I thought I was immune to GAS but...

marcmarc · Sep 11, 2016

... I succumbed to purchasing a Nikkor 28mm f/2 AI-S today. I used to have this lens in the f/2.8 version based on all the positive reviews but sold it when I purchased a 35mm Zeiss f/2 years ago. I had been recently tossing around the idea of picking up another 28mm and while I really like the Zeiss look, I wanted a less expensive lens in case I decided after all it's not for me and I wanted something faster then f/2.8. I really thought the Zeiss would be my one and only lens but I'm not real thrilled with my current work so of course I started wondering about fixing this with another lens, camera, etc. I researched what prices this lens goes for and I got a decent price and it's in excellent shape so I figure I can sell it for what I paid for it or close to it if it doesn't work out. I took it out this afternoon and shot a few rolls in it. Focusing is a little faster then with the Zeiss which feels stiff. We'll see how my negs print when I get back in the darkroom in a few days.

BrianShaw · Sep 11, 2016

Very few people are immune to GAS. Enjoy your new stuff.

eddie · Sep 11, 2016

marcmarc said:
... I'm not real thrilled with my current work so of course I started wondering about fixing this with another lens, camera, etc.

What is it about your current work which doesn't thrill you? New gear is rarely the cure for any disappointing work we produce.

CMoore · Sep 12, 2016

Regards GAS.....i just bought ANOTHER 35mm body. A Nikon FM2n, mostly because it has a fast flash speed. Big Deal.....98-99% of the time i do not even use flash. If i do, my FM flashes at 125.
But so far, for the last year or two, when i HAVE used flash, i did not even use the FM, i used my Canon A-1.
Just curious, how often do you use the 28.?
A month or so ago, i was F'ing around with all my camera crap, and removed my normal 35mm lens from my bag, and tossed in a 28 for some reason. I unscrewed my 50, and installed what i thought was a 35. I could not believe how close i was having to get to the subject of the picture. FINALLY, after 7-8-9 frames, i looked at the lens and noticed it was a 28 instead of my usual 35 that i carry when i need a "wide" lens.
So...was just wondering, does the 28 suit your needs pretty well...better than a 35.?
Thanks

marcmarc · Sep 12, 2016

eddie said:
What is it about your current work which doesn't thrill you? New gear is rarely the cure for any disappointing work we produce.

I know, and I was thinking this when I was purchasing the lens. I cannot put my finger exactly on why I'm just not thrilled with my recent work.

marcmarc · Sep 12, 2016

CMoore said:
Regards GAS.....i just bought ANOTHER 35mm body. A Nikon FM2n, mostly because it has a fast flash speed. Big Deal.....98-99% of the time i do not even use flash. If i do, my FM flashes at 125.
But so far, for the last year or two, when i HAVE used flash, i did not even use the FM, i used my Canon A-1.
Just curious, how often do you use the 28.?
A month or so ago, i was F'ing around with all my camera crap, and removed my normal 35mm lens from my bag, and tossed in a 28 for some reason. I unscrewed my 50, and installed what i thought was a 35. I could not believe how close i was having to get to the subject of the picture. FINALLY, after 7-8-9 frames, i looked at the lens and noticed it was a 28 instead of my usual 35 that i carry when i need a "wide" lens.
So...was just wondering, does the 28 suit your needs pretty well...better than a 35.?
Thanks

Well, I only shot 4 rolls today and I didn't really notice too much of a difference at first between the two focal lengths. Maybe when I start printing I will. This 28mm lens is lighter then my 35mm Zeiss which is built like a tank but the 28mm has a nice solid feel to it as well. Focusing the 28mm is also a bit easier. My 35 and my 50 (also a Zeiss) both have stiffer focusing.

marcmarc · Sep 12, 2016

I just hung up two of the four rolls I shot with the 28. Negs look nice, tack sharp and nice contrast. I should be able to get into the darkroom by Wed. to make a few prints.

blockend · Sep 12, 2016

I recently acquired the Nikon 28mm 3.5 AIS, which was a short-lived design - at least as an AIS lens. I wanted an SLR lens that resembled a rangefinder view with everything in focus at once, and a focal length that allowed for a deep focus hyperfocal setting. The view is slightly dark indoors but outside it's great, and I'm not distracted by out of focus elements so can concentrate on composition instead of continually tweaking the focus ring.

benjiboy · Sep 12, 2016

I thought I was immune to G.A.S until I recently bought a Canon F1n, my first camera purchase in more than 25 years, but it's absolutely mint, with shiny black paint and beautiful, there's only so much a man can resist.

Dan Fromm · Sep 12, 2016

Ben, you are getting old and soft in the head. You could not resist. You have been assimilated.

benjiboy · Sep 12, 2016

Dan Fromm said:
Ben, you are getting old and soft in the head. You could not resist. You have been assimilated.

I was "assimilated" when I got married almost fifty three years ago Dan, but I hope it doesn't become a habit.

Theo Sulphate · Sep 12, 2016

benjiboy said:
I thought I was immune to G.A.S until I recently bought A Canon F1n, my first camera purchase in more than 25 years, but it's absolutely mint, with shiny black paint and beautiful, there's only so much a man can resist.

We understand, Ben, no need to explain. Now, whenever one of my married friends buys something for himself (such as a motorcycle), his wife feels she deserves something too. So, this causes expenses to double. But maybe you're lucky and your wife loves photography and cameras too.

TheRook · Sep 12, 2016

The main reason I abstain from becoming a camera collector is because I know it would then be very hard for me to justify why I should NOT buy more stuff.

benjiboy · Sep 13, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
We understand, Ben, no need to explain. Now, whenever one of my married friends buys something for himself (such as a motorcycle), his wife feels she deserves something too. So, this causes expenses to double. But maybe you're lucky and your wife loves photography and cameras too.

sush! don't give her any ideas

Saganich · Sep 13, 2016

GAS is more an affliction caused by problems one is denying and used as an analgesic. Just easier to justify a new lens than a shot of morphine.

dynachrome · Sep 13, 2016

I recently got a 28/2 Nikkor. Mine is a 'K' model (just before the AI). If what I have read is correct, all 28/2 manual focus Nikkors have the same optical formula. The lens needed some work when I got it and is now fine but I haven't used it yet. On a recent vacation I took a 24/2.8 AIS instead. I really like my two 28/3.5 AI lenses. They are very sharp, just a little slow.

Agulliver · Sep 14, 2016

My wife has almost cured me of GAS. Any more gear appears in the house and I may be divorced! And I've pretty much run out of cubby holes, drawers, space under the bed and in the garage to squirrel stuff away. Doesn't help that my other big hobby is hi-fi....try smuggling in a reel to reel tape deck!

guangong · Sep 14, 2016

Some are collectors who rhapsodize about the variations of Leica flash outlet covers, but some of us are accumulators. We don't really intend to acquire so much stuff but it happens. There is curiosity about how various cameras feel and work. I just acquired a Kodak medalist. I always wanted a Zeiss super ikonta c but could never find one in good condition that was affordable. My medalist produces the same size negative and while I am partial to folders it has a better lense and is more robust since it was designed for active duty in war time.
The acronym GAS is appropriate because it is not the acquiring that is the problem but the accumulating, especially if the camera performs well. I have only traded in a few cameras because they were a PITA to use. Some, however, such as the Minox 35 series are less a problem since they are prone to an early death.

Agulliver · Sep 14, 2016

guangong said:
The acronym GAS is appropriate because it is not the acquiring that is the problem but the accumulating, especially if the camera performs well. I have only traded in a few cameras because they were a PITA to use. Some, however, such as the Minox 35 series are less a problem since they are prone to an early death.

I hear you. I am not interested in obtaining every single variation of my favoured brands....but sometimes I will pick something up because I find it curious, or it's cheap...or it comes with a lens I want for another body. And then, I find it hard to part with a working camera. Because, somewhere down the line, I do use *all* my cameras even if some are hardly practical (Kodak Pocket no 1, for example). It may only get an outing every few years...but it's nice to use it.

benjiboy · Sep 14, 2016

I don't suffer from G.A.S, well not enough for it to be a problem, (I have only bought one camera in more than 25 years I bought a couple of weeks ago, that proves nobody is completely immune) after being a photographer for more than sixty years I have eight Canon FD SLR's ( 4 New F1's,1 F1n,1 EF,1 A1,and 1 T90) I know it's a lot but I'm retired and I shoot almost every day, my outfit makes sense because every lens I own fits and works correctly on every camera body.
All my equipment is in good working order, because instead of buying more and more cameras with my disposable income I save it, so if any of it develops a fault I can afford have it serviced by a professional.

blockend · Sep 14, 2016

There are different models of acquisition. Some people want what they see as "the best" camera, so they can use it with confidence. If the best costs £8000, so be it. Others want the same camera because they've read it's the finest available, they can easily afford it, and they can tell people they have it. Then there are focused collectors, people who have strict guidelines about what they want. This might be every Barnack Leica, or only lenses with an f1.2 maximum aperture, or all the Nikon rangefinder lenses, whatever, there's a plan to their acquisition and getting the full set will take as long as it takes. There are also indiscriminate collectors, people who browse eBay and think "I remember those and never had one" or someone is offering a bag of old cameras for £20 so they'll buy them just to see what they're like. Within this category there are people who fire the shutter a few times, or perhaps put a film through, and decide it was fun and put in back on for auction. The owning limit might be two cameras or twenty, but they have a sense of what is normal and what's excessive and keep a lid on their camera habit. Then there are the hopeless cases, people who just can't resist a bargain, or even a camera that isn't a bargain if they happen to be browsing and get the urge. These people may use their cameras, but probably won't. They have numerous models they haven't used in a year, and most have never seen a film. If they shot a different camera every week they might not use them all, and anyway, they stick to the same few for taking pictures.

GAS is a weird business!

wy2l · Sep 14, 2016

What adds to GAS is when KEH runs a 15% discount!

Theo Sulphate · Sep 14, 2016

Agulliver said:
My wife has almost cured me of GAS. Any more gear appears in the house and I may be divorced! And I've pretty much run out of cubby holes, drawers, space under the bed and in the garage to squirrel stuff away. ...

Have you tried the toilet tank yet?

Ok, this wife-forbidding is so common among so many hobbies there ought to be a name for it - preferably a nice descriptive word auf Deutsch.

Anyway, I never hear about husbands forbidding their wives to have things - shoes, handbags, earrings, Sig Sauer semiautos, whatever they want. Is it that women resent the money being spent on the hobby, or the space, or clutter, or just the attention devoted to the hobby itself?

I've seen this with cameras, watches, firearms, ham radio, cars (ok, that makes sense), and musical instruments. In the story I'd mentioned earlier, where my friend bought a new motorcycle, his wife felt entitled to "an equivalent" self-gift: she and another girlfriend therefore got a trip to northern Italy.

marcmarc · Sep 15, 2016

Thanks for the amusing antidotes regarding G.A.S. Overall, I'd say I've been pretty mindful of passing on items that seemed good at the moment but whose long term usefulness was questionable. However, my buyers remorse I experienced as I left the camera show was gone as I began to print negs from this lens. Razor sharp with great detail; in fact I'd rate it right up there with my 35mm Zeiss. Most surprising was one picture that has two parallel rows of trees from foreground to background. All of the trees stayed upright and parallel! I would have thought that at 28mm there would be at the least some distortion and curvature but there was none at all. I'm not sure if this was due to the construction and design of the lens or simply the way I was using it, but there didn't appear to be any frames on these rolls that had that old familiar slanting trees and buildings that one sees with wide lenses. I'm a happy camper!

John51 · Sep 15, 2016

guangong said:
Some are collectors who rhapsodize about the variations of Leica flash outlet covers, but some of us are accumulators. We don't really intend to acquire so much stuff but it happens. There is curiosity about how various cameras feel and work. I just acquired a Kodak medalist. I always wanted a Zeiss super ikonta c but could never find one in good condition that was affordable. My medalist produces the same size negative and while I am partial to folders it has a better lense and is more robust since it was designed for active duty in war time.
The acronym GAS is appropriate because it is not the acquiring that is the problem but the accumulating, especially if the camera performs well. I have only traded in a few cameras because they were a PITA to use. Some, however, such as the Minox 35 series are less a problem since they are prone to an early death.

I already had a Super Ikonta C when I got my Medalist. Haven't used the C since, even though I have to respool for the Medalist.

I quite like the GAS aspect of this hobby. I get to own gear that I could only dream of when in my 20s and early 30s. Not that expensive if you view it as entertainment. All those hours spent learning which model to get and why. Searching fleabay for bargains then finding a better price at the dealers. Great fun plus you get to go out and shoot some film.

I thought I was immune to GAS but...

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