There is a ton of gear on the camera market, a lot of which promises to give you an easy shortcut to better images, and while some of it can legitimately make your life easier, a lot of it is simply a waste of money that you will regret spending down the road. This great video featured an experienced photographer discussing some of the gear he most regrets buying and why.
Coming to you from Evan Ranft, this excellent video essay discusses some of the gear he most regrets purchasing. I think Ranft is spot on when he discusses the importance of having a plan for gear, instead of simply purchasing it because you are excited or think it will give you an easy route to better images. For example, when I was new to photography, I bought a lot of junk lighting modifiers that promised easy soft light and stunning images, and, of course, the only thing I got was confusion and disappointment, because the thing I actually needed to do was spend time learning and practicing lighting. It is easy to quickly drop a ton of money in this craft, so be sure to think twice before you pull out your credit card. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Ranft.
I regret spending the money to go whole hog into Micro 4/3rds when I should have gone whole hog into Z. Cost me thousands to flip-flop.
Otherwise, for a 1-off camera purchase that was a bad call, was the Panasonic GF1. Liked how small it was, but the color out of it was just hot garbage and I never shot a photo with that camera that I actually liked compared to the E-P1 that I replaced it with.
I bought a lightly used DSLR right before I decided that I really wanted a mirrorless camera body. That DSLR has been sitting in the closet ever since. Now it is so old I can't even give it away. Total waste of money, problem created entirely by myself. Other than that, I have purchased a few really useless camera bags over the years.
I regretted buying early into the Canon EOS-M line of cameras with the Canon M50 (moving on from my previous Canon DSLRs). No only was the image and video quality poor, the camera was basically a glorified kids camera. To top it off, Canon never really made any decent glass for the EF-M mount. Even third party support was basically non-existent. Resell value was ridiculously low too. The entire experience permanently turned me off to ever buying a Canon Camera again.
PX-ing my entire Nikon F90x outfit including an almost new 24mm lens for a Nikon Coolpix 900. Just don't ask! The blasted thing never focused in time to get the shot, and with its amazing 1.2 megapixel sensor, any print larger than a postage stamp was out of the question. I almost gave up photography in tears. Thankfully the Nikon D70 came along and helped salvage my foundering career.
The following comment is, of course, referring to the purchase of used gear:
I regret having bought a Canon 1D Mark 2 and a Canon 5D ("classic") when I did in 2007 and 2008, respectively. They served me well and I got a lot of years out of each of them. But the problem was that I bought them too soon - before they had depreciated enough. So they lost value quickly.
Lesson learned - I waited until 2013 to buy a 1D Mark 4, and until 2020 to buy a 5D Mark 4. And I recently purchased a Sony A6600 for just $699.
I deeply regret having bought a Lumix GX8 from a well-regarded on-line retailer. While the images were generally good/sharp/well-exposed, the ergonomics really sucked ditch water. The meat of my right thumb overlaid the white balance switch and I found frequently that I had inadvertently changed the white balance. Fortunately, I shoot RAW, so nothing was lost. When the Lumix G9 came out, and was really available, I went to a local shop to "try one on". The ergonomics were as close to perfect for me as one could ask. I bought it on the spot, with no regrets aside from losing a few hundred dollars on the GX8. All my lenses transferred. The G9-based system has been flawless and has provided me many high-quality images. Lesson learned. Try new stuff on before buying it.
I wasn't the most pleased with a few purchases I made but there are three purchases in particular that I actually fully regretted and that felt like a total waste of money. Those purchases were the Fujifilm X-E1 and the original Fujifilm X-100 as well as one of the uber cheap tripods sold in retail stores and amazon. Both of those cameras were insanely slow and chugged battery life. The Fuji image quality was absolutely there but the general operation of those cameras was as slow as cold molasses flowing up hill in the middle of winter. The user experience was insufferable. I tried using the x100 at a party to get some general party shots but the slowness from one shot to the next was horrendous and the auto focus barely worked. The manual focus was worse if you can image that. The whole experience was severely laggy at best and got worse if the light got dimmer even on performance mode. The X-E1 was the same way. How those cameras were allowed to be sold is beyond me. They were both unusably slow. It was like asking for a Play Station 2 as a kid but on Christmas day you got the "pray station too" with crappy knock off games instead because your mom didn't know the difference. My disappointment was immeasurable. At that point I had sworn off Fuji as a camera company until I decided to give them another shot with the X-T1. The X-T1 completely changed how I viewed Fuji. The X-T1 was much more responsive in usability and the autofocus, while not exactly "ballin", was leagues ahead of the X100 and X-E1. The battery life still sucked ass on the X-T1 though. I liked the X-T1 so much I picked up the XT-2 and it was even better but still had suck ass battery life. It seems fuji have gotten better about battery life with the new fuji np-w235 but their cameras still chugg power pretty quickly. I also regret buying one of those super cheap tripods you get from walmart with the crank handle to make the center column go up and down. I was only like 20 bucks but still feel like I would have gotten more use out of money if I had burned it for heat.
Lytro and Lytro Illum