So much to learn, and the rest of my life to learn it

[Humansvillian]

The other day my wife and I were doing some retirement planning and I’m 66, and I looked up how many years the actuaries figure I have left on this old sin cussed world.

I discovered the number varies from 15 to 17 years according to the source, but let’s say I have 16 years left to learn how to shoot Olympus cameras.

My 14 year old Olympus E-5 I’m selling is a wonderful camera to ISO 2500, and I own an 8 year old E-M1.2 that’s good to ISO 6400. If I never bought another camera I could easily and happily spend the rest of my life learning the one I have today. To get significantly better image quality I need to learn to shoot in RAW.

This morning I learned how to assign a camera setting to the Custom mode dials.

But there are an incredible number of options to select to change my camera from default settings, to how I like to shoot, and I hardly know what I need to select.

For example, cluster focus works much better for me with the camera set to C-AF. That gives center priority better.

I discovered a pre set manual focus distance. This dove is always 180 feet away.



There are options within menus, within menus.

There are nine different programmable mode dial selections, Program through Art.

When I was in college about fifty years ago there were math majors that might have been able to figure out just how many different ways you can set an Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the number was above a thousand, and there are four newer M1 series bodies that are more adjustable.

Is there an good estimate of all the ways to set an Olympus or OM camera?

--
Humansville is a town in the Missouri Ozarks

 

[Craig from Nevada]

The actuary tables provide the perfect rationale for purchasing the 150-400mm Pro. If you only have a short time instead, you might as well go for it. You only live once. Additionally, you will be leaving a valuable asset to provide for your survivors' financial security. It also provides a material legacy for them to remember you by. You need to think of them.

If you beat the actuary table, you can look forward to many years of enjoyment of the lens. It may also provide many of benefits described in the paragraph above.

So, if you must learn, learn with the 150-400mm. It's only money and you can't take it with you.

The other day my wife and I were doing some retirement planning and I’m 66, and I looked up how many years the actuaries figure I have left on this old sin cussed world.

I discovered the number varies from 15 to 17 years according to the source, but let’s say I have 16 years left to learn how to shoot Olympus cameras.

My 14 year old Olympus E-5 I’m selling is a wonderful camera to ISO 2500, and I own an 8 year old E-M1.2 that’s good to ISO 6400. If I never bought another camera I could easily and happily spend the rest of my life learning the one I have today. To get significantly better image quality I need to learn to shoot in RAW.

This morning I learned how to assign a camera setting to the Custom mode dials.

But there are an incredible number of options to select to change my camera from default settings, to how I like to shoot, and I hardly know what I need to select.

For example, cluster focus works much better for me with the camera set to C-AF. That gives center priority better.

I discovered a pre set manual focus distance. This dove is always 180 feet away.



There are options within menus, within menus.

There are nine different programmable mode dial selections, Program through Art.

When I was in college about fifty years ago there were math majors that might have been able to figure out just how many different ways you can set an Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the number was above a thousand, and there are four newer M1 series bodies that are more adjustable.

Is there an good estimate of all the ways to set an Olympus or OM camera?

 

[Doneworkin]

The actuary tables provide the perfect rationale for purchasing the 150-400mm Pro. If you only have a short time instead, you might as well go for it. You only live once. Additionally, you will be leaving a valuable asset to provide for your survivors' financial security. It also provides a material legacy for them to remember you by. You need to think of them.

If you beat the actuary table, you can look forward to many years of enjoyment of the lens. It may also provide many of benefits described in the paragraph above.

So, if you must learn, learn with the 150-400mm. It's only money and you can't take it with you.

i think i am going to have my wife read this. Your explanation surely convinced me at age 66 i should buy this lens LOL

 

[Humansvillian]

1. Doneworkin wrote:

The actuary tables provide the perfect rationale for purchasing the 150-400mm Pro. If you only have a short time instead, you might as well go for it. You only live once. Additionally, you will be leaving a valuable asset to provide for your survivors' financial security. It also provides a material legacy for them to remember you by. You need to think of them.

If you beat the actuary table, you can look forward to many years of enjoyment of the lens. It may also provide many of benefits described in the paragraph above.

So, if you must learn, learn with the 150-400mm. It's only money and you can't take it with you.

i think i am going to have my wife read this. Your explanation surely convinced me at age 66 i should buy this lens LOL

I did some more figuring and I’ve got about 192 months expected to learn shooting Olympus cameras, and if I bought the Great White Lens for $7500 and both teleconverters for another $500 the sales tax would be maybe $500 and it’s an $8,500 investment.

It amortizes out to about $45 a month for 16 years, more or less.

And the residual value might be $5,000 then, so it’s about twenty bucks a month or so less than our young ones will fall heir to when I climb those golden stairs to worlds unseen.

A good double tombstone, starts about $5,000.

But if I bought it now the lens would be quite a windfall to the children, someday.

--
Humansville is a town in the Missouri Ozarks

 

[Box Brownie]

Crumbs, what a perspective & prospect!

I am already in the decade with a 7.... I know "we" are nothing but statistics for the actuaries.

But sometimes it is spending vs savings for needs(?) in those latter years :thinks:

PS I will be getting the OM 1 mk2 to compliment my OM1.......so that I can as needed keep both of my longer lenses 'ready to go' (300 F4 & x1.4 TC and 40-150 f2.8 & x2 TC)

Not that I don't want the big white but simply cannot justify it :lol:

 

[Tom Caldwell]

The actuary tables provide the perfect rationale for purchasing the 150-400mm Pro. If you only have a short time instead, you might as well go for it. You only live once. Additionally, you will be leaving a valuable asset to provide for your survivors' financial security. It also provides a material legacy for them to remember you by. You need to think of them.

If you beat the actuary table, you can look forward to many years of enjoyment of the lens. It may also provide many of benefits described in the paragraph above.

The actuaries have a lot to answer for - the older you get the more lenses we should buy as the fear of missing out gets stronger the less time we have to enjoy the products of our dreams.

However conventional practicality says we must sell something not used to help finance something we might use. Collecting lenses as we age leads to having all the lenses and little time to properly use them - a real conundrum indeed.

Do we risk the children/grandchildren not being interested in our obsolete wonder-gear because they cannot understand our motivations. Or brawling over the spoils of our megadollar investments because they do?

For those steeped in the Mobile Phone Camera wonders an old camera inherited is a pleasant memento kept in a drawer. For those that inherit a wonder lens its a case of what do I do with it?

Humansvillian, post: 67778759, member: 993405"]
The other day my wife and I were doing some retirement planning and I’m 66, and I looked up how many years the actuaries figure I have left on this old sin cussed world.

I discovered the number varies from 15 to 17 years according to the source, but let’s say I have 16 years left to learn how to shoot Olympus cameras.

My 14 year old Olympus E-5 I’m selling is a wonderful camera to ISO 2500, and I own an 8 year old E-M1.2 that’s good to ISO 6400. If I never bought another camera I could easily and happily spend the rest of my life learning the one I have today. To get significantly better image quality I need to learn to shoot in RAW.

This morning I learned how to assign a camera setting to the Custom mode dials.

But there are an incredible number of options to select to change my camera from default settings, to how I like to shoot, and I hardly know what I need to select.

For example, cluster focus works much better for me with the camera set to C-AF. That gives center priority better.

I discovered a pre set manual focus distance. This dove is always 180 feet away.



There are options within menus, within menus.

There are nine different programmable mode dial selections, Program through Art.

When I was in college about fifty years ago there were math majors that might have been able to figure out just how many different ways you can set an Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the number was above a thousand, and there are four newer M1 series bodies that are more adjustable.

Is there an good estimate of all the ways to set an Olympus or OM camera?

[/QUOTE]


--
Tom Caldwell

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Crumbs, what a perspective & prospect!

I am already in the decade with a 7.... I know "we" are nothing but statistics for the actuaries.

But sometimes it is spending vs savings for needs(?) in those latter years :thinks:

PS I will be getting the OM 1 mk2 to compliment my OM1.......so that I can as needed keep both of my longer lenses 'ready to go' (300 F4 & x1.4 TC and 40-150 f2.8 & x2 TC)

Not that I don't want the big white but simply cannot justify it :lol:

Justification lies in the bank.

 

[Craig from Nevada]

Let's assume, that the 150-400mm Pro costs $7,500 new. If the lens has an economic life of 10 years, that works out to be about $2.00 per day if you assume no residual value for the lens.

At $2.00 per day, that is about $60 per month. Think about the money people drop at Starbucks each day for coffee. Do you want a Danish with your coffee? How much did this trip to Starbucks cost? The cup of coffee is consumed, and the expenditure forgotten as you leave the shop.

How about taking your spouse out to dinner once each month. $60 will get you a meal at Denny's. Once it is consumed it is consumed. Your children and grandchildren will have nothing to squabble over.

It is simply a matter of analysis. Not many people on this board question the coffee or dining out but will question the cost of the lens. It is simply a matter of lumpiness. Plopping down $7,500 at one time for a lens is tough, but people will put equivalent or even greater sums down over time for clearly discretionary activities without the benefit of the simple analysis I just walked through. The lens is scrutinized in ways coffee and dinner are not in many cases, even over the long-haul these are more expensive.

The big lens is the last lens you will ever need. It does so much and does it so well. It is one of the best 43 lenses ever offered. Can you say that coffee at Starbucks or dinner at Denny's is the best ever offered and is more expensive than the big lens?

The actuary tables provide the perfect rationale for purchasing the 150-400mm Pro. If you only have a short time instead, you might as well go for it. You only live once. Additionally, you will be leaving a valuable asset to provide for your survivors' financial security. It also provides a material legacy for them to remember you by. You need to think of them.

If you beat the actuary table, you can look forward to many years of enjoyment of the lens. It may also provide many of benefits described in the paragraph above.

The actuaries have a lot to answer for - the older you get the more lenses we should buy as the fear of missing out gets stronger the less time we have to enjoy the products of our dreams.

However conventional practicality says we must sell something not used to help finance something we might use. Collecting lenses as we age leads to having all the lenses and little time to properly use them - a real conundrum indeed.

Do we risk the children/grandchildren not being interested in our obsolete wonder-gear because they cannot understand our motivations. Or brawling over the spoils of our megadollar investments because they do?

For those steeped in the Mobile Phone Camera wonders an old camera inherited is a pleasant memento kept in a drawer. For those that inherit a wonder lens its a case of what do I do with it?

Humansvillian, post: 67779471, member: 84194"]
The other day my wife and I were doing some retirement planning and I’m 66, and I looked up how many years the actuaries figure I have left on this old sin cussed world.

I discovered the number varies from 15 to 17 years according to the source, but let’s say I have 16 years left to learn how to shoot Olympus cameras.

My 14 year old Olympus E-5 I’m selling is a wonderful camera to ISO 2500, and I own an 8 year old E-M1.2 that’s good to ISO 6400. If I never bought another camera I could easily and happily spend the rest of my life learning the one I have today. To get significantly better image quality I need to learn to shoot in RAW.

This morning I learned how to assign a camera setting to the Custom mode dials.

But there are an incredible number of options to select to change my camera from default settings, to how I like to shoot, and I hardly know what I need to select.

For example, cluster focus works much better for me with the camera set to C-AF. That gives center priority better.

I discovered a pre set manual focus distance. This dove is always 180 feet away.



There are options within menus, within menus.

There are nine different programmable mode dial selections, Program through Art.

When I was in college about fifty years ago there were math majors that might have been able to figure out just how many different ways you can set an Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the number was above a thousand, and there are four newer M1 series bodies that are more adjustable.

Is there an good estimate of all the ways to set an Olympus or OM camera?

[/QUOTE]