On Sat, Jul 06, 2013, Stan Halpin wrote: > > 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.
Not really -- I've learned from painful experience that getting rid of photo equipment is a big hassle (for me, YMMV), so yes, that was an implicit assumption because of the time involved. It may not be literally zero, but it's functionally zero. You could make a similar argument that the equipment will likely still work in five years and therefore I don't need to amortize over the short period of time, but I might just as easily get into a situation where I'm just not doing photography anymore and therefore the equipment is now gathering dust (and therefore functionally worthless to me). Five years is the longest possible amortization time I'm comfortable with; the numbers get worse with a shorter time. > 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. That's true, and I skipped it in simplifying the calculation. Doesn't really change the basic principle involved, though. Ditto to Paul Sorenson's points. > 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 <a...@pobox.com> 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 PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
