We all love gear. Even those who say they don't love gear, love gear. But my desire to create the unique has lead me to make some questionable purchases. How about you?
I recently wrote an article about a lens I could never bring myself to sell, and it sparked a lively debate. This got me thinking about the purchases I think have worked out to be the best investments. The Canon 135mm f/2 L mentioned in that article is certainly one. My Sony a7 III is arguably a close second. In all honesty, the rest blend together and I become too bored to think of a third. So, I started asking a more entertaining question: what are the worst purchases I've ever made?
It isn't easy for me to pick one. I've been stung a few times by mistakes of my own doing. However, one stands out for me. It was a vintage Russian 300mm prime lens I found in an antique store. It was beautiful. The whole thing was made of metal and weighed a ton, it had no fungus or clouding inside the glass, and it had almost no scuffs on the barrel what so ever. It was a little pricey and I couldn't find much online about it, and none were for sale. That might put some people off (wisely), but I heard the word "rare" whispered by an ethereal voice and parted with more cash than I should have for something I couldn't identify. Its mount was pretty standard and so getting an adapter to place it on my Canon 6D at the time was straightforward. Once it arrived, it fitted to my DSLR with a satisfying click and I was ready.
I gathered my things and with all due pomp and ceremony, I didn't take a photo until I had reached a location I liked during a fiery sunset. In a prophetic turn of fortune, there was no wildlife anywhere to be seen and my subjects were limited. Undeterred I started taking pictures of leaves and anything near me. Once I loaded the images in to Lightroom, I quickly realized the images were soft. Not slight movement soft, they were softer than blowdried kittens in a silk duvet. The bokeh was pretty nice though.
Outside of that there have been innumerous gadgets that have done poorly, not to mention alternative lighting solutions. I once bought some continuous lights off eBay on the recommendation of a friend. With all of them on full blast, despite generating enough heat to melt their way off the continent, they shared the lumen output with a wet safety match. My colleagues have had similar disasters, with Jack Alexander using lights that blew the power in every venue he used them, and Alex Cooke ordering a graphical tablet so large (under the notion that bigger was better) that it rendered itself unusable. You live and learn!
So let's have it. What's the worst purchase you have made as a photographer? Share in the comments below.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
I had the same experience. I upgraded to the Tamron from the Canon 85mm 1.8. If the shot’s in focus, everything is great! Unfortunately, most of my shots felt slightly off. I gave up and upgraded to the Canon 85mm 1.4 and absolutely love it!
Don’t know about Tamron, but I’ve been using the Canon 85mm 1.8 version for 10 yrs for portraits & have been very happy with the results. It’s cheap too. The “bokeh” may not be as smooth as the L-series (I can’t tell) but my clients never complained. Never had focus problems either.
The canon 85mm f1.8 is the best bang for the buck lens i have ever seen. The results are fantastic.
Hmm, just got the Tamron and after I put it through its paces it has been exceptional. Sounds like I got a good copy.
Worst is easily the ttl only sunpac flash I bought on clearance because yeah it was on sale and I never had shot ttl.... So no power controls at all and the weakest flash I have ever used...
I over-research every purchase, so I rarely get stuck with a dud.
Minolta waterproof point-n-shot film camera, POS, didn't work. Ruined a vacation series.
Minolta light meter, inconsistent POS.
Nikon 35mm AF-D 2.0, the one with oil leaks on the aperture blades. At least it still worked wide open.
Too bad about the oil leaks on your 35mm f/2.0. Otherwise it's one of my favorite lenses-- inexpensive, small, fast, sharp, and with good close focusing.
Nikon SB-900. Lights out after a year because of over heating. Cost a fortune to fix and was never the same afterwards. I haven't been using it for over five years now.
Hmmm I have owned SB-900s for about eight years now and I hammer them at weddings & bar mitzvahs - about 30 or 40 jobs per year. I turned off the thermal protection circuit, but I've never had an overheating issue. Over the course of those 8 years, each flash has been repaired only once for a bad capacitor. I'll keep them until Nikon no longer has parts and they finally die. Of course, YMMV...
You are one of the lucky ones I guess. This issue is not a fluke or a bad copy, the SB900's were known to overheat very quickly. Mine just went out in a middle of a job and that was it. I had two of them and I traded in the other one for the SB910.
When asked why I had to pay for the repair they said that I turned off the overhear protection. Well, of course I did, I was hoping to get more than five shots in a row when the bride comes down the aisle lol.
To compensate for their faulty, less than average product, Nikon came out with the SB910 and it's a much better version of the SB900. It does not overheat but also has very slow recycle time.
I now use the Godox 860II as my main speedlight. The 900 and the 910 have not seen action in many years.
Miops “Smart” Remote Sensing system for my Fuji. $300 dollars for something a wireless remote trigger could easily do or if I really wanted a reliable smart system I could’ve just paid $100 for a solid Pulse Remote. Got bamboozled by the “lightning scene” and “laser break” settings.
Haha I also got that one and never used it anything else than timelapse lol. Carrying that with me on my backpack if it just might occur that there would be lighting or something to use it for...
I love the Miops camera trigger. Some of my favorite [lightning] images have been captured using it. :-/
This was hard to decide, but I think I’ll have to go with the Pentax DA 560/5.6 It was disappointing for a lens that when it was first released was over $8000 I’m just glad I payed nowhere near that much.
Already posted my worst but I witnessed something once. Assisted a pretty big commercial shooter I'd say around...2003? Digital was just starting to take off. I remember this guy standing over this drum scanner he bought the year before for $20,000 and saying....."what the hell am I going to do with this now?"
A mamiya 7, 3 lenses, hood and a digital back for price of S$8000. Then i realize is too heavy to carry it around and very hard to use for work. Worst buy in my life.
A used Leica X2. Fuji XE-1. The Xume magnetic filter adapter system. The cameras got sold, the Xume adapters went into the garbage.
Why is the A7III mentioned as the worst purchase? :D
Because it's not (just) about "this is a really horrible product", but also "this was a really bad idea for me to buy".
It's not a horrible product at all. They are great products for certain people. I just happen to not fall into that category similar to the way I don't get along with Canon DSLR's or Leica rangefinders. There's no truly bad camera being made today by any major manufacturer. It's just a matter of which system suits you the most at this point.
If you're referring to my post, it's because the camera simply doesn't gel with me. At first I figured that it was just the initial discomfort of getting used to a new system, but now that I'm a decent number of months in, I'm discovering that it's just something else entirely.
Olympus em5, great lenses, but image quality way below FF and even below the fuji x100.
Also I will say the first x100, yes it was a nice camera, but I had so many issues with it, 2 times Sticky blades, once Fuji forgot to connect the evf, etc....
For me it's a bunch auf graded ND filters incl. holders..never ever used them.
Zeiss 35mm f1.4 for Sony. I never have been a fan of the 35mm focal length. All the reviews said things like this lens is why the Sony cameras were made, a match made in heaven, blah blah. It is a fine, heavy, expensive lens. I try to make it work but the 35mm length still does nothing for me :(
Then I'll put it on Craigslist and pull it down in a few hours because damnit I'm going to make this thing work...
I love 35mm and could do much of my work with that an an 85mm. But, an f1.4 is a specialist lens, and you have to know in advance exactly why you need it. I got the Rokinon 35/1.4 FE specifically for low-light no-flash conference work, and the shallow DoF is useful pretty much only for picking out one person on a panel discussion when shooting from an angle. It's a very nice effect, though, and for me that's enough. But then, I only paid $500 for it during the holiday sales.
What body? I have all the primes at 1.4 or better but 35 is my favorite for full frame for general purpose.
The struggle is real...
I almost fell for that lens but I was turned off by weight. I knew I needed a 35, so I went with the cheap, very portable, samyang 2.8. it satisfied my appetite for 35mm. What I will say, I did own the 55f1.8, so that satisfied my fast glass appetite.
A camera.
I bought a fair amount of gear as a teenager with a job and no real responsibilities - it was all money I earned and I saved everything I could to get Photography gear. In hindsight I still had no idea what I wanted to do with Photography and should have waited, invested, or whatever. However, none of this worked out too badly because any expensive lenses I did buy, I later sold for not too bad a return and easily less than the use I got would have cost in rentals. Still, I made some impulsive purchases - among them a couple of L lenses I later sold.
All that said, I think my worst purchase probably has to be my Fuji X-Pro1. I bought into a lot of the hype around the Fuji cameras (not saying they are bad but there was a lot of love going around from some name photographers a few years ago) and my perceived need for a street/travel camera. Although I used it a lot for a year or so, and I don't think it's a bad camera (although it hasn't aged as well as my 5DII despite being a newer design) it's still never quite been right for me and over time I've ended up back on the 5DII. It isn't a bad camera but it isn't the right tool for me, and I kind of regret rushing in to buying it. Still, I won't be buying anything else for a while now and I think I've learned my lesson this time. My old 5DII is serving me really well right now for my personal work and I've no need to buy anything else until it gives up the ghost.
I bought so many things researching on internet and thinking I need them and just to realize how useless expensive stuff I bought. I been taught that poor can't afford cheap stuff, so I buy flagship stuff many times...
One expensive thing is my HP Spectre 360 laptop 2200€ I was so convinced that I need that 4k 15.6" touchscreen to make editing on the road easier. Soon using it on a trip I realised it to be so small with that resolution that it makes me crazy and pen is always needing charging too... It just is so much more simple to use bluetooth mouse or Intuos tablet.
Now that laptop is beauty and powerful but my desktop computer is faster and better on every aspect except carrying with me. I barely use that laptop for anything... still I don't want to sell it :D
Also every cheap Ebay light stand or gadget always brakes, so best decision was go all in to c-stands and more known brands... in a long run safes me money!
Worst as in "quality": some cheap tripod which broke the first time I used it, while locking the head, or my 2nd Yong Nuo tx/rx kit, which had so many issues with out of line-of-sight transmission that frustrated me so much that I grow some hatred for flash photography (I think I have been an early adopter for those, anyway, everybody else says they are working good). Happily replaced both, with Manfrotto and Godox stuff.
Worst as in "never used": Eye-fi, as a desperate attempt to add Wifi to my Canon 5D3. It works, but not for me. Sold.
Worst as in "lot of money rarely used": Canon TS-E 17. That thing is awesome by any possible metric (image quality, build, "pro" look, usability... ...whatever) and it is priced accordingly. I do real estate photography, and sadly I've ended up using it once or twice A YEAR. Most of my photos are taken with a Canon 16-35 f/4, with a 24-105 mkI coming a far second. I can't make up my mind to sell it.
The flextt6 which was designed to work with the 5d mark 4 but hardly ever works. I ended up using the cheaper plus x and it fires every time.
It was a Canon EF-S 75-300, an AWFUL LENS. Slow focus, bad image quality... at least it was cheap and i sold it very fast
That would be the lensbaby velvet 56, macro mode was nice, but for portraits, 1,6 was way too soft, 2.8 is doable for sharpness but the background stays too busy, like you would have with an f8. Turns out the DOF is a permanent f8 or smaller, because the lens features a small ( f8 sized ) circle of clear glass in the middle.
It sure is smart, helps combating spherochromatism ( i kinda forget how to spell that word, so i just needed 4 tabs to find it again ) but it wrecks backgrounds!
Without a doubt, Lightroom presets. That said, Lightroom presets (namely Martin Labs) might also be one of my best purchases. After that, probably a Lee style Filter system a number of years ago because everyone seemed to be saying it was an essential tool, and yeah, I never really used them. It was so cumbersome to set up for quick shots too.
Nikon D7000 years ago. I had the Sony A700 and decided I needed better ISO performance and at the time, Nikon was known for it. The D7000 had awesome reviews and was a great camera, but not for me. I hated it. It felt cheap compared to my old Sony. I wasted a ton of money selling my entire Sony kit and jumping ship to Nikon, only to sell all of it a year later and get the Sony a99 and a few cheap Sony lenses again. I've stayed a loyal Sony guy ever since. I learned my lesson haha.
Cheap remote cable releases. I go through easily two a year and they always snap in half exposing the wires till they eventually break off.
I never learn my lesson. Every time I look at the $150+ official branded remotes, I go nahhhh and just grab another $10 cheapy.
yep . . . me too.
As far as my worst ever purchase, I’d say the Tamron EF-M 18-200. This lens worked perfectly on the Canon EOS M2 however, the lens AF lost consistency when I upgraded to the M3, even though I sent the lens in for a firmware update. Same thing happened again, but MUCH MUCH WORSE when I upgraded to the M6. Even after sending the lens in twice for a firmware update for the M6, that lens became absolute trash. It would not focus on anything. I also got tired of paying for shipping when the lens needed a firmware update at a Tamron facility. Had to sell it to get the Canon EF-M 18-150mm.
I also had issues with 2 copies of the Tamron 24-70 G2. I spent too many hours trying to calibrate it and just went ahead with the Canon 24-70 II. Same issues with the Tamron 85mm 1.8. I guess I struck out with my attempt to use Tamron however, after 3 copies, I struck gold with the Tamron 15-30 G1. I’m hesitant to get the G2 version do to my overall experience with Tamron.
loupdeck, bought it for hype. Useless garbage.
Not so much what I bought as what I didn't unload fast enough. I've still got six Mamiya RZ 220 film backs, for instance.
I never did like using my Mamiya C330. It made me money, but I never enjoyed using it.
Oh boy where do I start? A Wacom tablet, three different backpacks, a dinky tripod, a used lense that didn’t work properly, the wrong Lplate for my camera,a remote trigger, a 15 stop ND filter from LEE I NEVER use because I don’t do 30 min exposures....it’s a long list
A “Bolt” external battery power supply for my Quantum flashes. (B&H brand I think). It heated up dangerously and burned my hand. I returned it and decided to stick with my quantum-brand batteries
Early in my career, I bought a Pentax 67 kit for a month-long job shooting landscapes in the Aegean. I made almost no money on the job, and I rarely needed that camera thereafter. Although I enjoyed the trip and loved the camera, it was a financial disaster. Nowadays, as a full-time pro, I always counsel new photographers to start with modest gear and develop skills and clients before investing in top-end gear. Taking my own advice to heart, five years ago when I was due to upgrade or replace some of my DSLR gear, I looked at the low and declining technical requirements of my corporate event work (as my work increasingly went online instead of to print) and my hesitation to travel or hike with my big, heavy kit, and considered what was the smallest, lightest, most affordable and portable kit I could get by with. I've been shooting Micro Four Thirds exclusively since then and loving it.
I bought a small led. What I did not know was that it only works with batteries. Unlike some leds that have the options on 110 or batteries. What was the result? This led went dead in about 20 mins. Terrible buy. Next time, do more research.
I traded a working (and recently factory refreshed) 5D mark III for an older DJI hecacopter drone called the s800 Evo. It's had so many technical issues I've still not flown a single project with it in a year. It flies but I currently get no video feed back to the controller from the camera. The good news is that the drone came with a Sony a6000 and a couple lenses so I was able to use and subsequently sell those and make some of my value back. Thankfully I have 3 other drones but this one just serves as a ginormous and cool looking paperweight in my office right now.
probably the 10+ camera bags that I have purchased searching for the right one. I have finally found it, but I sure did waste lots of money on damn camera bags! I can't say I regret any gear purchases since the only purchases I have made I use on a daily basis.
If it's any consolation, finding the right bag, like finding the right lens or tripod, usually takes trial and error. Your experience is par for the course!
That makes me feel much better :) And I am happy to say I have now found the perfect 2 bags FOR NOW, haha. I am sure my needs will change in the future and then I will have to start the process all over again.. lol