What is your best/worth photo purchase?

Spin-off from this thread.

1)

What pieces of gear you regret getting? The ones you've thought you'd use the most and they ended up just collecting dust?

2)

Which are the most "bang for the buck" pieces of equipment? The ones you use most often and the ones you've learned the most with?

I'll go first:

1) I really could've done without S1 IS. It was very expensive at the time it came out and I realized that I need a better camera just after the return period.

I don't use 70-200 too much, but that's gonna change once I start shooting events.

2) Lots here. My film gear fits in - cheap and good.

The kit lens is excellent. It flares and it's soft, but it's cheap and small. It works good with the rebel.

The rebel itself is well worth the money. I will probably replace the shutter at least once on it. The amount I've learned with it allows me to shoot film with my eyes closed.

Regrets? I've had a few... Not really one in photography, however.

Best spent money? Must be the Tamron 28-75 (Standard Tammy). For under €400 it's an amazing lens. And of course: my membership of this forum. Price/quality is unbeatable

P.

worst purchase- flash bracket (in theory I thought i'd use it.. it doesn't fit in my camera bag it's akward and just sits around while I bounce my flash when I need it).. and the 75-300mm 4.5-5.6... what can I say?...

Best purchase- my ND grads... nifty.. and the 70-200 f4.0L..

sari

Bang per buck buys have to be my various classic MF lenses. I really enjoy them and the IQ is great and they make me a better shooter than all the USM, IS, P&S gadget stuff. Also, I really do regret selling my Bigma which I both let go too cheap and also have never replaced it with anything I prefer overall, including 300mm IS L, 100-400mm IS L and 100-300mm f4 Sigma. My Gap shoulder bag has been great and lets me carry basic camera gear around with minimal hassle and without looking like some camera/brand/geek/idio​t.

Worst buy ... probably a toss up between Digital Photography for Dummies (which my wife bought me for putting up some shelves for her!) and a 3rd party battery which came as a pair: one works perfect and this one just won't seem to charge with the Canon charger, tho worked fine when I first got it. Actually, add in several bags bought off ebay that just don't do the job as too small or whatever. All sold on tho' so no big deal.

1) Out of all my gear, I "regret" very little.

If anything, it's minor stuff. Like I kind of regret paying something like $65 or $70 for a 512MB CF card out of a CompUSA last summer (when online places like B&H had the high-end 1GB cards for $90) but I needed it at the time.

I sorta regret buying the Lowepro backpack bag- not that it was a bad bag, I loved it, it's just that after almost a year, I realized I'd never once actually used it as a backpack. I sold on eBay for about a $20 loss and bought a Tamrac Pro 8, which has worked out much better.

After buying the 28-300IS, I sort of regretted having spent $125 on a used 75-300 f4-5.6 (they're $150 new) but I'd bought it and used it for several months before I could afford the big L, so it proved useful. And now with the 1D, I have two seperate bags; one with the "high end" stuff in it, and a much smaller, lighter one with the XT and the inexpensive stuff. I can grab the little bag if I think I'll want to take snapshots and informal stuff (family gatherings and such) or I can grab the big bag if I plan on doing some "real work".

Other than that, my collection isn't all that big. I haven't bought or sold much that I didn't research, plan and ask about, considering what it took to save up for most of it.

As for #2, the XT, hands down.

Yeah, I bought it back when they were pretty new and no rebates (just under $1K plus accessories) so I pretty much paid "full price", but it was worth every penny.

It's never given me a single problem over the course of well over 25,000 photos, it's given me great images, and it was light and small enough to carry everywhere. It helped me relearn my nearly-forgotten high school photography class education, long atrophied by nearly half a decade of point-and-shoot digitals, and got me interested in photography again.

I still use it for snapshots rather than dragging the 1D out, since it's smaller and lighter, and at the moment, the 18-55 is more useful than the 50mm 1.4 as a walkabout lens. (Though I plan to get the 24-70 for the 1D, which, interestingly enough, is almost exactly identical in range on a 1.3 crop body as the 18-55 is on the 1.6 crop.)

On the low end of the "best bang of the buck" scale, I bought a $19.95 four-section no-name (Chinese import) monopod from the "photography" section of a local big-box store. (You know, where they have a bunch of point-and-shoots, camera bags the size of a kid's lunchbox, and memory cards labelled as the number of photos they hold rather than a "-byte" capacity.)

Surprisingly enough it's sturdy, the locks work extremely well, it feels solid in use, and it's more than tall enough for me. It can and has easily held my 1D and 28-300 without any problems- and that's what, eight pounds or so?

Well worth twenty bucks.

Doc.

1. Stylus 1800 and Monaco suite. I find I don't have patience to calibrate the POS dell cheapest monitor known to man. Most of my work is digital, and I prefer taking to favorite printer when I want quality prints.
The Tamron 11 13....wish I had gotten a better glass in this range. This lens saves me when I need it, but think it could be lots better.
2. My favorite babies. 70 200 f.2, 50 1/4 and 24-70... my meat and potatoes! I am thinking to selling items in #1 to go towards 300 f.28

I use mine for portrait, "sports" & for everything in between & wouldn't be without that range. While I do love the 28-70 f/2.8 lens for general "walkabout", I think something wider would be better for me, so I also use the Kit lens a lot, too.

You have the f/4 and it focuses at 1.2 meter or so.

My sigma's minimal distance is about 1.6 and I prefer other lenses because I'm simply too far away.

Regrets: The Canon 75-300 was probably the biggest waste of money I've spent to date on photographic equipment. I needed some extra reach for a specific project and could not have been more disappointed with the IQ. You definitely get what you pay for.

Most "Bang for the Buck": Probably any of my prime lenses. They're cheap, light, and have killer image quality. The 85mm f/1.8 is my most used prime, followed by the 200L. I couldn't do without either of them when shooting sporting events. A relatively new acquisition that I just got for a couple hundred bucks is a gently used 135 f/2.8 Soft Focus lens. It's really very, very sharp and is a great lens for the money.

With butterflys, etc that's a good thing!
A 55mm macro drove me nuts. 105 was better. 200mm is just right for what I like to shoot.

Best bang for buck would have to be my Sigma 50-500mm. I started with a 20D and had 2 lens Sigma 24-70 and Sigma 50-500.

Brought a 5D and the Sigma 50-500 aint what it used to be. (should have kept the 20D but sold it)

I' ll trade ya!

Best
135L, seemed like every shot was a keeper, but ultimately it had to go when the 70-200 IS arrived. Someday I will get it again

also the epson p-2000 for storage, viewing and fun while on the run
epson pro 4800, being able to produce prints with better, faster, more consistent and cheeper results than a lab is priceless to me


worst - 1vhs, saw about 25 rolls of film, took a 300 loss on it. 28-135 IS, took a 100 loss on it and never got a useable image from it. 70-300 IS, some decent shots in full sun lit areas, nothing else useable.