So, yesterday I turned 40 again (and today I’m turning 41). I had a great party and (my husband’s) family chipped in for a birthday present. Well, my husband was going to sort out what to get me based on what I wanted, but what I wanted changed a lot in the last 2-3 weeks and so, instead of getting nice gift, like it happened last year, I got money from the family.
It sounds impersonal, but it really isn’t. I do want photo equipment, but didn’t know what to get and so he just bundled up everything so I could get what I want. But the dilemma I had, that prevented my husband from getting the right gift, I still have: what do I want?
Now, I’m inclined to want a square filter set, but is it really worth paying almost AUD$700 and have less usable filters than what I have today (and just mind you, I must have spent around that much in filters so far). So I might wait for me to be making money (who knows?) off of my photos to invest in one of those. So, I don’t think now is the appropriate time, but that still doesn’t mean I will wait for me to be making money to get the square filters.
There are “bits and pieces” of photographic equipment that I have been looking at: a new photo backpack – I saw Steve with one that looked like a more updated version of a sling one I had, but this one fits a full frame camera -, new studio lights – although I don’t really have a studio, so that might not be a thing – or a quick recycle battery pack for my flashes.
I could also look at a reverse GND for sunsets. The problem with that is that this is the type of filter I would buy for a square filter set and buying it as a round filter makes the case for the square filter set even less appealing. But let’s do the quick math of acquiring all I want for square filters (again):
- Square Filter Set: $700 (less than that, but this is an estimate)
- Warming Filter: (not available)
- Reverse GND filter: $260
Total: $960 (for any lens with thread smaller than 82mm)
- Nisi GND16: $105
- Tiffen 812 Warming Filters (wide angle): $110
- Kase Reverse GND Filter: $100 (want)
Total: $315 (for one lens)
Now, if I add much I have (or will have) invested in the 77mm filters (basically a write off of anything I have purchased for that lens), then that moves the business case of getting it to cost $1275 (we need to consider the loss of the write off). That is, not counting I haven’t found a high quality square warming filter. I want to stack filters and not get vignetting, but I can’t get everything I want either way.
I have been told that: a problem without a solution, is a solved problem: there is nothing you can do to solve it.
To brighten up our bleak outcome, here is a photo that I took on Friday night, when we went to take sunset photos in Dockland.