Am I buying too much camera for my need/skill?

Hi guys, over the past 8 years I have bought a Nikon D90, Olympus E-PL2, Fuji X-E1, RX100 mk1, Canon G7 X, Panasonic GX7 and a couple of primes for each DSLR/mirrorless system.

Very recently I bought an A7R II and FE 16-35 f/4.0 ZA and is shopping for 24-70 GM when something strikes me when looking at 24-70 GM's sample photos on Amazon: These people are pros or at least much more active than me and they took photos I would never take yet I am spending thousands buying the same gears.

My original plan was to get A7R II + 16-35, 24-70 GM, 70-200 f/4.0 and sell/give away all other camera/lenses save for G7 X because I have lusted after FF since D700. Yet thinking about it, except a couple of vacations and a few more family/friends outings a year, I don't take my big cameras outside and just use iPhone + 1" sensor compact.

I still feel a strong need to document everything in as much detail as possible but such good gears feel like a waste on doing something so mundane. Buying used E-M5 II + Pro lenses is cheaper but that's still pro gears and I'd be losing a lot of single-shot details. I don't know what to think.

It is fine as long as it keeps you happy.

Yes but you've come to the right place you are among friends.

No idea what your skill level is, and you didn't really explain what your needs are. I'm happy at the D7000/E-M1 level of performance. FF has enough downsides (weight, annoyed girlfriend when you bring the serious camera) that it's not worth it for me. You should know exactly what, if anything, is holding you back. If there's just a general sense that FF and the highest-end lenses are what you need, then you definitely don't need it. You'd know if you did. There are a bunch of FF shots of my dog, now deceased, that I regret didn't have MORE depth of field. I can count on one hand the shots that I maybe lost because I had a MFT camera, and none of those shots were really that important.

... and too many different types.

You'll get better faster if you concentrate on one or two bodies. Upgrade only when you hit a limit that is solved by the upgrade, but try to stay with the same brand and type so learning curve will be shorter.

Peiasdf said:

Hi guys, over the past 8 years I have bought a Nikon D90, Olympus E-PL2, Fuji X-E1, RX100 mk1, Canon G7 X, Panasonic GX7 and a couple of primes for each DSLR/mirrorless system.

Click to expand...

And you still have all of these? Why so many?

Peiasdf said:

Very recently I bought an A7R II and FE 16-35 f/4.0 ZA and is shopping for 24-70 GM when something strikes me when looking at 24-70 GM's sample photos on Amazon: These people are pros or at least much more active than me and they took photos I would never take yet I am spending thousands buying the same gears.

Click to expand...

Sensible thought. The number of times people ask about pro level gear when they mainly take family holiday pictures is quite amazing to me.

Peiasdf said:

My original plan was to get A7R II + 16-35, 24-70 GM, 70-200 f/4.0 and sell/give away all other camera/lenses save for G7 X because I have lusted after FF since D700. Yet thinking about it, except a couple of vacations and a few more family/friends outings a year, I don't take my big cameras outside and just use iPhone + 1" sensor compact.

I still feel a strong need to document everything in as much detail as possible

Click to expand...

What do you mean by 'detail'? Do you pixel peep every shot you take? Do you print them really large? Show them on a huge screen?

When I am out with my grandchildren I generally take a decent compact that literally fits in my shirt pocket. There are times when it just isn't good enough, but most of the time I get far more 'details' of how the family was having fun than I would if I had to carry a FF plus fast zoom around.

Peiasdf said:

but such good gears feel like a waste on doing something so mundane.

Click to expand...

Not really, if it makes you happy and the money you spend doesn't leave your family hungry!

Peiasdf said:

Buying used E-M5 II + Pro lenses is cheaper but that's still pro gears and I'd be losing a lot of single-shot details.

Click to expand...

I still don't understand that comment. I routinely use my Fuji X-T1 (same 'detail' capability as your X-E1) and unless I crop really hard or use it in really challenging conditions (extremely low light for example) it gives high quality detailed images.

In my opinion you should choose your camera based on how much you enjoy using it, rather than trying to wring the last tiny drop of 'detail' out of your images. I would not be surprised if most (maybe all) of your cameras would be able to deliver perfectly acceptable images if you were to work on your skills and technique rather than trying to buy quality.

Peiasdf said:

I don't know what to think.

Click to expand...

Yes your GAS (Gear Acquire Syndrome) is rather excessive, but you're not hurting anyone so enjoy your spending.

The saddest thing, however, is to hear that you rarely used your good camera other than a iPhone and a 1" sensor. This seem extremely wasteful to me. Buy wherever Pro camera you want and use it, even abuse it like a Pro journalist through mud & rain, but don't buy them to collect dust in your closet.

I think you're being very honest here, many in these forums struggle with this GAS when their shooting needs turn into shooting wants, i'm no different.

If you're struggling on a regular basis to achieve your photographic vision then it's perhaps the gear that might need upgrading, but generally the latest and greatest gear satisfies want rather than need.

... as "too much camera / lens for my skills".

Some, like me, bought A7Rii to separate hardware issues from my lack of skills or artistic talent. Only, rather than buying those brick-heavy zooms, I opted for a set of fast, light primes - my only zoom is 70-200 f/4, but Sony doesn't offer telephoto primes.

When you use the camera and lenses you bought, you can't blame equipment for your failures anymore. High-grade equipment magnifies the photographer's deficiencies, just as it magnifies skin imperfections not noticeable before.

If your photo comes out blurred, it's not a failure of A7Rii and your Zeiss lens, but the person's taking the picture.

If your photos lack good light, composition, story, vision, etc., it's not because you did not have good equipment to make the photo better - you (and me) have nobody else to blame.

It is like switching from the old, un-tuned mechanical piano to high-end electronic one. If a wrong note sounds, you can't say that the instrument is not tuned properly.

Use and enjoy your new camera. Watch a couple of YouTube videos on how to use all the important features (focusing system, etc.). Then, start watching videos on lighting, composition, portraiture, landscapes, etc. - whatever your photographic area of interest is. And learn to use the high-end equipment you have to it's and yours highest potential.

Cameras are not like cars. If you give a Ferrari to an inexperienced driver, he can kill himself. You are not likely to kill somebody with the Sony, enjoy it!

I looked at upgrading my m43 gear to a better body and some pro glass.

Too expensive.

I looked at the Sony A7 series, but the one I really wanted (the A7Rii) was too expensive... and the price of lenses was out of my budget.

So in the end, I kept my existing m43 gear and lenses for travel.

And bought a used Sony A99 full frame cheap, and found a lot of very fun Minolta AF lenses for dirt cheap.

Best of both worlds.

I noticed this a while ago. Here is a picture of the big bright LCD screen, and in it is a colourful picture you can take of hot air balloons at sunrise shot at eye level because you are in one.

Now the one time I was in one the camera I took didn't have an LCD screen. And I took 36 photos, at the end of which I put the camera away.

Not that I couldn't have loaded another roll, or if I'd taken a digital I wouldn't have taken more, but at the end of the roll I just wanted to enjoy the ride.

Besides there are millions of hot air ballooning shots - I see them on the LCD screens of every new camera

Probably yes. But then, it's folks like you that keep the camera business afloat

You're not buying too much camera. You are buying too many cameras. You haven't given any of them a fair tryout, much less a chance to sink in. To get anything really good out of a camera you have to know it intimately well, and that goes double for a lens. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to find a system that really makes sense to you and a lens that you know can become a true "third eye" but you will never get there if you keep on churning.

You need to decide whether you are interested in photography or in buying and selling cameras. If you are interested in photography, try this: pick one camera body and one prime lens. Lock everything else up or sell it. Use the gear you have--one camera, one prime lens-- for a full year. Develop some deeper understanding of what the combination can do. When you come out of that, you'll know whether you are a photographer or not.

And don't sell yourself short because you are interested primarily in mundane everyday subjects. Photography does not automatically equal images of the dramatic, the bizarre, the thrilling or the exotic. Telling the truth about ordinary things is a valuable artistic goal. I was out for most of an hour yesterday photographing dried up plants and hunks of concrete and the weird things contractors spray paint on the grass and I was happy as a clam.

Peiasdf said:

Very recently I bought an A7R II and FE 16-35 f/4.0 ZA and is shopping for 24-70 GM when something strikes me when looking at 24-70 GM's sample photos on Amazon: These people are pros or at least much more active than me and they took photos I would never take yet I am spending thousands buying the same gears.

Click to expand...

So first off, you have the philosophical aspect ... is too much a problem ? People will scoff at you for spending a few thousand on a camera to take pictures when they use their phone, yet how many people spend thousands more than they need to on more car than they need, more SUV than they need, more house than they need. There's something to be said about spending money on a hobby just for enjoyment.

Peiasdf said:

My original plan was to get A7R II + 16-35, 24-70 GM, 70-200 f/4.0 and sell/give away all other camera/lenses save for G7 X because I have lusted after FF since D700. Yet thinking about it, except a couple of vacations and a few more family/friends outings a year, I don't take my big cameras outside and just use iPhone + 1" sensor compact.

Click to expand...

The 1" compacts have gotten really good, haven't they ? I shoot snaps with my phone that rarely ever make it off my phone. I shoot plenty of casual stuff with my RX100 as well. But I still own a couple of ILC kits totaling several thousand $$ in bodies and lenses.

Peiasdf said:

I still feel a strong need to document everything in as much detail as possible but such good gears feel like a waste on doing something so mundane.

Click to expand...

You should at least be getting some enjoyment out of it ... make an occasional big print, marvel at the pixel level detail in Lightroom ... if you're not getting anything out of it other than knowing that you have FF, then it's overkill. (The question then becomes, is that a problem ?)

Peiasdf said:

Buying used E-M5 II + Pro lenses is cheaper but that's still pro gears and I'd be losing a lot of single-shot details. I don't know what to think.

Click to expand...

Where is your obsession with detail coming from ?

Check out this recent post over on TheOnlinePhotographer and see if that rings any bells.

I have a couple big prints in my office that look great, one at 20x30 shot at ISO 400 on an older 12MP DSLR cropped down to about 10MP. It's not tack sharp up close, but I don't need to view it from 12" away. I've been wondering about my own unhealthy obsession (fed by all the gear posts and reviews and analyses I read) with sharpness ... I started looking at a couple of my favorite photo books. Uncommon Places by Stephen Shore ... images are about 8x10 on 10x13 (approx) pages. That's a nice size to look at. I think I'm going to plan on making some photo books. If I recall correctly, Stephen Johnson (sjphoto.com) who has photographed extensively with a Better Light scanning back once wrote that he considered a 300dpi print from a scanning back image (which records R, G and B at each photosite) to be the equivalent of a contact print. So I correlated that to dxomark's "perceptual megapixels" where they claim that you can take an image, downsize to the P-Mpix rating, then upsample again and have the same level of detail. I don't know how reasonable their ratings are (some seem a little off to me) but that means a camera/lens combo that rates 6 or 7MP can do an 8x10 with that "contact print" level of detail and bigger if viewed from a distance. And I've looked at images shot with the lowly 18-55 and 18-200 zooms that have tons of detail. So what I'm basically trying to ingrain in my head is that unless I retire and go into fine art photography and have a need to start making high quality large prints, pretty much any camera out there is going to do all I need it to do and I can freely concentrate on gear that (a) does what I need/want it to and (b) is fun to use.

- Dennis
--
Gallery at http://kingofthebeasts.smugmug.com

You are overthinking it

If buying it doesn't hurt your wallet too much go for it. Otherwise you will buy other stuff and keep asking yourself "what if...."

I do agree that you have too many overlapping cameras right now. I am an "exclusive relationship" type of photographer and I only have a FF an my mobile phone. And I hate taking photos with the latter.

The most important thing is... if that makes you happy, go for it.

Dennis said:

...pretty much any camera out there is going to do all I need it to do and I can freely concentrate on gear that (a) does what I need/want it to and (b) is fun to use.

Click to expand...

+1

Well said.

OP can also read "Is it worth it", an essay by Ken Rockwell:

"I've spent 40 years screwing with gear. I was using my parent's cameras or using the Instamatics they bought for me ever since I was 5 years old. If I had spent this time concentrating on photography instead of on cameras I'd be a much better photographer."

Only you can say whether or not you have better gear than you're actually taking advantage of. I know that for me anyway it isn't so much about how good I neeed the gear to be as far as ultimate IQ, but what I'm most likely to carry around to actually get the good shots. My m43 gear is really perfect becuase it gives me a level of IQ that I'm really happy with, is plenty versatile with all of the different lenses I can use with it and is light enough to carry it with me much more often than I would with a much bigger rig. I might have gone with Fuji instead as they're also pretty compact and have much the same advantages as m43 (and I think that the stuff is cool!).



Anyway, if the Sony rig that you just bought is enjoyable to shoot with, wherether or not it's "too much" doesn't really matter; you can afford it and it works for you...

Perhaps not too much camera, but certainly too many.

I can easily understand this as I got to 14 before I started to cut back. I am currently using 3 with 3 more in storage as alternates (backups) for the 3 in use. There is also a fourth camera that lives in my car 24/7, a Canon G15.

In the process of getting down to three "users", I spent a lot of time going through the what do I need versus what do I want.

In looking at your list, of gear (no S in gear as applied to your camera collection) you have a lot of duplication. In fact, you have 5 interchangeable lens cameras, and 2 fixed lens cameras with the same sensor and very similar properties.

My recommendation would be to pick one of the five that you most enjoy holding and working with, get rid of the rest, and use the proceeds from the sale for some better lenses for the one you'll keep. You'll want a camera that you form an attachment to. Something you really like handling and using. I find that unless I can form that emotional attachment to the camera, it won't get used.

For example, I had a Canon 30D, sold that to get a Nikon D90. I just hated the D90, especially the menus; so I sold it and bought another 30D. On paper, the D90 is the better camera; but the 30D was good enough image wise, and I liked using it.

For the two fixed lens cameras, I'd either stick with the RX100; or sell both and get a G7X Mk II. The G7X or Mk II is a bit larger and heavier, and may not be easily pants pocket size. If that's important, stay with the RX100, as I know that fits in my pants pocket. Not tight jeans, I'm talking about looser fitting trousers.

OK, to wrap this up, what are my 3 cameras? A Panasonic FZ1000, a Sony RX100, and a Sony HX80. The FZ1000 replaces my DSLR and three lenses, and does everything well enough. It also showed 20-25% higher resolution on my resolution chart than my Canon 70D, and can wirelessly control off-camera flash units for group shots and portraits. The RX100 is my pocket camera for most things, and the pocket sized HX80 is the long lensed companion to the RX100 for light travel.

Not at all. I'd rather be the limitation than the camera, and if you can afford it there's no reason to get anything less than what you want.

Plus a camera like the A7RII gives you nearly limitless flexibility, and if anything will expose holes in your technique.

If you jeed a volunteer when giving away your unused gear PM me.

on the other hand if you are passionate about this regarfless of profession and it isn't a burden then do what makes you happy.

It is easy to get caught up in gear but at the end of the day if youbare getting the output you want and the camera feels right in your hand don't question the method, enjoy the results.