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Gear head's guilt
The price tag matters at first. It costs too much for a hobby. But day after day, as you imagine what you could do with that one little piece of gear, the weight of the number wanes and is replaced with the undeniable truth that you will eventually find a way to justify the expenditure.
What's your guiltiest gear? What was your justification at the time? How often do you use it now, and was the guilt worth it in the end?
I recently ordered a new stabilizer gimbal for my camera. I have all sorts of justifications for it, but the fact is that I make no money off of my camera work. That hasn't stopped me from throwing a large portion of my income into it. It's hard to reconcile creative justifications with financial reservations. But in a way, the added pressure helps motivate me to create more. I feel like avoiding costs in creative endeavors leads me to eventual stagnation. So I bite the bullet and figure out a way to make it happen.
I bought a tripod with a quick release for my camera. I lost the quick release button on the first outing and now I have an expensive paperweight. On that outing I also learned I don’t like using the tripod and I weirdly prefer stabilizing my camera on a balled up hoodie on my backpack.
Sort of not worth it? I did learn a lot about how I take pictures which I feel was worth it.
For some reason that reminds me of my old GoPro. I had a first gen and used it a bunch for making boring road bike timelapses. But one time I took it hiking and tried to strap it to my friend's dog. DogCam sounds fun, right? The waterproof casing part over the lens got all scratched up on the rocks.
Never was able to find a replacement part for it. The camera probably still works, but since the first gen waterproofing and mounting systems are entirely based on the casing, it's much less useful now.
The DogCam shots were useless jittery garbage, to top it off.
As a side note, I'm a huge fan of my gorilla pod. The 3k ones are a bit pricey and the joints eventually wear out too much, but for the time being it's my go-to for most things. I'm hoping the new gimbal will work well for a lot of stuff, but I also suspect it's gonna be on the heavier side. So the gorilla pod might still get some use.
Ooh, I’ve actually been thinking about getting one of the bigger gorillapods. I think it would fit more with my method of picture taking.
The 3k is beefy enough for most DSLRs. I've been able to set up timelapse angles that would have been almost impossible with just about anything else. Basically makes it so that you can turn just about anything into a tripod, whether it's a ceiling joist, a tree, bookshelf, yourself... Just don't strap it to a dog. DogCam doesn't work.
There's that gif that gets reposted all the time on reddit, with the dog running down a hill to the beach; now I really wonder what the rig actually looked like. I'd always just assumed it was a gopro propped up a little, but maybe they had to have some kind of fancier stabilizer set up.
Maybe they just strapped a chicken onto the dog first...
It's definitely a GoPro (the muffled sound and lens angle is a dead giveaway) that seems like it's just held on with some kind of harness. Whatever it is, it's pretty well rigged though. All that jostling is exactly what knocked my DogCam loose to get dragged around on the rocks.
17 million views, though. Damn. I shoulda posted the clip to YouTube anyways.
Last summer, I finally bought the guitar I'd been wanting since I was about 10 years old. Well, not the exact guitar, because that would have been way too expensive, but what I bought is a Gibson Les Paul Traditional Pro II. Hell of a guitar, built-in true coil splits, 10 dB boost circuit with true bypass, and some really nice pickups. It was hard for me to justify, but in December I turned 50, and it just seemed to me something I should do before that milestone. This summer, I'm seriously considering getting the Marshall amp I want to go with it (playing it through a Fender amp now, which is tantamount to blasphemy), but I keep talking myself out of it. It'll probably happen anyway.
I love the bass, although I've never been very good at it. The technique is just foreign to a guitar player (well, me anyway), and I've never given it serious practice considering I don't own a bass.
Save up for the house payment. You'll get your bass later. Buying a house was one of the best things I've ever done in my life. It's a ton of work, and I sweat the mortgage certain times of year, but it's great seeing that loan balance drop every year until it hits zero (if I live that long).
Oh, damn, didn't realize you were talking about something like $20K. Hell, I could get close to a true burst Paul for that kind of money. Well, somewhat close. I tend to look at it as "what's the least money I can spend to get the sounds I want." It's served me pretty well for 36 or so years haha.
Those won't load for me, but I'll take a look later. I've seen Alembic guitars, but not many in person. They're pretty rare.
Happy quinquagenary! Sounds like an awesome gift to mark the occasion!
Thanks, although it's not so festive when you're the one reaching that age haha. We didn't do any celebration because my cousin has terminal cancer, and I couldn't have a huge party without him there, so I begged off.
Sorry to hear that.
Thanks, man.
Somewhat recently I bought a laptop that's way more powerful than I need. I've got a lot of ways to justify it, but I still feel like I spent more than I should have. By the numbers, it was a great deal. It would have cost $5000 new, a year or two ago, but I grabbed it for $1500 on ebay, with 2 full years left on the warranty. I just keep asking myself it's going to last 3x longer or work 3x better than a $500 laptop.
It's a HP Zbook Studio G3, with an i7 6820hq, 32gb DDR4, 1.5tb of NVMe SSDs, dedicated Nvidia Quadro card with 4gb vram. Great speakers, great IPS display. Very solid, built like a tank. Warranty has next-day on-site service with accidental damage, so for whatever reason if I have a problem, even if it's my fault, next business day a HP guy shows up at my door and gives me a new one.
I just know I could have got by just fine with a $500 laptop with an i5, 8/16gb ram, 256gb ssd, integrated graphics, etc. I keep getting pangs of guilt, wondering if it was worth it. Probably not. But hey, the thing is damn sexy, and at least I can play Witcher 3 on it!
drool
I could do some serious video editing on that. I'm currently running on 8 gigs of DDR3, which is half the recommended minimum for my editing software, and a quarter the recommended minimum for the compositing software. It works, but hoo boy does it struggle sometimes. I was really debating if I should get more ram and maybe a raid setup for storage (video eats through it pretty quick), or get the gimbal. I went with the gimbal, but I'm gonna have to upgrade this puppy sometime soon.
Also, Witcher 3 looks sweet. I haven't played it myself yet, but I've watched a friend of mine play for hours on end. That map is huge!
That actually sounds like a blast! I've been eyeing the mazda 3 hatchback for my next car (I've been driving the same 96 corolla for the past 18 years). I love the look of the new mx5 hard tops. I'm not even sure if I'd fit in one, but it would be my dream car. Not a Porsche or Ferrari. A little ol mx5 sounds like it'd be a blast.
Have you seen the offroad miata converstions? Goofy as hell, but I'm genuinely curious how they'd be as a rally car.