High costs of photography?

[Rob]

I know in this RFF group we are a bunch of frugal folks(some of us)that will spend hours of time fixing a $10 rangefinder we found in the trash can...Some will bulk load miles of film, some will process their own film. I bet a few can probably make their own film by now...I was at my local small photo shop yesterday and was talking to the owner. (this is a small shop that has been around for 90 years, only with new owner did they finally get into digital).
New owner(former manager) told me that he had 4 of the Canon full frame digital cameras on order with deposits this week...I thought they were expensive but at over $7000 USD each, wow. I realize these are pros and surely need this gear for making a living. Things have sure changed in say 30 years where those 4 cameras would equate to a years worth of sales in that same photo store.
I used to feel I had an expensive kit of Nikon stuff at $2000 10 years ago.
Now that might buy one "L" lens. One hobbiest friend of mine has over $25,000 in EOS gear(lots of L lenses) and he has not even gone digital yet!
He does win awards and has been published and can certainly make outstanding photos...Maybe I am just getting cheaper as I age?!
Funny quite a few folks in my photo club have the latest and greatest gear and shoot the lousiest pictures. Ones with better technique and vision always win in the competitions no matter what camera they use.
Hats off to the Frugal photographers here!
Rob

 

[rover]

It is about the equipment, no?

No, that's it I guess.

Time, light, film and the imagination to put them all together.

Yes

 

[cp_ste.croix]

I must admit that I get caught up in the materialistic side of photography all the time even though i know that the sharpest lens in the world won't help me take anything but a sharper (not better) picture.

Some of the reasons, however, that I am attracted to expensive film bodies, is their reliability and ruggedness, as I am generally not one to baby my things. This has led me to covet the eos 1v first and now the leica. That said, i took my crappy old rebel around the world and to some prety rough places and it held up pretty well (though there was some dust inside it after my africa trip which scratched a bunch of negs).

Where I have real problems is in prioritizing my purchases, like now, do I want more camera gear or do I want a scanner and some development stuff? which will motivate me to take more photos?

Unfortunately for me, my hobbies (scuba, photography and travel) are very expensive. Let's just hope I never take up golf...

 

[canonetc]

I must admit the Leica 35 f/2 lens has made my photos better in terms of color and contrast (as long as I expose correctly), so the investment was worth it. I guess it's the same argument for L-lenses...? But I like to follow the ethos of fruglity. Not rich, never have been, probably won't be (woe.... or happiness is me...?), so early on I pursued the "don't waste film" mentality. And yeah, I think we at RFF are ahead of the curve when it comes to knowing how to get good with what you have. It aint always the camera, but the hands and eye behind the camera. Hmmm. I guess GAS is a part of human life. ha ha.

cheers,

chris
canonetc

 

[rover]

I think I should further explain my answer.

My thoughts are regarding technology. Obviously I use a Leica camera and have a collection of lenses, so I won't fit into a lot of definitions of frugal.

I read Rob's statement as saying that you don't need the newest, most advanced equipment to make the perfect image.

 

[nwcanonman]

Rover is right, at least for me. I've made some of the best shots using cheap cameras, even P&S's.
For others equipment is the most important part of their hobby, despite not making great images. That's OK too, but is more of a collector than just photographer.
To each their own and ENJOY !

 

[Natron]

Photography, like most hobbies, can get QUITE expensive if you want it to. You can buy a $7.95 point and shoot at Walgreens, load it with the cheapest color negative film you can find and shoot away or you can sell your house to buy a full Rollei 6008 kit with a digital back.

A while back, if I remember correctly, people were touting the advantages of digital and using expensive "L" lenses in a thread on another board so I replied with a stack of my photos.

Some were with my old D30 digital SLR, some were with my newer 20D, some were from my Bessa R2, some were from my Nikon FE2 and I think one was from my Rolleiflex. The photos were taken with a mix of lenses... my marred 35mm f/2 Summicron, my Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AIS with a 'sandpapered' looking rear element, my perfect Canon 200mm f/2.8 L, a cheap $20 Nikon 50mm f/1.8 E-series, etc etc..

ANYWAY, some were modern, perfect lenses on digital.. some were good lenses on film.. some were 'bad' lenses on film. I didn't say which were which and told everyone to figure it out for themselves. No one guessed even close. All the theorizing and spec sheets and MTF charts on which equipment was better or worse meant NOTHING when it came to judging which PHOTOS were "better" ... even from a technical standpoint, they couldn't positively identify which were even film or digital. I think a lot of people turn into what a photo.net poster called "gear queers" that become obsessed with MTF charts, shooting brick walls to check that their lenses have perfect detail and their bodies have no digital noise, etc... while completely ignoring the fact that their non-test photos STINK (not saying mine are any better). I am guilty of it myself at times but I try to concentrate more on my photos than my gear when possible.

But yes, it gets expensive.

 

[Rob]

Sure there is a place for collecting cameras and lenses, I have a couple myself...even Leicas can be looked at as an investment. Now that good SLR digital cameras can be had for $600 to $1000 that is good. Just cant see $7000+ for a body..nothing against digital, I have a Nikon Coolpix I use a lot.

 

[DougK]

Agreed. Any time gear lust gets too bad, I try to remind myself that the photos my best friend wanted hanging on the wall of her new house were taken with an Olympus Trip 35. Not bad for a $25 camera.

 

[RML]

I indulged myself and bought an Epson R-D1. Why? Well, because it's an RF camera and because it's digital. The 2200 euro I'm now paying for it is about what I would approximately spend in a year on film and development alone. It's a lot of money upfront but I'm quite confident I'll save myself quite some money after a year or so. And the fact that I can shoot, practise, experiment (with lenses and composition) and see the result immediately is -for me- also an important factor.

 

[sf]

for RML. . .

for RML. . .

Absolutely true. That is the single most valuable characteristic of digital photography for amateurs - take lots of pictures and play around without spending a dime. I bought a d70 for 1600 bucks last summer with a nice lens on it, and a 1GB CF card, and did so because I knew I would save that money back in a couple of months. I probably put 20,000 shots through that thing since June, and 1600 bucks is probably less than the film costs for such a pile of pics. 1 roll of film is 4 bucks. Then another 4 for processing. That makes 8 dollars for every 36 pictures. Then, on film, sometimes we have pics that do not come out as we hoped, so that is really 8 dollars for 30 pics. That is WAY more than $1600 over 20000 images.

Not only do you save money, but you gain experience and education thanks to that thriftiness and instantaneous production that is priceless. I owe my appreciation of film photography to digital. I owe my appreciation of patience to it, my greater skill in capturing the moment as it occurs, my eye for the better picture in the pile of thousands, everything. Even when I was out of work, I could spend the afternoon shooting anything and everything, go home, load up photoshop, and continue learning some more. And all for 0$.


I appreciate patience in photography more because I now have greater fluency with my brain-moment-shutter cordination. I learned with the digital because no way was I going to try action photography with my medium format. Digital was my speedbag. It was my agility trainer. I learned how to put myself in the place and time to take the shot I want. I learned to overcome trigger hesitance which has cost me lots of potential winners over the years. No fear when it's free.

One skill that digital helped me learn was eyeing out the ONE perfect shot in a collection of thousands from an outing. With film, us frugal shooters try not to take such a huge margin of less than perfect pics because it is simply expensive. But, if shooting a wedding for instance, you will come home with a few thousand shots no doubt, and have to find a selection of winners to sell the bride and groom. Learning to see those winners is something that is best learned by looking at lots and lots of images. Digital is the way. Working on a roll or two at a time is nothing compared to filling up a 1 gig card with 2000 pictures of pretty much the same thing.

Now, I sold it (D70) because I want to return to taking my time, shooting slow and deliberately, and really feeling out every aspect of every shot - which you can do with a digital too, but I would rather apply care of that degree to large format. As a large format photographer, that style of working is almost religious. But when I go out on the street or out for a drive, I take my R3A and use skills finely sharpened during my months with that awesome Nikon D70.

Never again will lack of money stand between you and the picture. Unless you can't pay the power bill and your battery is dead (charge only, no Duracell runs at midnight). My battery is dead, and I can't do anything about it because I am on a trip and have forgotten my charger. I am probably going to buy a little camera tomorrow. Film. Oh well.

 

[Nikon Bob]

Photography can be as expensive or cheap as you want it to be and just as rewarding either way. Neither way of doing (cheap or expensive) it is morally superior or better to the other as some in both camps would have you believe. Equipment (digital) is important to certain photogs today because of timeframes to meet or it may be cheaper because of the shear volume of images taken. The only thing that I have personally found is that I can consistantly produce crappy images with a yard sale special or a Leica so that there must be a bit of truth to the important part being the photog him/herself. Whichever way you choose to approach photography it should be enjoyable especially if it is a hobby.

Bob

 

[GeneW]

Nice summary of digital, themirana! I found much the same -- that digital helps you learn photography in a way you never experienced before because few of us could ever afford to 'burn' that much film. And what you learn definitely carries back to film. I sold my Canon 300D and lenses and bought a Hasselblad. I do keep a lighter-weight digital around though for when I need fast turnaround or am paid to shoot an event.

Gene

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I know in this RFF group we are a bunch of frugal folks(some of us)that will spend hours of time fixing a $10 rangefinder we found in the trash can...

Some of us call it eBay 😉

Funny quite a few folks in my photo club have the latest and greatest gear and shoot the lousiest pictures.

The cliché "it's not the camera it's the photographer" is so overused it no longer has any meaning, but it's still true. My girlfriend has taken some wonderful pictures with a Vivitar P&S.

Ones with better technique and vision always win in the competitions no matter what camera they use.
Hats off to the Frugal photographers here!

I'll second that.

 

[Bertram2]

The 2200 euro I'm now paying for it is about what I would approximately spend in a year on film and development alone. .

That's more than one film daily ? If you are no a pro ,chapeau, chapeau !!

Bertram

 

[RML]

Bertram, I on average do shot a film a day. At 3 euro each, plus another 3 euro to have it developed, I easily spend 1800-2000 euro per year on film. Add to that the huge amount of time it takes to scan all this film (I still have about 150-200 rolls unscanned lying about) and for me going the R-D1 way is definitely the cheapo way. 🙂

 

[dphotoguy]

I bought a D1x last year thinking that it will help me save money on film and processing. For that year, I shot with it a lot. The quality is good, but there was something missing. About 3 months ago, a friend of mine hired me to document LA. I bought myself a R2A, several bricks of Tri-X and bags and bags of chemicals and got my Jobo up and running again. After processing my first few rolls, I placed my D1X into storage. I came to realize that the feeling of excitement seeing your images come out on film, you just can't be replace that. It is worth every penny spent. No amount of saving will ever keep me from shooting film again. I finally realize that it is that feeling that I felt I lost when I went digital with the D1x. I also realized that I had no attachment to the digital images. With film, I do. Everytime I put a roll though, I get that same feeling. Everytime I stick a card into my reader, I get nothing. I hope you guys know what I'm talking about.=) Anyway, I've also started processing C41 film with my Jobo. Man, I seriously don't think I could go back to digital anymore. Going digital to save money is not worth losing that feeling. I'm scare to say that no cost is too high for me anymore when it comes to my photography...aka my safe place.

 

[RML]

I hope you guys know what I'm talking about.=)

I know what you mean. I have the same feeling with my Eos 300D: no emotion, no feeling, just automatic shooting. For me it comes from shooting my RF cameras, not so much that I use film. That's why I opted for the R-D1.

 

[sf]

high costs of photography?

high costs of photography?

ha ha. Yeah, I suppose those Leica guys are doomed to spend lots. And collectors of classic cameras like that Canon s2, etc at 10 grand plus. But you know what? Today I saw something that raised the hair on the back of my neck. I was riding up the elevator to the pro floor at Samy's camera, and a major photographer (I am assuming) was riding with me. He asked me if I'd ever been to Fiji and I said "no" and he said something about wanting to take a Hasselblad, and he was going to buy one.

So I am standing there looking at used large format junk, and this guy (Mr. Fiji) walks over to the Hasselblad counter and asks to see the Leaf back on the H-1. They end up selling him the camera, lens, back, and other stuff right there. Personally, I have never seen so much money change hands in so little time and for something one can throw in a bookbag. I think it took him about 10 mintues to decide on that kit over the film and the simple hassy.

That is the priciness of photography at its most excessive. But what I say is, heck, I spent a 40th of what he spent, and I'll have a couple hundred megapixels to work with (drum scans of 4x5). Good old film.

 

[phototone]

I have very expensive digital and film equipment, I have to, because photography is my profession, however I get great delight in making many of my personal images with terrible cameras, junk cameras, cameras with awful lenses, etc. There is the element of challenge involved.

I also prefer film for my personal work.