How to survive the internet, photo sites and avoid GAS

[Vickko]

How can one survive the internet, photo sites and avoid GAS?

Stay off the internet? That isn't going to happen; too connected socially and for personal amusement.

Stay off photo sites? Maybe, but I do enjoy them.

Maybe stay off the gear-talk and FS parts of the sites, and stick with the galleries.

Are there photo sites that don't talk about gear? Seems like technique is often linked to gear, maybe inextricably linked.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Ansel]

Realise you have a choice and act accordingly. You can view as many gear threads as you want then.

 

[mfogiel]

Just use the internet correctly. Look up photographers, that used almost the same camera all their lives. Why? Because they had to and wanted to make strong images for a living. You get to this through trial and error, using imagination, looking at art done by others, and above all, by reviewing constantly your own output. They say, you need talent and hard work to be good at anything, but they did not specify, it was 5% talent and 95% hard work. Get busy using the cameras, rather than looking at cameras.

 

[jippiejee]

In my personal experience, the best cure for GAS is to not compromise. Just buy what you really need and want, and be happy ever after. I've wasted a lot of money on the detour to what I wanted in the first place.

I always shot my Oly XA little rangefinder until I wanted some more versatility. Instead of buying that M6/7/P that I really wanted, I first got some ****ty Zorki-4, then immediately after a CL to save some. And while that CL was a fun little camera, I still would have liked the better rangefinder of the M6/7/P family, so instead I bought an M4-P. Which is a great camera, but it didn't totally kill the lust for a measuring variety with higher shutter speeds, thus keeping gas alive.

Same with my digital route: I really thought an M9 would make me happy. But I bought a digilux-2. Which is a great camera, but it comes with a small sensor and evf. So I soon upgraded to an X1 with a much better sensor and fixed lens. Which kept the lust alive for more flexibility, so of course then the M8 entered the house. To save some. And bought some more lenses for it. To upgrade those to better lenses soon again. But it still had that little crop factor problem, keeping the M9/MM/M the more desired upgrades ahead. So I finally bought an M9 too.

I should have realized that I'm not rich enough for all these detours and should have bought what I wanted in the first place: an M6 and M9 set and kill the unhealthy shopping distractions.

Then, the internet and its photo gear jerks are a safe place again. 🙂

 

[______]

Best advice I've see recently.

 

[tempest68]

You could decide to do the one camera one lens for a year thing. So no need to get excited over gear because you already have what you need for the year.

I keep thinking I should avoid Steve Huffs site just because of all the gear reviews are too tempting. I like Eric Kim's blog because he is more about technique and trying to learn from the masters of photography and not too much gear related talk.

Another idea is to cut up all of you credit cards and be forced to pay with cold hard cash for any gear. When you actually physically feel that $1000.00 being given from yourself to the merchant, it's probably a lot harder thing to do psychologically than typing in you credit card numbers and clicking SUBMIT on a website.

 

[Duane Pandorf]

Master what you have.

 

[benlees]

Some people say they are satisfied, but we don't believe them. There's a corner up ahead and i'm pretty sure there will be something there...

 

[--s]

GAS is not constant, it comes and goes like the tides, "what you really need and want" may change from time to time. Why not give up and swim with the tides, without bad conscience, there are much worse ways to spend your money:angel:.
But be aware that your results will probably improve with your long time knowledge of the gear you use.

 

[gnarayan]

Open a second browser window/tab, login to your online banking and make sure you look at your account details. 😛

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

May I suggest another option?

Does anyone remember Tom Sawyer and the fence? I stopped worrying about GAS when I realised that if I bought stuff carefully, I could sell it on eBay. Over the course of a year, I generally break even and get the pleasure of trying out all sorts of stuff.

😉

 

[Frank Petronio]

This is like a recovering alcoholic returning to their favorite bar to see their friends. You can't... these kind of forums are poison.

I log out and make it hard on myself to participate. I logged in especially for you Vick! I sympathize!

 

[Mcary]

Spend your money on something else such as traveling that's my plan for fighting GAS 🙂

 

[hepcat]

In my personal experience, the best cure for GAS is to not compromise. Just buy what you really need and want, and be happy ever after. I've wasted a lot of money on the detour to what I wanted in the first place.

I always shot my Oly XA little rangefinder until I wanted some more versatility. Instead of buying that M6/7/P that I really wanted, I first got some ****ty Zorki-4, then immediately after a CL to save some. And while that CL was a fun little camera, I still would have liked the better rangefinder of the M6/7/P family, so instead I bought an M4-P. Which is a great camera, but it didn't totally kill the lust for a measuring variety with higher shutter speeds, thus keeping gas alive.

Same with my digital route: I really thought an M9 would make me happy. But I bought a digilux-2. Which is a great camera, but it comes with a small sensor and evf. So I soon upgraded to an X1 with a much better sensor and fixed lens. Which kept the lust alive for more flexibility, so of course then the M8 entered the house. To save some. And bought some more lenses for it. To upgrade those to better lenses soon again. But it still had that little crop factor problem, keeping the M9/MM/M the more desired upgrades ahead. So I finally bought an M9 too.

I should have realized that I'm not rich enough for all these detours and should have bought what I wanted in the first place: an M6 and M9 set and kill the unhealthy shopping distractions.

Then, the internet and its photo gear jerks are a safe place again. 🙂

This is good advice for acquiring gear, indeed. The whole issue runs much deeper though. A camera is a knick-knack unless you're using it to make images. So the exercise becomes: "what kind of images do you make?" Once you've decided how you plan to use a camera system, then it's easier to decide what gear you need to accomplish those kinds of images. Then, do your homework and figure out what you think the best gear for you that will do the job. THEN, start shopping for that gear and find the best deal you can get on it. You'll end up with gear that works for you, and the gear that you want.

You'll be surprised once you have it, and it really does what you want it to do, that when you look at other 'stuff' you recognize that it has little value to you.

If it's really about photography and the images you want to make, once you have the gear you need to do that, gear really doesn't matter.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

In my personal experience, the best cure for GAS is to not compromise. Just buy what you really need and want, and be happy ever after.

It makes absolutely sense, provided one really knows what one needs and wants. Unfortunately, my (and I guess other photographers') experience is that each time we think we finally understood what we need and want.. only to find out that not even our new piece of gear is making us better photographers.

Surely, the internet makes it easy to bombard ourselves with information on what's available out there, what works for others, not to mention seducing examples of what others have produced with this or that piece of gear. Next step is to think that it's just THAT piece of gear that enabled the result, as if nothing else than that camera or lens could have. And that's where I think the key to GAS immunity lies: in understanding (or fooling oneself to believe, if you will) that you can achieve just about everything with most cameras and lenses. And the few images you can't achieve with what you have... perhaps you can happily live without.

For me it helps a bit to study the work of photographers I very much admire who used the gear I have, or similar. Seeing how much they achieved with a P&S, for instance....

 

[zuiko85]

I'm not a photographer but just like neat opto/mechanical devices. The stuff made in the first 6 decades of the last century. After electronics began to invade cameras in the 1970's I totally lost interest in them.

Such as;

A Minolta SRT-101 is a mechanical thing of beauty.

While a Minolta XG-1 holds no more interest than a toster for me. A utility that happens to also take pictures.


There is no logic nor any valid reason to feel this way, I just do.

So....my GAS is confined to a subset of photographic equipment.

 

[Photo_Smith]

The problem is that people are unsure of the direction they wish to go photographically. The addition of a 35mm Summicron will no doubt be the last part of the jig saw until you see the summilux...

I buy few cameras, only one in the last 5 years it seems to me that most people don't have a strong direction. I am driven. I make no apologies I know after 35 years of making images I have all the equipment I need to facilitate that.

The internet is my library and a 24/7 gallery I enjoy seeing all your shots (I look at everyones Flickr on this site who posts in threads I find interesting)
I know what I want to do, time is my enemy.

 

[hamradio]

Master what you have.

ding ding ding ding ding.

I think the key deals with being content with what you already own, or with buying one thing and not wanting something better. It's a slippery slope, seeing something a little better than what one currently uses and developing an idea that this particular piece of gear will be so beneficial that it will render its predecessor useless. I recently went through this with a Nikkor 135/2; I already have a 135/2.8, but thought having something a little faster would be nice. I had an opportunity to test drive the 135/2 for a month, and found myself stopping down this large heavy piece of glass more often than not. After I gave it back, my desire to own that lens was gone; I rarely used its widest aperture, and carrying it was a pain.

Years ago, I would buy a camera, shoot a roll of film or two through it, then move onto something else. This got tiring; I would just start to get used to the meter, framing, etc. of one particular camera, then jump into another before getting to know that camera really, really well. The same thing went for lenses; with a 24, 28, 35, and 50 at one's disposal, I found that carrying all of that stuff around got to be a chore, and I could never quickly envision the outcome of a photo for one of four lenses.

It's fun playing with a new camera, lens, or other accessory, but the novelty wears off after a few weeks. It's so much easier to stick to one camera per format; one can make a greater commitment and time investment into a piece of gear, and fully get what they want out of it, I feel.

 

[marcr1230]

There is joy in consumerism and collecting as well as using, photographing and mastering.

it might not be cost effective, but if it makes you happy, life is short, buy and then sell what you don't use/like.

If economics presents a constraint, then be happy scoring a good deal on last year's must have, or if all else fails - master what you have and improve your skills, technique and vision

 

[nongfuspring]

I stopped fetishising equipment when I became genuinely interested in photography. I look at a lot of really good, innovative, exciting photography portfolios/blogs, which I find much better reading than gear-oriented blogs, most of which are REALLY infantile.

For a time I got really interested in gear was that I was interested in the different aesthetic qualities they'd give me, and I thought that by choosing the right gear I could achieve the look I wanted only by using the corresponding camera/lens. Over the last two years though, as I've gotten much better with PS, I've come to realise most of the time the difference in aesthetic each piece of gear would give me is often very easily emulated through post processing.

In other words my own skills in post (wether it be using chemicals or software) are much more significant than the gear that I use, and from that point forward I realised I don't need to keep buying more stuff.