We all buy gear based on what we think we need whether to solve a problem or improve our work. And that's how we discover what works for the way we shoot. I'm sure it's because of what I shoot that I absolutely love my RRS L plates on my cameras. I often shoot 'hospitality' for a group of hotels. Tripod a must for the hard-working room shots or food shots and no tripod for the lifestyle shots. And for the same reasons I love my R5. Shooting overhead plate shots that adjusting rear screen is wonderful. Same with shooting low angles. And too I cannot imagine working with plug-in lights. I'm often shooting where power isn't available. I depend on my battery Elinchrom's. As for 'bad' I don't have much but there are a few light modifiers that I wanted to try but just didn't work well for me and sit on a shelf. As for wide lenses I shot travel for years and my 16-35 was a have to have lens. But I rarely went close to 16mm. It sits in my bag mostly unused these days. My 'normal' lens seems to be my R 70-200. The rest of my glass is Canon E glass that adapts fine to the R body. One lens I really thought I needed was the Tilt Shift 17mm. I find that the 24 Tilt Shift works so much better and if I need wider I can just stitch but the image retains a better sense of scale. Lately I've been cleaning out and getting rid of old or underused gear. It feels good to lighten the pile on the shelves.
My battery powered lights ALMOST made my bad list... I've spent SO SO SO much money on battery powered lights only to get "obsoleted" where it's impossible to service or get batteries... I won't even start on Profoto's atrocities when it comes to battery cost, lifetime (or lack of), and absolute refusal to support those batteries that are completely and utterly defective. Broncolor is not a lot better I've just not suffered through as many iterations, I learned my Broncolor lesson on the idiotically small useful lifetime of one "test" unit I purchased.
I do see you have somewhat fallen into the "give me the widest you've got" trap just a little bit... Iike I said, huge waste of money for me and honestly I've never had a 21 or 24 and cried out for wider EVER but I have bought wider over and over again.
I could probably live with say... a 28, 50, and 180 or even a really flexible 135 (the longer lens have to be macro or very near macro) I'd probably take the 180 macro but it would be a touch call if it were up against the 135 TSE L... a bit long for useful T/S use in my world but could possibly work... where the 180 I'd not even bother to do that kind of DOF/focus plane control.
Of course I've shot various things with tripod and without in the same session but NEVER did I find it faster or more comfortable to have a quick release. Honestly I'll just use two cameras. Of course we do different things (although I've done a bunch of location work back in the day) and with digital where shooting angles are extreme I'd FAR rather tether which I do a lot pretty much why I bought C1 way way back... forget my first version.
Again absolutely true... know your work and what actually helps you make ENJOY working.
So true. The point is to know what you do and what things truly help you accomplish your work vs the distractions and theoretical "solutions" to problems you don't have.
We all buy gear based on what we think we need whether to solve a problem or improve our work. And that's how we discover what works for the way we shoot. I'm sure it's because of what I shoot that I absolutely love my RRS L plates on my cameras. I often shoot 'hospitality' for a group of hotels. Tripod a must for the hard-working room shots or food shots and no tripod for the lifestyle shots. And for the same reasons I love my R5. Shooting overhead plate shots that adjusting rear screen is wonderful. Same with shooting low angles. And too I cannot imagine working with plug-in lights. I'm often shooting where power isn't available. I depend on my battery Elinchrom's. As for 'bad' I don't have much but there are a few light modifiers that I wanted to try but just didn't work well for me and sit on a shelf. As for wide lenses I shot travel for years and my 16-35 was a have to have lens. But I rarely went close to 16mm. It sits in my bag mostly unused these days. My 'normal' lens seems to be my R 70-200. The rest of my glass is Canon E glass that adapts fine to the R body. One lens I really thought I needed was the Tilt Shift 17mm. I find that the 24 Tilt Shift works so much better and if I need wider I can just stitch but the image retains a better sense of scale. Lately I've been cleaning out and getting rid of old or underused gear. It feels good to lighten the pile on the shelves.
My battery powered lights ALMOST made my bad list... I've spent SO SO SO much money on battery powered lights only to get "obsoleted" where it's impossible to service or get batteries... I won't even start on Profoto's atrocities when it comes to battery cost, lifetime (or lack of), and absolute refusal to support those batteries that are completely and utterly defective. Broncolor is not a lot better I've just not suffered through as many iterations, I learned my Broncolor lesson on the idiotically small useful lifetime of one "test" unit I purchased.
I do see you have somewhat fallen into the "give me the widest you've got" trap just a little bit... Iike I said, huge waste of money for me and honestly I've never had a 21 or 24 and cried out for wider EVER but I have bought wider over and over again.
I could probably live with say... a 28, 50, and 180 or even a really flexible 135 (the longer lens have to be macro or very near macro) I'd probably take the 180 macro but it would be a touch call if it were up against the 135 TSE L... a bit long for useful T/S use in my world but could possibly work... where the 180 I'd not even bother to do that kind of DOF/focus plane control.
Of course I've shot various things with tripod and without in the same session but NEVER did I find it faster or more comfortable to have a quick release. Honestly I'll just use two cameras. Of course we do different things (although I've done a bunch of location work back in the day) and with digital where shooting angles are extreme I'd FAR rather tether which I do a lot pretty much why I bought C1 way way back... forget my first version.
Again absolutely true... know your work and what actually helps you make ENJOY working.
Great and fun reading. There is no thing as a perfect camera or gear, if it was there would be just one camera. My list would be very different.
So true. The point is to know what you do and what things truly help you accomplish your work vs the distractions and theoretical "solutions" to problems you don't have.