Reasons To Shop - Or Not...

Don't let your eyebrows rise too high at the title of this column - I'm not going to attempt to destroy the photographic trade. At least not more than I have for the past 50 years... We all need a reason to do something - whether it be rotating the tyres or kicking over the neighbour's wheelie bin. Sometimes those reasons do not sound good, particularly in front of a magistrate. But photographic reasoning can be excellent when it leads us to pick our equipment. Thus: a. Shop for the equipment you need. There's a two-headed serpent...do you know what you need? Do you really need it? Is what you need even produced? Are you asking for the impossible, based upon a misconception? Let me give you a real example. About 6 years ago a vistor to the CE shop came in looking for a camera with a lens that would allow hom to take wide-angle panoramas, close up. He demonstrated both concepts by spreading his arms to the side and then standing centimetres-close to a wall picture. He further specified that the wide panorama had to be taken from a telephoto distance...It took a good hour of talking to help him to sort out the idea of panorama, telephoto, and closeup, and to help him see that his eyes or a cameras eyes might supply what his mind had conceived...but not all at the same time. People who have a specific purpose in mind often have a specific need. It might sound difficult to supply gear for this but it is not. Sales staff are imaginative and can often think through the maze of gear to find a solution for that problem. Indeed, these are often easier clients to satisfy than those who call in with nothing but vague desires. b. Shop for the equipment that is made. No good swanning in and telling the staff that you'd buy a whatsis if they made it...but they don't make it. If wishes were horses... At the same time, it does no harm to enquire whether there is some piece of gear available - the small photographic manufacturers that fill - or carve - niche markets think up new stuff every week. We read DP review and all the fan-sites ourselves and sometimes we're as keen as you. But beware that not all Kickstarter come-ons actually come on. Some fail, and some of the stuff that you set your heart on based upon a DPR blurb never actually exists. c. Shop for equipment that you can afford - when you can afford it. That might sound a little economically moralistic, but I assure you it wasn't meant that way. Your purse is your purse, whether it is full or empty. But it's no good coming into the shop when it is in the latter condition, slapping it down on the counter, and calling for a round of Leicas for the house. It don't work in a beer hall in Medicine Hat, and it don't work in CE, eh? If you cannot afford the thing that you actually need ( as opposed to the thing that you just want ) there are ways to finance photo equipment. Leasing plans with financial firms do exist and can be actually a very good idea for people in business. Banks lend money...but remember that they always want it back, and they can be pedantic about that... And then there is the business of not doing business for awhile...of saving up for the desired object. Of putting a small deposit down and laying it by. Of regularly paying the lay-by off until one day you get to take the prize home. You'd be surprised how independent and respectable that can make you feel. This business of money brings us the... d. " Buy the best equipment you can afford. " Ron Frank said this time and again and he was jolly well right. And he could tell you exactly why; " Because it will be the cheapest in the end. And you will buy it only once. ". Not at the beginning, note. Not if you buy something that is inexpensive but wears out, breaks down, or doesn't do the job you need done. In those cases you end up buying it again...and again, if you don't take the hint. The situation is exactly analogous to the good pair of $ 100 boots that lasts 10 years vs the 4 pairs of $35 boots that you buy and wear out in the same time period. You pay less and walk better. This might be modified in the digital era to take into account the fact that advances in bodies mean you'll want to change them in 3-5 years anyway, but you should then direct your long-term purchases into the lenses for those bodies. Get the best you can and just rotate the bodies behind them as technical developments improve matters. e. But do not buy fashion. What? A negative thought in a trade that stopped making negatives? Why no fashion? Save fashion for clothing - for motor cars - for haircuts. And remember flared trousers, winklepicker shoes, the Leyland P-76, and the mullet. Hell, remember 'em all at the same time... Buy your equipment free of trendiness if you can. Look and see if you really think that a touch-screen bluetooth art panorama toy camera vignette HDR coloured attachment strap is really going to be useful and last the distance. If you can get the plain bun, buy that. You can poke sultanas into it yourself later. f. Do not buy trouble. Well, how can you tell if something is going to be trouble? You look at all the reputable reviewers, and then some of the disreputable ones as well. ( I blush...) You look carefully at the official website of the manufacturer and see if it is all mirrors and smoke. You go to the official launch nights. You handle the equipment very carefully in the shop with your eyes wide open. Then you wait. Good cameras and lenses are not going to go anywhere. They will be on sale in 4 or 5 months, and by that time the bugs that may exist will have been seen and fixed. Or not - if things are rapidly withdrawn and the agencies - like Sergeant Schultz - " know nothing ", you can breathe a sigh of relief at having dodged a whizz-bang. In the meantime, you can rent trouble. Rent it for a day or week and then give it back - hopefully without losing patience or professional face in the meantime. If you rent something that is good for others but no good for you, all you lose is the rental fee and on the other hand you gain valuable knowledge. Occasionally you can look at something and see the trouble right there in front of your eyes. If the product is styled past the point of sensibility, or a rehash of something that was made 30 years ago, you know you are looking at trouble. If it has more advertising than substance, and calls upon you to be cool and chic and trendy...trouble. If it is made in the cheapest, nastiest way, and you can see it clearly from the outside, you can be sure that the inside is following suit. If it is too cheap to be good or too good to be true, use the common sense that stops you from eating road kill or sending money to Nigerian financial advisers - just put it down and walk away.