Stuff you wish you'd never bought...

[The Blue Boy]

Peter Phun (Known here as Pixel Pete) just gave me a chuckle with his latest blog post,

Photogear I shouldn’t have bought.

We've all done it, so I want to see a few confessions!

So I'll start it off with a couple of mine,

A Benbo tripod. A "Trekker" no less. God, what was I thinking? Think of a tripod crossed with Bambi on acid on ice. Seriously.

A Lenspen. Pro. Essential for smearing dirt, smudges and generally making a mess on the surface of a lens.

So go and have a look in your photographic basement and share the skeletons that you've used only once or twice.

It might make people think twice.

[Poaceae]

Light, inexpensive tripods that offer no real stability.

Cannon 50mm f/8. The glass is OK but had the flimsy plastic housing come apart on me in the field. Cannon repaired it under warranty and I was able to sell it.

[Colin Southern]

Where do I start ...

- CP Filters

- Expodisks

- CP-E4 Battery Packs

- Playstation, Playstation II, Playstation Portable, Nintendo (what was I thinking!)

- Numerous lunches for my competition

the list goes on ...

[tbob]

A Nikon Coolscan 5000. The idea was to scan all my old slides and negatives into digital at home in my spare time.
That was two years ago; progress to this point: nil. Probable progress in the future: some number approximating the likelihood of the sun going nova in the same time frame.

[Markvetnz]

Anything cheap - I stopped doing it years ago. Always costs more in the long run.

[rob marshall]

The Porche 911 (too vulgar), The Rolex (too flashy), the second house (too big), the iPhone (too dated), the luxury yacht (too windy), the case of vintage champagne (too drinkable), the gold plated bath (too flaky), the Viagra (too effective), and that little gadget that I found in the back of a drawer the other day which looks as if it's to remove hairs from the ears, but might be an attachment for an old Fuji Finepix bridge camera that I no longer own.

[Letrow]

A Contax G2, because I really liked the viewfinder concept. I had a great Contax G1 with nice lenses, but wanted the improved version. The damn thing developed electronic troubles after a while and I sold it because it stopped me from shooting.

[shreds]

Years ago....a cheap teleconverter

A cheap plastic Jessops tripod that outside falls over if you breath on it (but did find a studio use as a flashgun mount years later)

Numerous square coloured/star filters that have been superceded by Photoshop

Nowadays I am a lot more careful and thoughtful about what to buy and generally it is not at the cheap drossy end of the market tack. You know the stuff that appears with regularity on ebay unsold.

[The Blue Boy]

No hotshoe bubble as yet I see.

Someone will admit it sooner or later!

[wilgk]

Well I cannot think of anything myself.... But watch this space a certain young lady may live to regret some 'ink' in time to come.
I may have to wait till she's 40 for that to happen, but I will be prov'n right e-ven-tually...

[Donald]

But watch this space a certain young lady may live to regret some 'ink' in time to come.

Oh dear! She will regret it.

For my own part ........ a Rogue Flashbender.

Was absolutely convinced I'd need it when I bought the 580EX II and the Gary Fong Lightsphere. Never used. But I might one day.

[Bobobird]

Oh dear! She will regret it.

For my own part ........ a Rogue Flashbender.

Was absolutely convinced I'd need it when I bought the 580EX II and the Gary Fong Lightsphere. Never used. But I might one day.

The exact same thing.

[Sunray]

A Canon EF 70-300mm IS USM f:/4.0-5.6.
It was way too slow for me and above 200mm sharpness is dropping significantly. So I never really liked it. I sold it shortly after I bought my beloved 70-200mm L IS USM f:/4.

Robert

[Shadowman]

I've fooled myself into thinking all my purchases were justified, however I did buy a 500mm f/6.3 mirror lens that I've used numerous times but only once in the field. The lens is only capable of taking semi-decent photographs during the day and you need a tripod because of its weight. However there are filters I can buy that would help with in-camera contrast, but then if I make that purchase I'd have to start fooling myself again into thinking all my purchases were justified.

[Poaceae]

No hotshoe bubble as yet I see.

Someone will admit it sooner or later!

I'm very happy with my hotshoe level. Bought it for ~$6 from Cowboy Studio and use it every time I shoot a Gigapan.

[Black Pearl]

A Ball & Socket head that fits to the top of a wine bottle - thought it might be handy but it just isn't.

A Rubber Neck which is a kind of flexible rubber joint to go between a tripod and a camera that lets you alter its position without having to release anything - utter rubbish that barely holds the camera still.

Countless Lowepro pouches and compact camera cases that I've got my eye on, had to have but don't have a need for....or even a compact to go in them but they're just so nice though and I have this thing about Lowepro.....:roll eyes:

A Graphics tablet...years ago....that I convinced myself would transform the way I edited images. It didn't and frankly I don't do that much to them that I need anything other than a good mouse for.....or the Magic trackpad which I bought and may or not actually need either......in my defence it is really cool.


I do have a hotshot spirit level somewhere in the house which I've never really used but I don't think I paid for it, just something I picked up at work or possibly a trade show.

Loads of other stuff like that - which is inevitable when you've worked in a photography shop for 22+ years.

[russellsnr]

Hi, Studio flash heads along with other studio bits and bobs, if I was able to sell up and move back to the UK they would sold ASAP.
COLIN:- Whats wrong with the expo disc?
Russ

[rob marshall]

A Ball & Socket head that fits to the top of a wine bottle

But, how do you manage to drink the wine?

[Tringa]

About 45 years ago as a teenage photographer I decided I needed a tripod. All the older guys at the local camera club had a tripod, so I had to have one too.

I bought one mail order from an advertisement in Amateur Photographer (a British photo mag which has been going now for over 100 years). As it was really cheap I knew I had got a bargain.

Unfortunately the "bargain" I received was the metallic result of an early experiment combining the DNA of a stick insect and a praying mantis. If you touched it lightly or, it seemed, even spoke loudly in its presence, it vibrated for so long that I'm sure it gave out more energy than you'd put in. Any one of the legs would have made an excellent fly fishing rod.

I think this was my first introduction to, "if its looks too good to be true, it probably is".

This is not to say I have not made other bad buys, but I have just got meaner and can more easily talk myself out of buying things.

Dave

[arith]

A point and shoot; I was told by a dealer they could do anything a dslr could and I used it for only 1 week. A Nissin speedlight, Cokin filters, a gold umbrella, a cheap zoom I later part exchanged, a backpack that is twice as expensive as the thing I should have got.

Quite a lot really, but I'm glad I didn't get a 5D or 40D. I suppose also ReMask 3 since I hardly ever use it, whilst it is good I'm really looking for ways to use it and it is time consuming and there are limits to what it can even achieve.

I got the cheap zoom from Ebay for £60 and exchanged it for £20 to a dealer who put it up for sale at £80 as exc++, I said it was exc- so maybe it wasn't that bad.