, Photography Annual, Graphis and others. I bought a light meter and a table-top tripod. Next was a cable release. My second camera was an M4 which I thought I had to have. Then a 135mm lens. I soon bought a 90 collapsible. The next lens was a 35, 10 years later. After these and many other purchases I finally came here and realized that my M2 and a 50 were all I ever needed after all. But I did also then go on to Zeiss lenses and bought a 25, 50 and 21. Oh, and the little 25 Skopar. And an X100. And an M9.
 
I've couple of books from 80ies, dedicated to manufacturers SLR lines. After buying SLR you read some valuable information (no internet then, remember?) covering operating camera (explaining fundamentals of how camera works, too - with all the details you can't find for today's cameras), exposure, focusing and much more, including also advanced topics. Tease yourself going through lens descriptions and accesories. Maybe talk yourself into upgrading body, too. Despite side effects this were great books, today many amateurs ask basic questions in forums again and again because there are no such books covering 80% of questions.
 
How old is "older?"

I'm 44. I distinctly remember being about 14 and pining away over a Nikon FG i saw in my photo magazines. I used to buy American Photography and Popular Photography, and one other.... Internet replaced magazines, but there's been object lust since the beginnings of humankind.

I used to dream of skateboards, from magazines. Cars, from magazines.... Women... from magazines......
 
Uhmm??? I don't think so...

Uhmm??? I don't think so...

nikon_sam said:
for some of us it was like looking at your first Playboy Centerfold...
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Uhhmm? I don't think so. I don't recall EVER looking at a camera ad and wondering what the H!!! was happening to a certain region of my body which shall remain unnamed here.

Well, not unless the camera ad was in a particularly glossy magazine, and contained an image of a quite tall and striking model in a bikini. To that end, Hasselblad ads were the only ads, having a slightly similar effect on my body as a Playboy Centerfold.

Plus, one could look at a Hasselblad ad in a busy airport boarding area without drawing strange looks and "harrumph's" from short blue haired ladies with walkers.
 
kbg32 said:
I only got gas when I looked at the old Modern Photography yearly gear review.
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I remember the yearly buying guide, pulp pages bound into the center of one monthly issue.
I've spent much of my adult life gathering gear I could only dream about in the late 1970's.

Chris
 
Damn, guess I was the only one who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Paid my way through 5 universities while married, raising kids and buying a house. There was nothing left over for photography gear but I managed to start out with a Nikon FM (after a brief time with a Minolta system) and a 50mm lens, flash and case. That was it.

Never knew many people who bought more than that...and they were wealthy real estate developer clients. Even my mentor at Georgia Tech was a devout Nikon FM+motordrive+flashes+lenses all in a nice Zero Halliburton case. But, even with his lifestyle, he never owned but one camera body at a time.

So, for me, GAS is a relatively late phenomenon only coming into being with the internet and millions??? of cheap film cameras that can be bought for a tiny fraction of original values. Then, there are those who are making a lot of money these days, and buying is difficult to control with so many things available in the photographic world.

Still, though, it is difficult to shoot more than one camera and lens at the same time...:p
 
Yep, the difference between Gear Lust and Gear Acquisition...

Back in the 70's my OM-1 with one lens cost half a month's wages. With a young bride and a couple of daughters it was 25 years before I bought a second, used, OM-10 for back up.

Now I have a dozen of the OM beasties in various flavors. Cheap and easy to get in the digital age.

So in summary: young = lust, old = gas.
 
Gas

Gas

In the earlier days I could barely afford my K1000 with the 50mm f2 lens. As I remember it took 4 weekly trips to the pawn shop to pay the thing off so I could take it home. But I think GAS has been around for a long time, whether it was cameras, cars or something else. We didn't have the internet but we had magazine ads, a telephone and the post office.
 
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