My 2022 toy budget is in. How should I spend it?

Mr Bolton wrote:

nurseMarty wrote:

Dear nonicks:

Nice set of kit. Do you NEED, much less want, anything else? Why?

Education or experience may be the way to go. Take a workshop. Learn more about what you love shooting. Surround yourself with others who love what you are doing. Maybe take a workshop with somebody who loves what you are doing and is a Fuji ambassador.

I just signed up for a four day workshop with Hugh Brownstone of three blind men and the elephant from YouTube. October in NYC on the street. $1900 plus airfare, room & board. I’m a street photographer and have done it for ~ 10 years. Open to learn more. Open to implement what I’ve learned but am not doing. Open to criticism (feedback). Will have fun. Maybe learn or be reminded of things. Did I mention having fun?

Or take a photography class at the community college. You have enough gear to do what you want. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Mask on Nurse Marty

I was going to suggest waiting for the X-H2 before making a decision re: different body/lenses/ecosystem. But I think I like this suggestion even better.

Also, there is to consider how the rest of your workflow setup is going. Do you have a nice, modern day monitor? I spent like $400 on a new 32" 4K Samsung and it really upped my game. I know I coulda spent much more for calibrated color display and etc, but what I have now is great for both computer and movie watching use. Whether PC or Mac, $2000 can get you a whole lot of swanky, fast new computer and capacious storage to match. NAS is a good investment, also.

I still like the 'take a class' idea best, however. I know I could use some! Even if that class is just you putting your camera in front of some nicer scenery in order to get nicer pictures

Thank you Mr. Bolton for your comments and pointing out the importance of the workflow setup . I totally Agee and am aware of it.

For monitor, I got my LG 38" ultra wide WQHD monitor 2.5 years ago. It's not 4/5K but it still does the job very well. Love it. But I am thinking to buy one more to expand the work space ( for non-photography related tasks) .

I got the MPB 16 i9 last year and MBP 15.6 i7 a couple years ago. They are my main work horses for everything. They are smooth and powerful for running capture one and handling all other programs so far. I do have multiple TB cloud storage and local storage and I don't do too many videos. So I guess I am all set for a while.