Friday I got Smokin on my mind....

After a long hiatus since my Mardi Gras smoking to let the weather clear out, its back to the grind again.  I have been on a real tear lately, buying up camera gear like a fiend, a hoarding fiend.  But now that I have bought up every reasonably-priced used Nikon and lens, I can return to being myself and saving money like some kind of old age pensioner.  Since that is essentially what I am anyway.  

I had been wasting a lot of time and effort and cash buying high-end Point & Shoot cameras, because I didn't want the expense and hassle of a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera.  I can see now just how prescient that was, I was VERY smart to have stayed away, at least for as long as my little moat and battlements held.  That effort ended officially on or about February 20th.  I began selling point and shoots and buying up SLR bodies.  It started innocently enough, I wanted a decent OLD body for me, and maybe one for my sister.  On top of that, just a normal lens for both bodies.  END OF ASSIGNMENT.

By the time it was all over, one of the two cameras I bought was WAY better than I expected it to be and I selfishly kept it for myself.  So now I had TWO Nikon bodies.  I still needed to buy a body for my sister, whom I love.  But apparently not enough to give her this other great Nikon body.  But I had originally wanted to keep this under budget.  So I looked and found a $99 Olympus body and a lens for it for $69.  It was a good enough camera, hell it was a DSLR, right?  That in iteslf made it "good".  But it was not GREAT....the more I thought about it, the more it was JUST like the olden days, when the jacks and mouse story happened.

Little diversion from the plot so far.  When I was just a kid, my mother thought it would be appropriate if we started using our own money to buy Christmas gifts for each other, amongst the three children in my family.  Great idea.  I am not sure what happened before, maybe my PARENTS bought non-Santa gifts for us and disguised them as being from each of the other kids.  But to begin this project-idea, we went down to the ben Franklin store, which at that time MIGHT have actually been a T.G. & Y. store.  I already knew the toy section there quite well, I had coveted all the little stamped steel friction toys that you drug backwards on the floor and then released, sending them zooming forward til they ran out of wind-up.  So I knew what MY plan was going to be.  I would buy what I wanted for me, then use the leftover money to buy THEM something.  By the time I had lavished myself with treats, I had just enough money left over to buy my one sister a rubber mouse and the other a set of jacks/ball.  WHO buys someone a rubber mouse?  What was she, a CAT?  Anyway, whatever I have become in my life since that was greatly affected by that embarassment.  If I am ever overly generous with gifts today, it is because I never really understood the perspective of another person as well as I did that day.  It changed me inside and cut me to my core.  I must have mentally resolved never to do that again.  And such is the way I learned every hard life lesson that I ever learned; the hard way.

Again, I digress.  But that story will somewhat explain why I was not going to do that to my sister this time.  I could give her a rubber mouse DSLR, or the DSLR I had intended from the beginning.  Now this was NOT going to be some kind of giant 'statement buy', it was going to be the cheapest, most left-behind, used Nikon they offer nowadays, the Nikon D70.  This is a relic, a dinosaur, a complete 2003-2004-era also-ran in the modern world.  However in it's day, it was extremely capable and in use as a camera capable of delivering professional results.  It is probably the single highest-selling digital SLR Nikon ever produced.  Now that it is the cheapest used Nikon you could find, did that somehow wipe all that glory away?  Hell, I didn't think so.  

But during the time I spent agonizing over the original purchase wave, deciding which one to buy and what lenses I should get with it, THREE used Nikon D70s disappeared from the shelf, as if someone had been watching me and was trying to stick their foot up by butt for spite.  I bet those cameras had been there for a year, and now all of a sudden, three in a day disappeared.  Granted, I got one of them, but that left NO D70s left a week later when I decided that I had to replace the Olympus I got for my sister.  So I went to another vendor and picked one up.  So now I had in my posession FOUR DSLRs and a few lenses.  Luckily my nephew is graduating high school this summer and he is into photography and the ridiculous old Olympus would suit him to a tee, his first DSLR.  Making it all that much nicer is that the damned Oly is a freaking great little camera.  Takes brilliant, colorful photos.

So after all that, everybody wins.  Well, except me.  I went on a lens buying spree that basically broke me.  Had to sell a bunch of cigars to make up the damage, which I had to do anyway, so don't cry for me, Argentina.  But I went from being a very well-equipped and sensible Point & Shoot owner, happy as a clam, to being just another one of the sickos who has been infected with this NEEDY camera gear disease for which there seems to be no cure.  The only thing that balances it out in the end is that out of ALLLL the stuff I bought, I only paid 'new' prices for one lens.  Everything else was bought USED.  Down to the memory cards and shoulder bags.  I probably have in my hands now some $15,000 worth of camera gear and am only out maybe $2000.  Despite the depreciation, it still WORKS like $15,000 worth of gear, I am happy to report.  And in the end, everybody's happy.  Even me.

And for my sister who reads this blog, don't let the outpouring of hidden facts (some not hidden, poor girl, I burdened her with most of the play-by-play via email, in that classic OLS writing style, 400 words to say 50 word ideas) discourage you.  I bought a ton of TV gear to ready myself for freelance work, and I bought a ton of Still gear for my own pleasure.  I know you will use your camera and get another ton of enjoyment out of it, and I will gain even more satisfaction in the purchase during the times I will be there with you snapping away.  And if I recall, you handed me down some accessories during my first foray into 35mm photography, which, quite unsanctioned by you, became a bold quest to snap cheerleaders in the most embarassing possible moments for my own perverse, high school pleasure.  IT DID give me a good shutter finger, though.  So there's that.

As for the SMOKING part of this entry, sorry, that happens tonight.  I need to test out a 35mm 1.8 lens in the fading dusk light.  I understand it is quite a fast lens, so we shall see how it all goes.  And it could be that I ride to Nashville on Saturday to smoke with my friend Bill, so maybe some photos of that, too.  NOW, back to saving money like a normal person in a depression.  Thanks bankers and mortgage lenders!