The Bike! That's 500 squid (many, many $)
The Camera! That's 600 squid (more $)
The Bag! A mere 200 squid (less $)
All of 'em, and sod the credit card bill.
Sheesh, what is it with you and toys? Try buying nothing for a change. Save your money for something worthwhile
Give the lot to charity. (I won't, but feel free to express this opinion)
Okay. I'm aware of the heavy heavy irony in following up my last post with this one, but I'm bored at work, and when the going gets dull, the dull go shopping... or something... so I'm shopping. Specifically, I'm shopping for toys, because it's nearly the end of the month and I still haven't spent my bonus.
(Actually that's not strictly true; a fair whack of it has gone on tickets to shows at the Edinburgh Festival, but there's still a chunk left and I just can't end the month with money in the bank, it's not natural).
So I've narrowed it down to three possible toys:
- Dahon folding bicycle. My flat is very small, and since it's perfectly possible for me to cycle into work, I'd like to be able to do this. At the moment I do have a bicycle, but the only place it'll fit indoors is in the far corner of my bedroom, where it's impossible to get in and out and it gets in the way. Admittedly, the season is starting to come to a close now, but it's still a nice thought. I'd like the Matrix, but I might settle for the Groove or the Jack, which is cheaper.
A dSLR camera. My brother is lusting after the Sony Alpha one and now he's brought it to my attention I'm kinda liking the look of it too. Since everything else I own is Sony, there's a certain logic to it. And since I sold my old 35mm SLR, I do very occasionally ache to be able to take decent photographs.
So, waddya think? Should I just get back to work and stop idly pissing away my time now?
30 comments:
Sorry Lloyd and Andy: I seem to have posted this twice and gone on to delete your comments. I grovel.
You can start by buying me that bicycle :)
I just bought myself a TUMI leather briefcase. For the price, I'm kinda surprised it didn't have the solar panels stuck to the outside. It's a bloody nice bag though.
I'd go the bag... but I already have two bikes and three cameras.
I would choose the bike. It is functional, practical transportation. It is good exercise. The camera will soon have, "new and improved," competition as technology progresses. The bag.... you can buy as a reward for yourself for purchasing the bike....... which is also environmentally sound.
Much of what I own on the audio-video front is also Sony (principal TV, DVD recorder, one of the DVD players, principal VHS recorder, hi-fi amp, CD player-recorder, car CD-cassette-radio, digital camera, and soon a HD recorder), but when (if) I get around to upgrading my camera I intend to buy from a camera manufacturer (probably Canon) rather than an electronics manufacturer. Having said which, of your options, it's the only one I would consider. If it were me I'd probably buy another guitar to go with the 23 I already have.
You're not my neighbor, are you Ian?
Yup, go for the bike - and buy a camera from a camera manufacturer. Electronics manufacturers understand electronics but not camera ergonomics, in my experience.
- H
If it were me, and if the numbers were different (ie, astronomically bigger), I'd go for this:
http://www.sinar.ch/site/index__gast-e-1772-50-1893.html
Definitely - forget the Sony camera, it's just a consumer good, not a respectable dSLR.
If all else is equal, buy the thing that will get you out in the world. Although that likely includes the camera and the bike, I'd guess the bike would get you out more.
Some dismissive comments about the camera! A lot of the optical stuff came from Konica Minolta, and the few reviews I've read have been pretty positive.
If we're talking about pleasure here, for 1300 smackers, there are a couple of girls I know who could give you a very nice time indeed!
Thanks, but I've got someone coming round in a bit to take care of that ;)
Possibly; do you drive a red Peugeot?
I've got a Canon EOS1 SLR. It's a real camera. I also have (well, it's my wife's) a Canon Powershot digital. It's dated and produces low quality shots by comparison with a film camera or a quality dSLR. I'm sorry I bought it and I'd like to drop it in water by accident so I could get a newer one.
The technology moves so fast that buyer's remorse is just behind you.
bike's nice .. but you've already got a bike yea?
Camera's nice, but not the one I'd go for. Buy Canon - good prices on the 350D these days.
Bag ... I'm a sucker for a nice bag. I'd be tempted with that.
That all said, it looks like you're looking to spend some money for the joy of spending money or I suspect we'd have a blog entry on bikes (a range to choose from) or one on cameras or bags.
Donate it to charity - make ya feel wonderful.
Camera. And donate it to me.
Good prices on the Nikon D50, too (ie, no sooner do I buy mine last year, the price increasingly plummets). The D80 is just out (or just about to), which is very desirable. Then again, I'm currently getting fantastic results from scanning medium format film shot on vintage TLRs, on a spanking new modern Epson 4490 scanner - who needs a dSLR?
Nope. However, my house is insulated with egg cartons in order as not to allow for any emissions on my behalf.
Upgrade your bike. I'd personally like the bag. ... My only current fixation I'd consider feeding is to become dive certified.
Struggling with this concept. Sorry...
Well, you still have most of the anti-film / pro-digital arguments; the cost of film, the cost and inconvenience of developing, even of shots that you took accidentally, or that you're pretty sure won't work but it's worth a try if there's no overhead.
Also, to add to that, factor into it the fact that I haven't bought a new roll of film in years. All the film I've shot this year was either left over from prior to 1999 (which was the last time I managed to get given some Ektachrome pro packs from when I worked at Paul Raymond) or my realisation this year that it's actually ridiculously easy to get very cheap outdated film now, if one is lucky in looking. I've shot an immense amount of film this summer, and paid very little for any of it - all outdated, but not generally by more than a couple of years, often not more than by a few months. Outdated film makes almost no difference unless you're on an international fashion or product advertising gig and you have to guarantee consistency in the workflow. For anyone else, you can easily correct whatever colour and contrast drifts may have occurred (which will generally be either 'none', or 'none that you can detect').
A few months ago, in Jessops in Bank, they were dumping a huge box of film on the floor (really huge) because all Jessops are systematically losing their film fridges in favour of being refitted to accept rows of workstations for insertion of cards and to allow redeye removal, etc. I snaffled a big handful of prepaid fujichrome 135 slide for a quid each (prepaid dev!), a five pack of Velvia 50 135 for a quid (still just in date, too), and a pair of fuji press 800 five packs of 135 for a quid per pack! Also, loads of 120 rollfilm packs in other Jessops during the summer, for the same reasons. I've also managed to 'train' up a chap at our local Asda to know how to load 120 C41 into the Fuji Frontier film processing machine they use in the minilab, it only costs me £1.50 a film to process only (120 or 135). Then I scan it. Scanning becomes addictive.
What a lot of people don't realise is that instead of fancy technological gadgets like cameras and solar-powered bags and the like, what they really need is a wizened elf*.
A small consignment of such creatures has recently come into my hands, and I would be more than willing to help arrange the rehousing of these gentle forest dwellers for the paltry 'administration fee' of £500.
*product may not contain any actual elf. Wizened elves are largely transparent, invisible or otherwise hard to see. Ownership of wizened elvenry can lead to partial madness.
See, you have to go private these days to get results. Not like in the old days when we had a proper National Elf Service you could rely on.
Is shipping extra?
Sort of works out as exponential. I predict in a few days it'll pass through the zero sum nexus, and then by Christmas, Nikon D50 kits will be so cheap they actually hand you a cheque to take them out the shop.
Nope - I'm pround to say that shipping is absolutely free. It's all part of the service.
Go for the bike. Or you could save a load of money and invest in a bus ticket. Or you could wake up a bit earlier and go home a bit later and walk, that's pretty much free (unless you're like me and take pity on the poor souls out on the streets and have to give them fifty pence). Then you could buy the bag, but don't you live in Scotland? (or Britain if I'm completely wrong on this one), and Scotland in general doesn't really provide enough sunlight to recharge stuff, a magazine did a test on a solar powered iPod recharger and it didn't completely recharge for a few days.
I would suggest the camera, but cameras and technology in general gets outdated pretty quickly, I'm sorry to say, and in cases of burglary one of the things most often taken, especially in smash&grab cases are goods like cameras, as they are pretty easy to hide, etc.
Whoops, end of rant.
Why don't you save it, or invest it? Saving it would mean that you might get interest at the end of the financial year or whenever the banks dole out interest, or you could keep it for emergencies - ie, it's friday night and you need money for pizza and the couch isn't giving up any change.
Here's a good investment.
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