J. C. O'Connell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What in the hell are "deserving hobbists"? Do they sell their photos and donate the money to charity? Give me a break...Do you honestly beleive that photographers are somehow "better" people than collectors? Absurd Notion.
JCO, I wouldn't use the term "deserving," but I do strongly believe that lenses were meant to be used, not to sit on shelves. Owning one of something makes a huge difference in one's ability to take certain pictures. Owning two or three provides increasingly little marginal utility. Consider two Vivitar Series One lenses that were recently on the market. The first was my favorite lens, the 135/2.3K. Much as I wanted a spare, it seemed greedy that I should own two when other PDMLers owned none. So I bought it and had it shipped to another PDMLer who had been seeking it. That same month, I sold an equally covetable K-mount Series One, my 90-180/4.5 macro zoom. Because of its rarity, I would have loved to keep it, but I got too little use from it and felt that it belonged with someone who would use this lens as it was intended. I offered it on PDML. The first to reply was someone who already owned one. I explained that I preferred to sell it to someone who didn't yet have one. He understood. In my first example, I assert that owning two specimens can be greedy; in my second example, I assert that owning even one can be greedy if you don't use it where others would. The underlying principle is the same. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
