Here's What I'm Thinking (total gear switch thread)

Frank Petronio said:
You'll always be able to buy that lovely old Leica again later in life, at least as long as you don't need a specific rare model. I figure that I'll probably get one for my nursing home hospice period, partially as a way to shield some funds and also to give me something to do -- sort of the ultimate photographic project send-off!

Imagine if Gramps handed you a Leica and a brick of exposed film while he's on his deathbed -- that's got book and movie rights written all over it!
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Ya Frank.. the more I read your stuff here the more I feel that you and I think very similarly - you're way ahead of me photographically but man.. definitely on the same level with the thoughts regarding gear. 🙂

Cheers,
Dave
 
A moment of nostalgia?

A moment of nostalgia?

Well, I do have the DSLR and use it for "work." But once in a while I get the urge to stroke one of my two Leica IIIs (a B and and F), my Rollei TLR that I have had since 1955 and my Rollei 35.

I dragged out the Rollei35 for the Toronto RFF meet last month. I guessed the exposure and, of course, the distance, just like I used to in the 1970s. The pix are not barn burners but I had fun using it and will use the other machines for some B+W shooting soon too. Brings back memories and makes me feel like one of the guys in Mad Men. I didn't quite drink as much as they do but the smoking was very much part of life.

The advice to put the stuff you want to sell in a trunk and give it a rest while playing with the older ones is excellent.

Good luck with whatever you decide and post the pix that result.
 
Yeah I want to see a MadMen episode where they go on a photo shoot or the AE's pull out Exactas to shoot their kids, etc. that is the one gap they've left open -- no photo topics except for the Kodak slide projector (aka Time Machine).
 
Dave: why are you framing the question in terms of which camera you should own? What are you really asking? If you are looking for a change of work-flow, something to shake you up creatively, that's one thing. If you are looking for a qualitatively different result in your work, that's another. Why does "something have to give?" when you answer these questions, you will know what path to take with your tools.

Ben
 
dave
just a thought on top of all the good advice you've been getting. send the gear you're either using too much or hardly at all to me in hamburg. the principle is "out of sight, out of mind". next spring, fly to hamburg to start a one month tour of europe by train etc. i'll meet you at the airport, return your camera gear which will feel 'like new' to you after six months abstinence(!), and get you started on your trip. we can fill in the details later.
good weekend
rick
 
Dave, GAS begets another GAS, you know this.

At some point you have to put a stop on it. Otherwise your satisfaction in photography will be dictated by it. You know this also.

You have a Rolleiflex and an M7. That's enough unless again, you're entertaining GAS.

If you really want to try LTM kit, get a Zorki 1. I sold my leica IIIc but I kept that one.

Just saying 🙂
 
I always feel it takes a year or so to get into a good rhythm shooting with a camera, which is why I've tried a number of different cameras and keep coming back to the M with regrets that I wasted some time in the process.
 
Dave,

My comment wasn't meant specifically to be "zen", but then again, I can't help myself. 😉

I think Frank hit it on the head about emotional attachment ... that was the unknown for me, how much of this musing is emotion for you, hence the suggestion of sitting with it.

There's nothing wrong with change for emotional reasons. After all, stripped of the technical craft, photography is all about emotion. At least for me. So if we're feeling inside the need for a big, massive change, there's probably something to it.

This is very different than GAS, in my experience. Sometimes you just know that a change is needed to turn you onto a new/different path. Being an equipment-oriented medium, it is not surprising that we often sense that a gear switch-up is a good way to initiate the new direction.

But just making the change, perhaps rashly, can be dangerous, I suppose. Identifying the reasons behind the reasons, the associated desire, is important; again, at least for me.

I think Frank has a really good handle on this, and I agree that staying within the pool of resources is very important.
 
I plan to put all my gear in a box at a relative's house, other than a meterless(no batteries) Petri GX-1, with a 50mm lense. I shall reward myself with a Bessa in the spring 🙂
 
too deep for me...

it's only gear and we are it's master. (as long as we can afford it)

sell it all and start over - i have done it with no damaging affect.
keep it all and buy more...
some some keep some.

what will make you happy because in the end, it's a hobby/pastime/means of creative expression/profession maybe...but we want to be happy with it.

i am so friggin happy with the rd1 i cannot see a need for change for me. i could live with a 28 and a 15 with an rd1 forever.
hell, maybe i'll sell the rest of my lenses!

be happy and satisfied. try things and who cares what we think about it?
 
back alley said:
too deep for me...

it's only gear and we are it's master. (as long as we can afford it)

sell it all and start over - i have done it with no damaging affect.
keep it all and buy more...
some some keep some.

what will make you happy because in the end, it's a hobby/pastime/means of creative expression/profession maybe...but we want to be happy with it.

i am so friggin happy with the rd1 i cannot see a need for change for me. i could live with a 28 and a 15 with an rd1 forever.
hell, maybe i'll sell the rest of my lenses!

be happy and satisfied. try things and who cares what we think about it?
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ok, i am totally losing it...after JUST posting the above, i started to think about making some changes in my lens line up.
switching out the zm 50/1.5 sonnar for a rollei 40/2.8 sonnar, thinking that i might like a 60 pov as opposed to the 76 pov i get with a 50 on the rd1. then i thought i'd sell the 85 and save the cash for some travel.
that would leave me with 15/21/28/40.
but what really hit home was that i was starting a new post TO SEE WHAT YOU ALL MIGHT THINK ABOUT IT!!

there is no f'ing hope for me....
 
Earl / Trius , you know me well. This is more than just "I want . . . . . " This is more about feeling different about how I shoot the stuff for ME ya know? I would hope that by changing the way I shoot (I know gear doesn't necessarily make a difference but I keep going back to the TLR way of looking at things) the stuff for myself that it would impart some knowledge that may assist in how I shoot for others.

I'm looking at my personal "style" I guess (or lack thereof) and trying to develop it.

Let me give you an example - it's wet and rainy and cold today here in Toronto. I was out at lunch running some errands but I carried the TLR with me. I decided to snap a shot or two off. I knew what I wanted to capture so I set myself up and metered the scene. I prefocused my camera. I looked down and framed the scene appropriately and waited. All the while no one looked my way or said "boo" to me - I snapped the shot and went on my merry way.

After leaving that scene I realized using the TLR was a lot like using a digital P&S - I wasn't holding the camera up to my face to focus or frame while I was awaiting the shot or shooting - I was holding the camera at "arms length" per se. I kind of like it like that 🙂

So ya, this is not about GAS at all.

Ben, I think the above sort of explains most of it but the "something's gotta give" part has to do with what Earl and Frank have touched on. A limited resource pool. I do and can, if I wanted, go nuts and purchase a bunch of stuff but I'm not, really, like that - I prefer to have a small stable of gear and use it. 🙂 Plus, now that I'm all gung ho and getting back into Medium Format, I'd like to, at some point, save for/snag a Nikon 9000 and upgrade from my Nikon 5000. I need some dough-ray-me to do so. As such, flipping around some of the gear will allow me sort of a "best compromise" per se. It allows me to, hopefully, keep a small M system (maybe an M2 or M3) and thereby still shoot 35mm while being able to fund the upgrade of the scanner as well. 🙂

Sorry for the long drawn out post guys.. (and ladies) .. I continue to mull 🙂

Cheers,
dave
 
Why do I get the feeling that, a year from now, Dave might be singing "I Just Kissed an M9 (And I Liked It)?"

I still say, keep the M7. Sell the 75 (or whatever else). Put a tiny lens on that M7, making it easy to carry about, and to better differentiate it from That Big Rollei. Yes, you could sell it all and buy it again later on, but why go through the back-and-forth, unless there's a subtle therapeutic thang happening in the process that's potentially worthwhile? (Worked exactly once for me, but in that case, I got rid of every stitch of photo gear I owned...long story, which is on an old thread here somewhere.)


- Barrett
 
it seems a big part of this for dave is using a waist level finder and being free from pointing a camera at another person, a camera that is pressed up against his face.

but dave, you already have a tlr, why not use it for a while and if the good feelings continue then buy another better tlr?
 
You're making this waaay too complicated Dave. You are not destitute, and you don't have a sig other to answer to, so just buy an M2 and IIIc or f, and a couple of lenses. See how you like it. Sell it if you don't. This is not rocket science.

You've invested/committed much much more money than this "new direction" for you would cost, in your M8 and digi SLR's.

Too much existential hand-wringing here for me. Sorry Dave: tough love.
 
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you like gear, you like using gear (few of us don't), your budget allows for a certain amount of churn, so churn away... no need to rationalize it, it's a hobby, you derive pleasure from it, go ahead and sell what you don't use and buy something you think you will... then repeat...

as for your desire to find your own 'vision' (for lack of a better term), that is a matter of discipline and no amount of gear, no matter how different it may be from what you're currently using, will get you any closer to it then shooting A LOT with whatever you have... you've used SLRs, MF SLRs, RFs (film and digital), TLRs and P&S... the only thing that will offer you a significantly different shooting experience is perhaps LF...

I struggle with the same GAS issues and have to remind myself that in the end, what I lack is discipline not gear... my wife is a humbling force, she is a better photographer than me and knows nothing about gear (nor does she care) - at the end of the day, her opinion is that it's either a good photographer or it is not...

just my 2 cents... all the best, whatever you decide...
 
Buy a Nikon S2 with a 5cm f1.4 Nikkor and forget the rest Dave.
Much better than any Barnack Leica.
 
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