The Expense of Gear
[Note: A lot of this is repeat, but contains some different (and more
updated information, so I include it. You may want to ignore it.]
Good gear is expensive. If you can't afford it, use what you can
afford. That is what I did for years, but here I am going to tell you
about the best gear I have found for my work, which is pretty much
also the most expensive. I know you can find less-expensive
versions, just as I once did, and many of you no-doubt will. One
rule that probably all experienced photographers would agree on is
don't pay twice for what you need, which is unfortunately something
I did year after year.
In the beginning I would opt out of good gear to save money,
figuring I could get by with lousy gear. The problem was, bad gear
doesn't work well, so I got hit two-fold. I ended up buying the good
gear anyway, sooner or later, and I still have a closet full of lousy
gear I can't sell, plus (and here is the painful part) all that time I had
to use bad gear that really made learning close-up photography
much more difficult.
I might have given up photography altogether based on bad gear,
but happily I did not. About the only rationale I can remember for
buying cheap is that maybe I would not get 'that' into photography,
and so why not buy low. Bad gear is one way to insure you might
not get into photography. Good gear also has good-to-reasonable
resale value, while bad gear does not, and stays in your closet
forever. You should see my closet.
The moral of the story is: do your homework. If you can't afford the
good stuff, at least carefully research the lesser stuff so that you get
something that works for you rather than you for it. I can't tell you
which gear these days is bad because I no longer buy it. As
mentioned above, I have a whole closet full of lousy gear if you are
interested.