Is this hobby really expensive?

I've always looked at the price of glass that I want to buy and the 1 series and the accesories list. The list is rather long if you want a full setup with high quality.

But when I put things down and put down a price, a really top end set can be assembled for 10-20k. Leaving out real exotics of course.

My question is : Do you or did you have hobbies that will put this hobby to shame in terms of expenses?

The only thing more expensive in my life were those two ex-husbands of mine.

You could try being a self-financed race car driver. If you're good you could make it profitable. If you're prone to accidents...well...

cdi-ink.com wrote in post #2254823
You could try being a self-financed race car driver. If you're good you could make it profitable. If you're prone to accidents...well...

Between cars and photography, school, and daily life, my pockets scream in agony!

I dont think photography is very expensive compared to other hobbies that I enjoy, and it certainly is the least expensive in that the lenses hold a very high resale value and thus its possible to recover a good chuck of the 'investment' if needed......photograph​y also has a huge ROI in that some of the images captured are priceless.

sugarzebra wrote in post #2254858
photography also has a huge ROI in that some of the images captured are priceless.

Yeah I tried collecting stamps but when I showed 'em to family with excitement they just rolled their eyes and told guests I was adopted.

I did try stamp collecting too - the ones that were really requuired for the collection were too expensive. I figured you needed a travelling grandpa/grandma sending stamps from around the world rather than trying to acquire them now

I even switched to matchbox covers as an alternative - well, that was cheap but didnt go anywhere

I never actually tried stamps in a serious fashion but my parents have claimed I was adopted on more than one occasion. lol.

10-20k is relatively cheap. Try looking into Cars, they loose at least 10% of their value as soon as you drive it off the dealers lot and then they are only worth less then 1/2 the original value after 3yrs unless you find a sucker (which are born every minute) to buy it for more. After the warrantee expires they start to break down at small increments of $100 or so. Yea Japanese cars don't break down and yea they also heal themself. So think about it $10-20K ain't that bad and if you invest into L lenss you can pretty much get back at lease 75% of the cost back by selling them.

cdi-ink.com wrote in post #2255013
I never actually tried stamps in a serious fashion but my parents have claimed I was adopted on more than one occasion. lol.

suppose it's better than them claiming you were an alien or worse, originally related to Spongebob....

a little while back i went through a stage of buying gems Not the top end of the market the lower end but i soon realized to get the good stuff you need to spend a lot more than im willing to pay so gave that up .
The good side of it is that now when i buy an L it does not seem too exspencive for what you get apart from say the 1200 f5.6L - that lens seems over the top in price because a 600f4 with a 1.4tc gets close ( f5.6 ) for far far less money.
Rob.

Well, 10-20k is also going to include 1 or 2 bodies, accesories such as a lighting studio setup - atleast these will lose value faster than good lenses. On the whole, I rate the resale value on my entire investment to be around 40-50%.

How much fishing cost for example? Any serious fishing folk here? Or hunting? Or skyjumping?

I use to go fishing a few years back ( freah water ) if i was to start up again a full top of the range rig would be around £3,000 to £4,000 -£2,000 would buy a top of the range pole so that would be the bigest cost single item but it would be good for around 10 years, the rest would be for rods reals and all the other bits.
Rob.

I think that the problem with Digital Photography as a hobby is that it appears to be expensive without actually being so. The high initial setup costs, or expansion costs are disproportionate in comparison with the day-to-day execution of the hobby. Other hobbies are much more expensive, but appear not to be.

To wit: my wife's hair style (refreshed on average every 8 weeks) costs roughly the same as a 4GB Extreme III. I own nearly 800 CDs. If you average them out at a measly £10 each, that's a 5D, 16-35 F/2.8L, 24-105 F/4 IS L, 70-200 F/2.8 IS L, 100-400 F/4-5.6 IS L, and a 580EX or so.

So, sure, going out and spending £2K on a lens that will last you 10 years minimum, and probably return 60% of its value at that time seems really expensive, but it's pretty cheap compared to 3 CDs a month.

Smoking and drinking are expensive (and not in terms of healthcare but in 'running costs') too..

I don't smoke and I try not to drink TOO much (and sometimes succeed) so running costs are fairly low. However, some have done the calculations and if you take those two to a higher level, you could be buying a lot of glass for that.

I went to a horse showjumping event with friends who were participating recently, and received a few comments on the huge setup slung around my neck. It did occur to me to ask how much is the acquisition cost of a horse, and the answers I got ranged from the cost of a 350D with kit lens (for entry level horse, too) to a pricetag that would buy a decent 4-door sedan, new. And that doesn't even account for the infrastructure (gotta house it, gotta transport it, gotta let it stretch its legs), the upgrading costs (you can outgrow one, incidentally, if you start small), and the operating expense! Not that there is anything wrong but I jokingly said "Look, I don't have one, so I can afford a bigger camera" (basically, to each his own.. I spent a lot more on this, but not on other things )