Do you suffer with GAS?
 

I'm hoping I'm not the only one!

No matter how many toys I have I am always tempted to another one. I know that I have enough cameras/lenses/tripods but often find myself reading through reviews of new ones and getting tempted.

Any other sufferers? If so, what is tempting you right now?

Postcardcv: Pardon and need to make a big correction in your statement before answering your question.
There is no such a thing as enough lens and camera! Or am I missing something?!
My most recent hunts are INDUSTAR-22 rangefinder 3.5/50 Russian Collapsible Lens M39 Fed Zorki Leica replica lens that is adapted for my Sony NEX E mount A6000 and then an old Olympus 300mm F4.5 that is adapted for 4/3...
God gives enough patience to my wife.

You are of course right, there is no such thing as enough. I can always find a reason (or excuse) to buy another camera or lens (or tripod, I do love a good tripod)! I have been looking at bridge cameras again recently, I have a Canon SX50 which my daughters love to use and am toying with getting a second such camera to save squabbles. But a good quality compact is very tempting too... I am trading in an old bit of unused gear to a local shop so will need to buy something!

Mercifully WPF is mainly concerned with photos rather than equipment, but I bet most of us like to have an occasional look into a well known gear-obsessed website to laugh at the 'virtual fisticuffs' that go on there between devotees of various makes of equipment (or 'fanboys' to give them their pejorative term). It's amazing, and quite disturbing in a way, to see how many list their equipment in the signature area of the comments in the forums. They obviously have advanced forms of GAS, as not only do some own more kit than is healthy for them from one maker, thay also have an almost duplicate range in another system plus all the compacts and bridge cameras as well - 'just in case,' presumably.

I've used Canon DSLRs for quite a few years and taken many thousands of shots with them, but for a number of reasons, I've 'down-sized' to an Olympus m4/3rds system. I hadn't used my 40D for a while and when I picked it up recently, not only did it feel like a brick, I also realised I'd forgotten how to use it! So the moral of this is - if you have to give in to a bit of GAS then keep it to the system you're using already or you'll never get to the stage where use your kit instinctively.

My own worst case of GAS happened back in the 1970s. I had a nice Olympus OM system but fell for the charms of a Leica! Not just any Leica, though - having been criticised for the style of their M5 rangefinder camera, they re-introduced the older, 'classic' M4 and also made a limited batch of them with '50 jahre' engraving to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Leica in 1925. I bought one of these. Unless you've actually handled one, it's hard to describe just how silky smooth the operations like the film-wind are on Leicas (though the 35mm Summicron that I bought with it was prone to flare when shooting into the light).

Unfortunately, it had to go when I got married - otherwise it would have come in useful now for funding the purchase of the Olympus 300mm F4 (or Pana/Leica 100-400mm) which will soon be announced, and will complete my m4/3rds system - until the next version of the EM1 comes out, that is... (eek, GAS strikes again!).

Anticipated sometime this year isn't it ;)

Yes, probably around Photokina time in September seems to be the favourite. It's thought that the big firmware upgrade that the current model had recently was at least partly to keep users happy whilst they have more time to develop things like the much-anticipated 'global shutter' and a phase-detection AF version of the 20mp sensor (or whichever sensor is in the pipeline) plus all the 'must-haves' like 4K video (which I don't particularly want anyway).

There's also the new 4Mp evf to look forward to but for me the global shutter will be the major reason to get into GAS mode. The upgrade has given us a silent shutter but it is prone to rolling shutter effects with moving subjects but it certainly whets the appetite for anyone shooting wildlife subjects, etc. And, of course, with the mirror vibrations already removed from this type of camera, you now have the shutter movement eliminated as well - so, effective another stop's worth of image stabilisation on tap.

Having upgraded from my aging 40D to a 7Dii last September & bought a GX7 as my take everywhere camera earlier in the year (with 20mm f1.7, 45mm f1.8 & 35-100mm f2.8), I don't need you tempting me with stuff like this ;)

I won't mention the anticipated Olympus F1.2 prime lenses then :)

There is of coarse a formula for the ideal amount of equipment required for any hobby, be it photography, surfing, mountain biking etc which is that the perfect number of 'tools' required to partake in the hobby effectively is (N +1) where N equals the number currently owned!!
This is why my garage is full of bikes & surf gear & my house rapidly filling with photographic gear.
My lovely wife bless her is happy as long as whilst there is an almost constant stream of couriers knocking on the door with parcels occasionally I brag about how I sold something on ebay for more than half what I paid for it!

I do believe I've cured myself of this. I have a big bag of unused stuff from my film days that sits behind as a reminder, plus a loft full of darkroom gubbins that hasn't seen electricity in two decades. Back in the days I'd lug about the big bag of stuff in all weather, ferret about in big bag of stuff for the correct lens or filter, or whatever, take a shot, and then run to catch up with the people I was nominally with.

Then I got busy doing other things and when I restarted taking photos and finally decided to go to digital I was contemplating an Olympus system, but there were reports of problems with the macro lens. So I looked at what others were using and one guy was doing very good macro work with an panasonic FZ30 and Raynox lens. I'd never heard of panasonic as far as cameras were concerned but saw that the thing did 35-420 zoom had all the manual overrides and looked at the big bag of stuff and recalled the pain lugging it all about.

That pana worked pretty damn well for 8 years, still does. But eventually I decided on a new one and got a FZ200 25-640 zoom. I still use the Raynox lens and a TCON1.7 for extended zoom. For me its enough recently the wife bought a FZ72 20-1200mm it is a whole lot of camera.

I might buy some ND filters this year, or maybe not.

I stopped buy photo mags after one had an issue on macro photography and stated that a ring flash was an essential item.

I have seen that equation before, there is an alternative G=D-1 where G is the amount of gear owned and D is the amount that would lead to divorce...

My problem is that I know that I don't need anything new and honestly don't think that it will help my photography but I do enjoy shiny new toys and retail therapy is a good for depression (in the short term at least). Late last year I decided to buy an ultra wide angle lens as I didn't have one and thought it would add something different to the bag. However it has only been on the camera to test it and I haven't found a situation yet where I was inspired to use it... I have had the same lens in the past and sold it due to lack of use, looks like a repeat cycle may be on the cards.

My current trade in will give me funds towards a new bit of gear. Torn between a decent compact (they are always fun) and a bridge camera that I can let my kids use then perhaps they will let my wife use her SX50.

Thankfully camera gear holds value fairly well so I can sell unused gear to fund the shopping trips!

Gas
 

Oh dear I'm afraid I do! Sold a load of Panasonic M4/3 gear and bought into the Fujifilm X series with an XT10 and 16-50 lens. I now have a second body,50-230, 35mm f1.4 and 60mm f2.4 macro lenses. The Domestic Finance Director has threatened to cut my hands off if I buy any more but I do rather fancy the 90mm lens.This kit is light enough to operate one-handed!!!!

Dave

The Fuji system is a bit special, some very good lenses and affordable prices and all well built but still light weight. The 35mm is a particularly impressive lens for the money, it is a shame some of the other manufacturers don't produce lenses that fast for that sort of money.

As if problem wasn't intense enough, got email with info indicating availability of Nikon D5for pre-ordering, today. The camera that surprisingly has lower than old D800 MP at just under 21MP, but then not surprisingly, has ISO that can be elevated to a mere 3.3 million...No you heard it right, a seven digit figure ISO! (Wondering if grains are going to be any smaller than my thumb). The price is just shy of $6.5K if you preorder it right now.
And Andy, your wanted Olympus 300 F4 is also available for preorder today for under $ 2.5K... And what all these means? Canon is going to talk back in 1D language with whatever their new baby 1Dx is going to be named.
Thanks God I am not good in math to understand those quoted equations s.a. G=D-1 but the marital threat appears imminent and all I know in terms of math is "Life without wife, is fifty without five"!! so better WATCH OUT. Repeat after me; No Gas, no gas, what gas?

Released this morning SLRGEAR's review says - "the (Olympus) 300mm ƒ/4 is thoroughly impressive on all fronts: excellent sharpness and all-around wonderful optical qualities with little to no distortion, aberrations or vignetting. What's even more impressive is the lens' stunning image stabilization. Combining lens-based and body-based I.S., the Olympus 300mm ƒ/4 Pro lets you capture handheld images down to shockingly slow shutter speeds. All this, plus impressive close-focusing capabilities, make the Olympus 300mm ƒ/4 Pro a stunning lens for the professional and advanced photographer looking for a top-notch wildlife, sports, stage performance and close-up lens no matter the weather or lighting conditions".

Bugger - I'd convinced myself I didn't need it :D
(If anyone in UK is rushing to buy it consider Amazon.de as the euro price is roughly £200 less than the UK price and no import tax from Europe).

We need patience! The fewer people who jump in and pre-order it, the sooner the price might drop! Look at how much those revised big white Canon lenses (ie 500 F4 MkII) were when they were first anounced compared to now

LOL my wife hates it when I go to the Camera store and threatens to take my debit and credit cards away anytime I tell her I am heading there.

Normally you hear about GAS with guitar players (who suffer in exactly the same way as photographers and even computer users).

It's always tempting to seek out something new, and this might be a legit approach if you're doing photography (or music or computer work) professionally and need to keep up for the sake of delivering results to the client in a competitive manner.

But if you're shooting for fun, I suspect there is no need to chase the wind with your wallet open.

For example, here is an image upon which I added some artsy effects. What gear did I take it with, and when? If you can't tell, it proves my point.

Not that I tried to cheat and look at EXIF but it doesn't exist. So not sure what the gear is but I won't be surprise if you tell me that it is a smart phone cam!

No smartphone; they have more megapixels, ha!

But we're about at the point where one could get away with that in a lot of cases.

I think that all that photo shows is how you can use digital effects to give an image a particular look, it is not about the photography but about the processing. That said it is amazing just how good some compacts and mobile phone cameras have become, what they do lack is the control of DoF that you can get with a DSLR and a fast lens. That is probably why I always find some new toy to buy!

postcardcv, true, the effects are obvious. I was having fun with a 1999 1-megapixel image ;-)

The point being, even a "crappy" source can serve as the basis for further work.

As for DoF, that too can be effectively added in post to a flat image, as you probably know.

Yes and I am no stranger to those days myself. In fact I still very well remember my very first digital camera, an Olympus PnS with a dedicated Olympus funny memory card, called "Smart memory" and had the capacity of 8 MegaByte, still I could and did make a lot of nice images with it. The only wish of the day was to have one of those dream 32 Mb or at least 16Mb memory cards!
Having said that, two important points:
1- The availability of capable post processing softwares and Apps, when mostly are readily available on line and are provided free. No wonder you can see tones of art work in sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Instagram etc that are mostly made by photographers that their photography knowledge is limited to knowing which bottom to push, to make the image and not to forget to ask for "Cheers"...
2- Low rez images before or after post processing will look nice on web (When the longest axis of picture is generally less than a 1000 pixel), however print them, even at post card size & you will see the difference.

The bottom line, Pictures are made by man or woman behind the camera, not the tools itself that though can facilitate the process, are not the final words, even at the highest price tag.

Massive (for me) GAS Explosion
 

Now all I've got to do is learn to use it. And then learn photography :D. Job for life.