Aahz, the primary oversight in your calculation is the apparent assumption that your gear will go to $00.00 in value after some number of years.
A second possible mistake in your calculation is the notion that your gear has value only during the hours it is being used. You can't get image files without a mechanism to capture those files. Let's call that device a "camera" since that is the topic here. So, you use the camera x hours to produce images. But you also then have y hours of entertainment (or challenge, agony, boredom, fascination, whatever . . . ) processing those images as you transmogrify the electrons into web pictures and/or prints. And then, over many years to come, you have z hours of pleasure as you and friends and family look at those old images and reminisce. You may prefer to minimize y, but x needs to be large enough to keep z from approaching zero. And the camera's per-hour value should be calculated against x+y+z, not against x alone IMHO. stan On Jul 6, 2013, at 10:26 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote: > On Sat, Jul 06, 2013, Bruce Walker wrote: >> On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Aahz Maruch <[email protected]> wrote: >>> On Sat, Jul 06, 2013, J.C. O'Connell wrote: >>>> On 7/6/2013 2:19 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote: >>>>> On Sat, Jul 06, 2013, Bipin Gupta wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> What Aahz, whats this "would need to get a K-5 first... ;-)" ?? With >>>>>> prices hitting the bottom most at around $ 600 please grab one. >>>>>> You wont regret it. Even the K-5 II is hardly $ 70 more than the K-5. >>>>> >>>>> The problem isn't the body, it's the glass. I don't own any Pentax >>>>> equipment currently (I rented for my cruise), and I haven't decided yet >>>>> what kind of equipment I want to get medium-term. >>>> >>>> If I was starting from scratch, I would go with NIkon, better range of >>>> dslrs and you can use newer af glass, as well as vintage mf glass. >>>> No FF with Pentax, no vintage mf glass with Canon. >>> >>> Nikon weather-resistant lenses are more spendy than Pentax, I don't care >>> about FF, I like in-camera shake reduction for prime lenses, and I have >>> a soft spot for Pentax because I grew up with it. Basically, my choices >>> boil down to Pentax, m4/3, or high-end P&S with occasional equipment >>> rental when I need the best (the last is what I'm currently doing). >>> >>> As I mentioned in another post recently, my impression is that long-term >>> (more than 5-10 years out), *all* the camera makers are poor bets due to >>> likely technological disruption, which makes me leery of investing in >>> glass. >> >> 5-10 years out you could be bored with photography, blind or dead. Buy >> glass now while you can still enjoy it. :-) > > Right -- the question is whether I'll enjoy the glass enough over 5-10 > years. The way I think about stuff like this, I guess/calculate how much > it costs per hour. So a movie these days is about $10-$15/hour (ticket > plus munchies). So let's look at how much "basic" Pentax gear would cost > me, assuming I buy new (all Amazon prices, rounding to nearest $50): > > K-5 II with 18-135 WR $1150 > DA* 60-250 $1350 > D-FA 100mm macro WR $700 > > That's $3200, divide by $25/hour and that's 128 hours. So I'd need to > use that for at least 25 hours per year over five years to get my > money's worth. And that's rock-bottom minimum, I'd really want a > normal or wide-angle lens F2.8 or wider. Buying used would save some > money at the cost of time (keh.com doesn't have them all right now and a > used 60-250 isn't much cheaper than new). > > Then there's the fact that I rented two bodies for the cruise, and it's > really really handy to not switch lenses... > > Normally I wouldn't be quite so rigorous in my analysis, but that much > money makes me think, especially when I already have equipment that gives > me about eighty percent of this capability (and is significantly better > in some respects, namely bulk/weight/convenience: Nikon P7100, Canon G1X > with 250D closeup lens, and a Fuji X-S1 that arrives Tuesday). So > really, that's 25 hrs/yr *in addition* to what I'm already doing for > taking photos. Makes it a lot harder to justify to myself. > -- > Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/ > <*> <*> <*> > Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
