Have you ever bought a lens for just one photo?

Ariston

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I have scoped out a photo I want to take. I need a specific focal length, which I have in 35mm, but I want to take it with a larger format.

I may buy the lens I need, even though I may never again need it. Have you ever taken part in this kind of madness?
 

MattKing

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I have rented a lens for that sort of purpose, but never bought one.
 

M-88

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No, I usually buy lenses for the photos I never actually take in the end.
 

BrianShaw

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It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but I bought a large format soft focus lens, took one picture. It was a great image. Then put it away with plans to use it again later. That was 18 years ago. Oh... and then there’s the other one I bought because the price was right. I “tested it” but after 10 years still haven’t used it.
 

Michael Firstlight

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I did buy a computerized Gigapan gigapixel auto pano head to do a job for the US Army Corp of Engineers that hired me to create a 12x30 foot panorama sunrise over a local lake for ihe visitor center there. Of course I charged it as an additional expense on top of my fee

MFL
 
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Neil Grant

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...many years ago i 'scoped' a photo for which i didn't have the focal length I really needed. I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow one from a another photographer at the same location. The lens in question was a 360mm for RB 67. Just how lucky can you get?
Seriously though, rental is your best option. Or borrowing from a friend.
 

ic-racer

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A friend of mine was retired and well-to-do. He went back to school at the local university taking photography classes. As I recall he bought a WA large format lens just for an interior shot for an assignment. Also, I recall a large format macro, for another assignment. He was trying to sell them later, correctly indicating they were used for a single image each.
 
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Ariston

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This is funny because I am considering a long RB lens. RB lenses tend to be cheap, but rental is not.

If it will cost me over half the price of the lens to rent, I would rather just buy it, then sell it when I’m done. The problem is I am bad at letting a lens go after I buy it.
 

xya

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yes, I did. I bought lenses to try something I had in mind. sometimes it doesn't work as planned. So after one or 2 photos I sell them. usually neither with profit nor loss.

and oh yes, I have some old lenses without shutters and the shutter box failed. those I kept for trying later. but thats large format....
 

Pioneer

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I have purchased tons of lenses over the years but I can only recall two that were purchased for a specific photograph or type of photograph. These are the SMC Pentax D-FA Macro 1:2.8 100mm WR and the SMC Pentax FA 645 Macro 1:4 120mm. I think it goes without comment which type of photography they were purchased for.

In fact, macro or close up photography is probably the primary reason that I have not entirely defected to the rangefinder and large format worlds.

As mentioned I own a lot of lenses, but when I go through my records, I find that I only actually use about ten of them on a regular basis. Even then, if I were forced to admit it I could get by with only my Leica Summicron and my 12" Goerz Dagor over 90% of the time.
 

NB23

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That’s the mere definition of GAS: buying a lens because we give it some magical atribute that has been missing.
It’s all psychological.

the best example I can give is the following: from january of this year I’ve been relentlessly scanning and printing my lifetime’s work giing back to 1990. All shot on the best and most exotic and rarest glass available. I have carefuly written notes on each negative sleeve (lens, camera, developer, temperature...). I’ve been piling the prints to an insane amount, insane to the point of being unmamageable and I pitty my sons who will have to deal with this when I’m gone. So now you have an idea of the extent.

And one thing strikes me from the very beginning: i could have shot all this work witg any camera and lens. Any! There is not a single print where I say “wow, this lens saved the day”. Sure, I fully appreciate my rolleiflexes, xpans and Leicas with the plethora of collectible lenses. But I could have stuck with my very first minolta XG-9 all the way from 1990 until today (2020), and I’d have the same amount of work piled up. And it would have been the same. The great images would all be there all the same.

in retrospect, all this gear collecting has been, only and totally, an act of indulgence. Nothing more.

Actually, I’d like to go the next 3 years with only one camera and one lens, and lock all the rest of the gear away. This would be brutal in many ways. First, my portfolio would get brutally upgraded, I’m sure. And also brutal because I’d have to realize that all my “beloved” gear was never needed. And that would be a huge slap in my face. “Whaaaat? This summilux is not magical after all?” And “how can I apologize for not using my rolleiflexes, they must have missed me”. Letting go is brutal in a lot of subtle ways.

I’d have no problem documenting India for a whole year with simply a 4x5 pinhole camera. I can imagine all the visual poetry coming out of such an exercise: one-hundred amazing photographs rivaling with the most exquisite paintings. But no, my relentless need for a next magical purchase always gets in the way. It is truly a poisoned state.
 
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Dan Fromm

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Almost. Once. A Celestron C-90. I needed a lens that would give me 1:4 magnification at ~ 10 feet. The Celestron could do that.

Why 1:4 at 10 feet? 'Cos in '76 while in Costa Rica I'd seen Rivulus isthmensis out of the water on damp leaves by streams crossing the then new Siquirres-Limon road. This under dense vegetation. They were skittish, flipped back into the water if I approached closely enough to use my 105/4 MicroNikkor. Documenting the behavior needed a longer lens and a strong flash.

I went back in '79 with the Celestron, fast enough film and a powerful enough flash. The vegetation was gone, the stream banks were dry and the fish were not in evidence. My wife and I spent a day looking for them, collected one lousy Rivulus.

The lens was a grade A dog, suffered from severe astigmatism as in "couldn't focus vertical and horizontal wires in window screen at the same time." Terrible central hot spot. Soft all over the field. Eventually I realized that the warranty ran for 25 years, sent the dog back. Celestron sent me another woof-woof in exchange. Equally unusable. Funny thing is that some of Celestron's products are quite good.
 
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pbromaghin

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I bought a 100-500 no-name zoom for shooting surfing from a certain vantage point at a certain beach, and haven't been back to that place in 4 years. My existing lenses are all just fine for any other beach I have been to since. It's also a pain in the ass because the split-prism finder turns in the opposite direction of every other lens I own. It seemed to be a good idea at the time...
 

RalphLambrecht

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I bought all my lenses for just one photograph the best one I could never make and I do that tomorrow.
 
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Ariston

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RalphLambrecht said:
I bought all my lenses for just one photograph the best one I could never make and I do that tomorrow.
Click to expand...
You may be right. I think it is the opposite of GAS to buy a lens for a photograph. Buying a lens “just because” is GAS, and is what I have most often done.

I need the compression of a longer lens for what I want to do. But it honestly probably won’t turn out as good as I imagine. it’s just been in the back of my mind for awhile. I have until autumn to decide, anyway.
 
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Ariston

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Alan Gales

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Not for one photo but for one shoot. I bought a used Fujifilm 50-230mm f/4.5-6.7 lens for my Fujifilm Xt3. I shot my daughter's college graduation with it. I'll probably keep it because I bought it so cheap and may one day use it again.

I've bought cameras and lenses to try out and then later sold them. Nothing like shooting a camera or lens to decide if you like it or not. As long as you buy right and later sell for close to what you initially paid. Just consider any loss as a cheap rental fee. I used to sell a lot of film photography items on eBay so it was no big deal for me to sell things. Some people don't like to fool with it, however.
 

etn

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Same here, a 500mm Reflex-Nikkor for the same occasion
My pics did not turn nearly as good as yours, though.
And I used it a 2nd time for the 2018 lunar eclipse. Focusing was a pain even with live view of the digital camera.


 

Neil Grant

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...I eventually bought a 'used' 360mm C f/6.3, after renting a non-C. The newer lens is much better into the light. It's probably the most portable of the long-lenses for the RB, not needing the mounting bracket that the 500mm requires and also being usefully lighter and shorter than the APO 350mm. Depth-of-field is wafer thin.
 
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