What was your biggest-ever waste of money in photography?

[aldrich]

<p>The Nikon 55-200 non-VR. I bought it before the VR version was available, but I only missed by like a month. Then my wife got hers, and I always find myself using hers instead of mine. Not bad I guess. Not like it was $2000.</p>

[phinneus_stapleton]

<p>G4 Powerbook. I bought it within a few months of Apple's move to digital.</p>

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

<p>I made a foray into 35mm rangefinders for a few years. Sold them all and bought a Mamiya 7 II and a large format camera. I still use a 35mm SLR in low light, but it just can't compare to the quality I get from medium and large format.</p>

[georg_s1]

<p>Nikon Super-Coolscan LS-4500</p>

[norman_valentine]

<p>Nothing I have ever bought for photography is a waste of money. I have accumulated a nice Mamiya RB67 outfit and never use it. But I enjoy fondling it now and again, when I eventually see sense and sell it I will get something back! So who cares!</p>

[steve_t.1]

<p>Film.</p>

<p>Okay, I say this in retrospect, but all those dud shots that I paid to have developed only to find I had one or two keepers.</p>

<p>In the early days of consumer digital cameras, I poo-poo'ed the idea of having one. Then I went to a digital P&S, just for fun and see what the fuss was all about. I've since bought 4 more digital cameras, upping the ante each time. This includes 2 DSLR's.</p>

[www.philwinterphotography.]

<p>I had to think about this one. I don't spend a lot of money on my photography, so I'm pretty careful when I do buy something. But several years ago, I bought a 77mm circular poloarizer for my Canon 100-400 L. For whatever reason, the CP made the images soft - more than soft, actually, really fuzzy. So the CP sat in my camera bag for years, completely unused. But I recently aquired a 17-40 L, and I've used the CP on it without problems. The CP has been reincarnated!</p>

[patrick_stack]

<p>Camera collecting. Was fascinated with them, started collecting about '91, at one time had nearly forty, all in good condition and all were users. 4X5, many 120's, R/F's, SLR's and a couple of digitals. Exercising shutters, cleaning and keeping organized, storing etc became a real drag. Gave away most, donated a few to museums that were interested, SLR's went to high schools with photo classes. Number is now 11, looking to move a few more to new homes where they will be used and kept in good shape.</p>

<p>Fun at the start, I'm the only one in the family that is active with the hobby of photography, so in reality I can only use so many of them. Shear numbers in collection is counterproductive, then the cost of maintaining them properly becomes a foolish waste. Better to use just a few, and spend more time enjoying photo's that I now have the time to take. We get by just fine with one house, one car and one truck, two bicycles and one lawn mower, why clutter up our lives with a few dozen camera's? Must be a guy thing, the wife thought it was nuts right away.</p>

<p>Patrick </p>

[alan_rockwood]

<p>I bought a Noritsu minilab on ebay for $5000. Why? Let's just say the purpose was not as well thought out as it should have been, and the intended purpose did not work out as hoped.</p>

<p>I sold it a few years later for about $800.</p>

<p>I imagine few can top that monumental blunder.</p>

[jack_welsh]

<p>A $300.00 digital camera. Hardly got to use it before it broke.</p>

[joseph_leotta]

<p>my recently purchased Nikkor 24-120 VR Lens. The worst lens Nikon has ever made</p>

[jesse_hartman]

<p>A Fujifilm Finepix Z5, the first camara and P&S I have ever owned. I don't think I took a single good picture with that pink pice of doodoo. All my photos came out soft, out of focus, blured and just plain bad. <br>

I got my first DSLR the other day(D90), much better pictures.</p>

[jason_hall5]

<p>radiopoppers, they do work, but I never use them. And to think that i bought a Canon ST-E2 to be able to use them. $500.00+ that I don't use. So now I went and bought a set of the new pocket wizards that do all the RadioPopper/ST-E2 combo will do but better, with more range, less bulk, nearly half the price AND I can use them as standard pocketwizards to fire strobe and speedlights set to manual. The RadioPopper only gives you TTL function.</p>

<p>But I will hand it to Kevin King (Inventer of the RadioPopper) he developed a tool that would do a job that no one else in the industry was doing, despite the obvious need for it. </p>

<p>For those of you who don't know what Radiopoppers are or what the generation of Pocketwizards do, they give you full TTL metering and function of your dedicated speedlites wirelessly useing RF. No more need for Infared line of site BS.</p>

<p>Jason</p>

[jason_hall5]

<p>BTW, any one want a good deal on a set of radiopoppers and ST-E2 transmitter? :o)</p>

<p>Jason</p>

[jason_hall5]

<p>How about the best money you ever spent....for me it would have to be my first "real" piece of glass. EF 24-105 f4L IS. By far not the best zoom lens ever made (24-70f2.8L is better) but sooooo much better than the crap I was useing before.</p>

<p>Jason</p>

<p> </p>

[steve_mareno]

<p>I'm tempted to say everything that I've purchased since my first real camera, an AE-1 w/ a 50 1.8 lens. That was probably $20,000 ago, and some of the best shots on my walls came from it and a Nikon 6006 w/ a plastic 35 80 zoom. Go figure.</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>The Epson 5500 printer, a $3K boat anchor. Never could get a decent profile made, bad color shifts of the ink, constant clogs. </p>

[alan_rockwood]

<p>Jason,</p>

<p>Best money I ever spent(?)... probably the used $90 Exakta VX iia outfit with 58mm f/2 Auto Biotar and preset 90mm f/3.5 Tele Xenar. That was in the spring of 1969 at a camera store in Daytona Beach, Florida.</p>

<p>It's the best money I ever spent because it was the first high quality camera I ever owned, and I learned much of what little I know about photography using it.</p>

<p>Now I own too many cameras to count, but still have a soft spot in my heart for that old long-gone Exakta.</p>

[pjmeade]

<p>The best money I ever spent would be for the 5D and 70-200/2.8 IS combination.</p>

[chris_waller]

<p>A flimsy tripod - complete waste of money. Next to that was a 60-300mm zoom - too heavy and cumbersome to use.</p>

[jason_hall5]

<p>5D and 70-200f2.8L IS combo....yes I have that combo as well. Hard to beat for portraits. That along with a selection of primes.</p>

<p>Jason</p>

[James G. Dainis]

I'm rather surprised I don't see any fish-eye lenses mentioned.

[andrew_gale]

<p>My first camera was a N55 Kit from Nikon. It cost $250. I bought it new. In retrospect, a used F100 would have been a wiser entrance to 35mm photography and probably just as cheap.<br>

I also once bought a lot of 10 lens cases from KEH, hoping that one of them would would fit my tele-zoom. They cost $3 but i didnt realize they would also add $20 to the shipping. Not one of the ten has been any use, and they take up way too much space.</p>

 

[michael_oxford]

<p>a canon digital elph. the lack of manual control drove me nuts! Second waste behind that was buying a Speed Graphic...<br>

however worst overall decision was to sell my EOS 1n... that was a big mistake.</p>

[peter_wang6]

<p>I'll second the Epson inkjet. Pieces of s***, the lot of them. Had such a horrible experience with them that I absolutely refuse to buy <strong>any</strong> inkjet technology ever again.</p>

<p>Print heads were constantly clogging up. The paper cost an arm and a leg. Print head cleaning never worked--I would use up half the ink tank trying to clean them and it still wouldn't work. Ink cost more than its weight in gold--LITERALLY. Calculate it out, you'll see. Print quality was mediocre.</p>

<p>Now, if I ever want to print something I let someone else do it. The technology is crap. I'd rather pay more per print up front to have it professionally done, rather than throw money out the window with inconsistent results. I'm more than happy to put the responsibility to get it right and keep the equipment in working order on someone else.</p>