I’m slightly ashamed to say that I am a gear whore. I love lenses, I love cameras, I love the technology that goes into them and I love the new possibilities that additions to the system provide. I am a Canon man first and foremost - they have great lenses at decent prices, but the options are infinite. I have a hefty camera that has amazing high ISO performance and blazing 6.5 frames-per-second, a very sharp third-party general use wide aperture zoom, a telephoto zoom L series (one of the sharpest zooms ever made), and an off-camera flash with manual power control if I need it. This should be more than enough to keep me busy, but…
It’s difficult to keep busy in photography during the cold winters in NY, especially doing the wander-around-and-find-interesting-shit type of photography that I do. I don’t want to spend the entirety of my out-of-work free time driving somewhere interesting to take photos, I’ve explored most of the immediately interesting places near my apartment, and I’m too conspicuous with my current setup to get candid street shots. And unfortunately sometimes it takes a shiny new lens to motivate me to get out into the cold for photos. I want to get into prime lenses - non-zoom, single focal length, very wide aperture. The 50mm f/1.8 is a great starter, but I sold that to my brother along with my old camera and I want something a bit better - quieter autofocus, higher quality optics. Mainly primes are great because they are small and unobtrusive - they allow for some very sneaky shots despite the huge SLR you might be lugging around. Plus they force you to be creative by using your feet to zoom rather than just rotating the ring. Technically speaking, they also allow a very small depth of field to allow for maximum artistry in your photos.
My two top contenders are the 50 f/1.4 and 85 f/1.8. The 50 is a more useful general purpose focal length and 1.4 is a very wide aperture allowing for low light photos and razor thin depth of field. However the 85 is listed as one of the best deals in lenses but is more useful in portraits and the types of things I don’t typically do. Or should I splurge and go for the 100mm macro so I can do shots like these? And this is where I run into trouble - analyzing the gear far more than taking the photos. The toy-buying phase of photography is great fun, but it can only take you so far if you aren’t swimming in gold coins (this is probably the peak of that mountain). In reality, keeping up with photography is difficult, stressful, draining, and even dangerous. After getting deep enough, you learn to start seeking the best light (hour after sunrise, hour before sunset), scoping out areas days in advance for the best angles on the shot you plan on taking, scouring the streets alone searching for just one or two interesting shots of abandoned warehouses and tenement slums. Wandering the seedier parts of town with $3000 worth of gear is not a comfortable experience, which makes it more tempting to stick to the safer and more boring places… but you can only visit the park so many times
As much of a pain as this winter as been, I expect a great spring and summer. There’s a park very close nearby that’s right on the highly polluted Onondaga Lake, and despite the fact that it’s closed at nights I think I will be able to park nearby and wander around with my tripod. It’s much more difficult to wake up and go out shooting Saturday mornings knowing it’s going to be below freezing. Warmer climates should encourage further exploration.
Let’s hope so at least, for the sake of keeping the only hobby I’ve ever had that gets me away from the computer.
