GAS -- harmless compulsion or touch of mental instability?

Johnkpap · May 8, 2012

The only thing i can say is.....

PHOTO SWAPMEET

Enter If you dare !!!

None of us could enter one and not buy someting............we had ours in sunny Adelaide, Australia

I was very good, I did not buy a single camera

...Lenses and other stuff ........the temptation was just too much !!!!

GAS WON this time

Johnkpap

summicron1 · May 8, 2012

if you aren't piling them up around the house, leaving paths to walk through, it is not a sickness, you are just fine. Your wife may feel otherwise, however, but I am not your wife.

benjiboy · Jun 10, 2012

I think it's definitely obsessive compulsive behaviour, and once their collection of cameras reach fifty they should be compulsorily put in a rubber room on the funny farm

Sirius Glass · Jun 10, 2012

GAS is part of the natural balance. Many of us have spent many decades buying things that others wanted and thought they needed. Now is our time. If you want it and having it will give you joy, then certainly go out and get it!

newcan1 · Jun 12, 2012

blockend said:
Therefore I say we have a rule, the rule of reciprochal GAS - every time you buy a camera, buy a block of film.

I confess I have been buying up film faster than cameras. I just bought a 7 cu ft freezer to put it all in ---- and it looks like it might not be big enough! I'll have to get another.

blockend · Jun 13, 2012

newcan1 said:
I confess I have been buying up film faster than cameras. I just bought a 7 cu ft freezer to put it all in ---- and it looks like it might not be big enough! I'll have to get another.

That's the spirit! I ran out of space in the freezer and now have twenty rolls of slide and thirty rolls of colour print waiting at room temperature.

Discoman · Jun 16, 2012

Not sure it is either. I would call it a roadblock or a trap.
Most of us are here to make art. Getting GAS, where you fall into the trap of "maybe this camera will cause me to make better art" prevents you from making art.
There is a point where you should buy gear. If you need a tilt shift lens to achieve an effect, buy one of you will use it enough. Otherwise, rent it. But when you buy it without needing it for a project, then you just started avoiding creating somehting in favor of trying to improve through gear.
Maybe we all just fall into the trap of hoping for that magic bullet.

benjiboy · Jun 30, 2012

Discoman said:
Not sure it is either. I would call it a roadblock or a trap.
Most of us are here to make art. Getting GAS, where you fall into the trap of "maybe this camera will cause me to make better art" prevents you from making art.
There is a point where you should buy gear. If you need a tilt shift lens to achieve an effect, buy one of you will use it enough. Otherwise, rent it. But when you buy it without needing it for a project, then you just started avoiding creating somehting in favor of trying to improve through gear.
Maybe we all just fall into the trap of hoping for that magic bullet.

Photography I have found over more than fifty years involvement in it, and after considerable expense to these ends isn't a problem that be solved by throwing money at it, once you have the most expensive and highest quality equipment that's manufactured and your pictures are still crap, where do you go then ?.

Peltigera · Jun 30, 2012

benjiboy said:
once you have the most expensive and highest quality equipment that's manufactured and your pictures are still crap, where do you go then ?.

My advice is to send your kit to me and take up macrame Just a thought..

Peltigera · Jun 30, 2012

Discoman said:
Not sure it is either. I would call it a roadblock or a trap.
Most of us are here to make art. Getting GAS, where you fall into the trap of "maybe this camera will cause me to make better art" prevents you from making art.

I do both. Quite a bit of my art is done on modern(ish) Canon EOS kit. The other cameras and stuff are another thing altogether. A well designed and well made camera is a work of art in its own right and I collect them for that reason.

Felinik · Jun 30, 2012

benjiboy said:
Photography I have found over more than fifty years involvement in it, and after considerable expense to these ends isn't a problem that be solved by throwing money at it, once you have the most expensive and highest quality equipment that's manufactured and your pictures are still crap, where do you go then ?.

Reboot: Sell ALL gear you have, buy ONE manual 35mm film camera with a 35mm or 50mm lens, and a cpl of blocks of film.

benjiboy · Jun 30, 2012

Peltigera said:
My advice is to send your kit to me and take up macrame Just a thought..

I'm very happy with what I have and have no wish to part with it, once I realized about thirty years ago that constant "upgrading " of my hardware wasn't going to improve my work, and that I already owned equipment that better photographers than I had become legends using, I spent the money I would have spent on equipment upgrades on attending photography workshops and courses and on photographic books that I studied to improve my knowledge of the subject.
I found that not constantly worrying about acquiring equipment and concentrating on making the best use of what I already had very liberating, I don't think about the equipment any more only about making pictures and I think that this philosophy has over the years made me a better photographer, I've had the vast majority of my current equipment for more than twenty five years , there's a lot to the old saying "the best camera is the one you're most used to".

newcan1 · Jun 30, 2012

benjiboy said:
I found that not constantly worrying about acquiring equipment and concentrating on making the best use of what I already had very liberating".

While I keep buying stuff because I love cameras and film, I rather subscribe to this viewpoint, or at least a variation of it. My daughter recently got married, which was an excuse for me to acquire 20+ point and shoots to use as table cameras. We got some pretty good shots from them. Now I am obsessed with the idea of using a simple point and shoot to create images. Some of them are very good indeed. It is good to "slum it" now and again and see how much one can create with how little. And you can pick up cameras like these from thrift stores for about $4 (that used to cost $70 - $100 when new). The sad thing -- I am still tempted to buy more of them even though the wedding is over. Oh well, maybe daughter #2 will need some at some point.......

flatulent1 · Jul 1, 2012

My continued acquisition of cameras has nothing to do with 'making better pictures', and everything to do with "Ooh, I want that!"

Besides, I enjoy gas. :w00t:

Steve Smith · Jul 1, 2012

benjiboy said:
I think it's definitely obsessive compulsive behaviour, and once their collection of cameras reach fifty they should be compulsorily put in a rubber room on the funny farm

My collection was a nice size at around thirty. then I inherited my father's collection of a further thirty pushing the total past your fifty OCD limit.

I'm going to sell (or more likely give away) some from my collection.

Steve.

baachitraka · Jul 2, 2012

Burnt EUR 30 for Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 :-(

Kav · Aug 14, 2012

My local camera shop told me they got in a Nikon F3 with a motor drive. They wanted to give me first dibs on it. Turns out it had been for the local university news paper and had been sitting for years. Picked up the camera, motor drive, and a cherry 85mm f2 for $115. Going to use it tomorrow.

munz6869 · Aug 14, 2012

Picking up two(!!) 1947 Pyrox Victor K1 16mm projectors this week from a pal moving interstate. Where am I going to put these?!? One of them has a working valve amp...

Marc!

GAS -- harmless compulsion or touch of mental instability?

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency