Penny wise

[fhovie]

I have to laugh at myself from time to time - especially when I see others doing it too. I think about how many times I have had to buy something two or three times and how much money I spent to save money.

Example: -
I want to capture a great sand dune:
Drive to Death Valley - all time spent - 14 hours for the trip and the shots
time - (hobby time takes away from other valuable activities)
fuel - tires etc $60.00
Cost of camera, lenses, assessories - $3,000
Cost of film $15
Cost of darkroom equipment $2000
Time spent developing this lot - proofs - picking the one(s) to work on and printing time 16 hours

Now --- let me put this in perspective:

30 hours, $5000 in equipment to create a print I'll spend more to frame - and sell??
(Consider the costs if you flew there and stayed for a week)
How much can I save on fixer ... or developer? or film??
It seems silly to me. If I spent $30 on consumables in the whole process it would be .6% of the capital costs not including time.
Now add the time spent pondering how to save money on consumables ...

Conclusion:
I wish I had not tried to save money on lenses - $1000 in losses from resale to upgrade
I wish I had not tried to save money on Light meters $750 more than I needed to spend
I wish I had not tried to save money on my MF camera system - $ I won't go there

I have got to stop this MADNESS!

BTW .... I am looking for a good cheap 150mm Sironar with Multicoat (this time) ...

Frank

 

[Tom Duffy]

As I often tell my wife, "Quality, alone, withstands the test of time."

To which she responds, "If it's so good, how come you always want something else?"

 

[Aggie]

..

 

[Robert]

You only spent $30. The rest of the money is for stuff you can use the next time and the time after that.

If you want expensive look at a fully equipped Norm woodshop. Those guys spend big money. Worse they always are looking at something new to do what the tools they currently have will do. Then if you actually buy any wood.

 

[Aggie]

..

 

[Robert]

Well let me put it this way. My friends is so overboard with tools that he had to build a heated shop for everything. That's just the stuff that stays at home. The kit that he takes to the jobsite tends to stay in the truck.

He's lucky that he bought the stuff over the course of I guess 25 years. He also has cheap tastes in wood-)))

 

[fhovie]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Robert @ May 20 2003, 10:21 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> You only spent $30. The rest of the money is for stuff you can use the next time and the time after that.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Ahhh yes, Robert - but the capitol is tied up. If I had it in an investment like a real estate protfolio mutial fund, I could be making 15% on that money. - So ... that is 62.50 a month in lost opportunity on the money aaannnnddd .... depreciation. Which occurs on the newer items I have - most of my stuff I bought already depreciated. I figure this hobby costs a few dollars a day without clicking the shutter. (Almost as much as I would spend on consumables if there are no real projects going)

Then then I create a masterpiece!! (yes, I amuse myself pretty easily) and it is all worth while. - >>>>now I AM laughing out loud.
Frank

 

[fhovie]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Aggie @ May 20 2003, 11:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I have about 30 pairs of specialty pliers. Average cost of around $100 each. Then my collection of files, there are about 200 in it, avewrage cost of around $30 each. Then the hammers, the saws, the picks, solder, extra torches, grinders, sanders, pickle pots, steamers, buffers, ultrasonics, and then you can get into other tools, shears, rolling mills, etc. A wood shop has nothing on me. Then I can start to buy gold and platinum. After that the gem stones. If I go cheap I do silver. Right now most of it is stored. No space for it to be fully set up. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Aggie:
One of my other hobbies is collecting and restoring antique fountain pens. A lot of the same tools - fortuantly - not quite as bad - only 5 or 6 pliers, picks etc - Nib repair tools - so a lot of the metal working stuff. Ultrasonic cleaner and dremmels and polishers. ..... Maybe I don't want to remember all this stuff .....
Frank

 

[Poco]

"30 pairs of specialty pliers. Average cost of around $100 each. Then my collection of files, there are about 200 in it, avewrage cost of around $30 each."

Yikes, Aggie! I was a jeweler for 12 years and at no point had more than 8-10 pliers or 20 files. Of course, now I'm NOT a photographer and have an unheard of number of lenses and cameras. Maybe that's the difference between an amatuer and a professional -- only the amature can afford to splurge

 

[chrisl]

Very Funny Topic Frank! Just had to laugh. I'm sure one of those that have had hobbies that have cost a fortune. Spent a tiny one on a salt water reef setup once, sucked money like you wouldn't believe lol. Don't like to think about it, and the same came be said with photography gear over the yrs. And here I am complaining about the cost of fix and developers LOL Oh well, what can I say, I'm an extravagant splurging at times, but otherwise a cheap at heart lol

Now, let's not add my woodworking equipment and tool shop setup costs, computers that were 'really' not needed over the yrs, as well as the workshops and travel vacations. Whew...that was scary!

 

[Robert]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (fhovie @ May 20 2003, 04:41 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Ahhh yes, Robert - but the capitol is tied up. If I had it in an investment like a real estate protfolio mutial fund, I could be making 15% on that money. - So ... that is 62.50 a month in lost opportunity on the money aaannnnddd .... depreciation. Which occurs on the newer items I have - most of my stuff I bought already depreciated. I figure this hobby costs a few dollars a day without clicking the shutter. (Almost as much as I would spend on consumables if there are no real projects going)
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

If you think like that you'll never buy anything-)) Look on the bright side. The mutual fund might tank and your camera stuff might go up in value. I just spent 30 minutes fixing the stove that somebody managed to break a knob on. One screwdriver and a pair of pliers and I saved myself a service call. Don't know if that means I can spend money on film.

 

[Aggie]

..

 

[steve]

You people really think about stuff like this? Why? I won't even begin to recount what I have invested in photo gear collected over 30 years. It's sick I'm sure. If I would have invested all of that money in.....something....(frozen orange juice futures?)....I'd be "rich." Then what? Sit around and look at my bank statment? Ooooohhhh, that sounds like a rewarding adventure. Photography helps you live your life. Discover new things, challenges you, makes you think, makes you work - Now, how much is THAT worth?

 

[Loose Gravel]

Steve, well said.

Now everybody else--- get out and take more pictures.

 

[David Hall]

I grew up along the American river in Northern California, and returned this weekend with my son. We saw some guys fly fishing, as I always did growinig up. As my 5 year old was talking to them and asking to see the flies, etc, it dawned on me that in years and years of watching guys fly fish, I have never seen them actually catch a fish.

So I asked a group of guys, all decked out in beautiful and expensive Orvis and Simms gear, casting their Leica rods with Schneider lines and Hassalbad engineered flies, what they caught on that day.

Nothing. That's not the point, they explained. The point is to be there hip deep in icy water, casting.

For about a second I was amused, and then I instantly flashed to all the times I have been hip deep in sunset lit grass somewhere, Arca Swiss and unblinking Rodenstock ready, "casting" for a fish that has yet to adorn my wall or someone else's wall or even an album.

Why we do what we do...

dgh

 

[Loose Gravel]

David Hall, Sounds like you grew up in Fair Oaks or there abouts? I've from Orangevale. BVHS '73

 

[Ed Sukach]

I grew up along the American river in Northern California, and returned this weekend with my son. We saw some guys fly fishing, as I always did growinig up. As my 5 year old was talking to them and asking to see the flies, etc, it dawned on me that in years and years of watching guys fly fish, I have never seen them actually catch a fish.
Nothing. That's not the point, they explained. The point is to be there hip deep in icy water, casting.

I'm not sure if that's it. either. To me, there is not a whole lot of diffference between Fly fishing and Photogrphy, at least at one level: I feel a whole lot better doing it than I do *Not* doing it.

Perhaps we do it so that we talk about it afterwards. I can remember one memorable incident on the Little Ossippee River in Maine -
I was in the middle of the stream, casting away - when I realized the urge to GO - always a problem when wearing chest-high waders. So -- slosh over to the bank, climb out, walk thitry yards or so up the hill, to be screened from public view. Lay the rod (Thomas & Thomas) against a tree, remove the vest. Wiggle out of the wader suspenders, bring them down around the ankles. Uh ... unbutton, lean against a tree, taknig care that the angle of one's body is sufficient to *miss* the waterproof waders below...
... And look up to discover a *very* interesting young lady who had swum across the river and was heading up the hill directly at me ... topless...

Talk about babbling like an idiot... I was trying to think of some suave explanation for the waders around my ankles....


[/quote) ...Why we do what we do... [/quote]

I don't know. Maybe it is some kind of weird reaction formation directed against money. I've caculated that Brook Trout costs me US$987.03 an ounce (15g) ... and photography ... I don't even want to think about the cost...

 

[Nige]

You'd better not start me on fishing stories...

 

[Bill]

As I recall Mike Johnston wrote a column describing an exercise similar (in spirit) to Les' journal. Mike's exercise was simple: shoot a roll of film (I think he suggested one 36 exposure roll of 35mm) every week, get it processed, select the best picture and get it enlarged to at least 11x14 and put it on the wall somewhere very visible. Live with the picture for a week. Repeat at least ten times.

He felt it was important to live with the enlarged pictures. At a workshop last summer Tillman Crane described how he puts work prints up on the wall and lives with them - and uses a red sharpie to highlight what didn't work, or could be improved.

Bill

 

[SteveGangi]

I've spent a fair amount on both photography and fishing gear. They both can be relaxing and rewarding, or frustrating. It's the times you get skunked that make the successful outings so sweet. When you compare their cost to necessities like food, shelter etc, the cost is negligible anyway. Unless I missed my guess, everyone here has to work for a living one way or another, and act "responsible" most of the time, so as long as the essentials are covered, no one has a right to question what you or I spend on our toys or what we do "on our time".

 

[fhovie]

As I recall Mike Johnston wrote a column describing an exercise similar (in spirit) to Les' journal. Mike's exercise was simple: shoot a roll of film (I think he suggested one 36 exposure roll of 35mm) every week, get it processed, select the best picture and get it enlarged to at least 11x14 and put it on the wall somewhere very visible. Live with the picture for a week. Repeat at least ten times.

He felt it was important to live with the enlarged pictures. At a workshop last summer Tillman Crane described how he puts work prints up on the wall and lives with them - and uses a red sharpie to highlight what didn't work, or could be improved.

Bill

I feel this way myself (except for the format - 6 sheets or 12 6x6) - it is practicing art. If I only wait for the remarkable, I will only capture the cliche' It is those amazing captures all around us and not only that we identify them as noteworthy but that we display them in a way that speaks meaning. And even more so - that each person reflects their own meaning into them as well - such that the artist and the viewer bring each a unique idea that is compelling. It is so very tempting to only wait for the remarkable instead of creating the remarkable from what is around.

Kida lofty aint it .... I guess I'll go out n shoot sumtin now. -Frank