- Location
- Jersey Shore
- Name
- Steve
Well, I surprised myself this week. I pulled the trigger on a barely used X-Pro3. It's due to arrive this weekend and I am looking forward to working with the camera - and comparing it to my X-Pro2.
But my almost-impulse decision to jump on the deal (the price was just too good) has kicked the other half of my brain into gear. I'm now thinking about all of the camera gear I have. It's way too much by any rational assessment. I am running Sony FE, Fujifilm APS-C and micro four-thirds kits -- and all are pretty well equipped.
Of course, this did not happen overnight. I have been building my collection since about 2008. And, as anyone who has been around this hobby for long knows, up until about 2015 it was fairly easy to pick up camera bodies and even lenses at great prices -- either on sale, refurbished, lightly used or when the next version of a body came out. Things have only gotten unrelentingly expensive in the last five years or so (unless you were running Leica or medium format).
I have pared back my kits a bit in the past - usually by adopting a policy of two-cameras or lenses must be sold off before one of either can come in. This approach actually works -- at least for me. But I am now running up on the close of the acquisition phase of my life and perhaps I need to rationalize my gear more aggressively.
I'm still musing and thinking aloud about this. But it occurs to me that full-frame and micro four-thirds complement each other very nicely - particularly when micro four-thirds is used for things like shooting nature with a long zoom or street shooting with a small, pocketable body and a pancake prime.
That kind of leaves APS-C out in the cold. Not that the format has no worth. But if one also owns both full frame and micro four-thirds, it kind of gets lost in the sauce (more on this on a moment). But I really like my Fuji gear -- particularly the lenses. I currently have an X-H1, an X-T3, and X-Pro2 and an X-E3.
But it seems to me that I can differentiate my APS-C gear by staying with two cameras that offer a unique shooting experience -- the X-Pro3 and X-Pro2. Since I arguably can use my Sony A7III for almost anything I would use the X-H1 and X-T3 for... I'm thinking about selling them off along with my biggest and heaviest Fuji lenses. I would keep my line of "Fujicron" f/2.0 WR primes... and maybe even the 23mm and 35mm f/1.4 primes. I might even keep my 18-55mm f/2.8-4.0 and 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 zooms.
Again, I am still thinking aloud. None of this has to happen overnight. The fate of micro four thirds seems to be up in the air right now as well and this could change everything. But I welcome any thoughts and/or observations from my friends and colleagues here.
But my almost-impulse decision to jump on the deal (the price was just too good) has kicked the other half of my brain into gear. I'm now thinking about all of the camera gear I have. It's way too much by any rational assessment. I am running Sony FE, Fujifilm APS-C and micro four-thirds kits -- and all are pretty well equipped.
Of course, this did not happen overnight. I have been building my collection since about 2008. And, as anyone who has been around this hobby for long knows, up until about 2015 it was fairly easy to pick up camera bodies and even lenses at great prices -- either on sale, refurbished, lightly used or when the next version of a body came out. Things have only gotten unrelentingly expensive in the last five years or so (unless you were running Leica or medium format).
I have pared back my kits a bit in the past - usually by adopting a policy of two-cameras or lenses must be sold off before one of either can come in. This approach actually works -- at least for me. But I am now running up on the close of the acquisition phase of my life and perhaps I need to rationalize my gear more aggressively.
I'm still musing and thinking aloud about this. But it occurs to me that full-frame and micro four-thirds complement each other very nicely - particularly when micro four-thirds is used for things like shooting nature with a long zoom or street shooting with a small, pocketable body and a pancake prime.
That kind of leaves APS-C out in the cold. Not that the format has no worth. But if one also owns both full frame and micro four-thirds, it kind of gets lost in the sauce (more on this on a moment). But I really like my Fuji gear -- particularly the lenses. I currently have an X-H1, an X-T3, and X-Pro2 and an X-E3.
But it seems to me that I can differentiate my APS-C gear by staying with two cameras that offer a unique shooting experience -- the X-Pro3 and X-Pro2. Since I arguably can use my Sony A7III for almost anything I would use the X-H1 and X-T3 for... I'm thinking about selling them off along with my biggest and heaviest Fuji lenses. I would keep my line of "Fujicron" f/2.0 WR primes... and maybe even the 23mm and 35mm f/1.4 primes. I might even keep my 18-55mm f/2.8-4.0 and 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 zooms.
Again, I am still thinking aloud. None of this has to happen overnight. The fate of micro four thirds seems to be up in the air right now as well and this could change everything. But I welcome any thoughts and/or observations from my friends and colleagues here.