The official "don't waste your money" thread

[jfrancho]

Printers - any and all of the b******ds.

I'm with you there! My monochrome laser printer spits out beautiful invoices, though

[jfrancho]

Originally Posted by Worm324

I want to get the 100-400 f/4 L, but until then I need the Tammy! After that you can have it back

Best,
Jay

Interesting verbiage there, Jay.

[Worm324]

Best,
Jay

[thebeing]

hm...well, i can't think at this moment of something that i paid for and don't use. my tripod is a very cheap one (the cheapest i could find. got it 1 and 1/2 years ago for like 15$ or smth). And i am quite happy with it. 90% of my shots are NOT straight, but i think it did it's job plenty of times!
My cheap ebay card reader works like a charm. and i paid like 5$ for it (shipping included).
I paid about 230$ for my second hand sb-600. I wish i could got it for less. But i'm really happy with it (even if i don't know how to use it properly).
My D70 kinda pisses me off when i raise the ISO, but the rest of the camera compensates this.
My Sigma lenses are GREAT! especially the 18-50mm. It's a 3.5-5.6, but, aside that, it does it's job. VERY WELL.

Heh...maybe having no money to spend on better equipment makes me treasure a whole lot more what i have, and makes me think 5-6-7-8-9-et cetera times before buying something.

I photographed a wedding 2 weeks ago and i got 180 euros for it. Now i really gotta buy a memory card (i've being using a 4gb sandisk extreme III from a friend) and i don't quite wanna pay 32-35$ for a 4gb sandisk ultra II. But i will. And i won't ever regret it. It will serve me well, and i will be very proud of it.

cheers!

[lightandimages]

Hmm.. I bought a set of cheap chinese made strobes off ebay. Sounded nice, how bad could they be? pretty bad. Slow to charge, anything more than 1/2 power made them one to two stops off and erratic. The lightstands were just as bad. I ended up with 2 SB800s and some nice air cushioned lightstands. Moral? buy good strobes and cheap out somewhere else.

[gordongekko]

hmm...a cheap ballhead...and inexpensive filters come to mind...buy quality and you'll only buy once....

[tekdiver500ft]

The Pentax K1000 I bought 30+ years ago... it led me into the 100's of thousands of dollars I have spent since on this obsession.

[Mechoption]

$25 on ebay for Macro screw on lenses (like filters, but magnifying). I got +1, +5, +10 and "Macro". The distortion from these things was brutal, and not even really symmetric. They could make a straight ruler 'smile' quite nicely

[somewhereinusa]

OP/TECH WeatherGuard, I never did figure out how to Erect it. I paid $75 dollars for it and have never gotten it onto the camera.My guess is that even it I had figured it out it would take so long to do everything would be wet anyway.

[korman]

Here's a demo video on how ot get that thing up.

Korman

[Thunderhawk]

Originally Posted by Ed Shapiro

Bewhere!...of the word DIGITAL. It is unnecessarily attached to a load of equipment and accessories and that tag raises the price tag. I am talking about things like tripods, lens cleaning tissue, flash units, camera cases, flash brackets, light stands, and a bunch of other stuff that you don't even attach directly to your camera.

Ed

That brings to mind this. I went to the camera shop to buy a UV filter for a new lens . The one that was handed to me was very costly....I looked at the sales person and said that it would have to wait....The sales person said "wait, you shoot film"... I was then handed a non digtal UV filter made by the same co. and it was 1/2 the price.......?

I would think that light is light...... Am I missing something here?

[2hotford]

Originally Posted by SensorDust

I bought a Tripod bag because it seemed to make sense when I purchased my tripod. Well, the tripod gets used mostly at home when I shoot portraits. To be honest, the tripod has not been out of the house yet. But at least it is being used. The tripod bag, on the other hand...

I would say, if you are sure you need a tripod bag by all means get one. Most likely you can find a way to move a tripod without a bag for carrying it...

And I am the opposite. I use my tripod bag all the time and just love it. I bought the matching Manfrotto bag for my Manfrotto tripod. I even throw the Manfrotto Monopod in there as well! But then again I photograph mostly outdoors.

As for wasted money, probably the specialized CO2 cleaning system. I bought this expensive kit years ago that claimed to be safe for cleaning sensors etc. While it does work, the special CO2 cartridges leak out over a very short time and are very expensive and hard to find. I am sticking to the Rocket Blower and the Sensor Swabs from now on....

The second big mistake was the Sigma 24-70 f2.8 lens I bought. I really hated it as it had poor color and contrast, extremely soft wide open and was noisy! Ugh!

Tim

[Douglas]

I purchased a quantary/sunpak tripod/monopod combo (instead of a crank, the center is the monopod. Seemed pretty cool). Cheapest pos ive ever had. I broke the legstand screw on 2 of them. And I wasnt putting serious pressure or over tightning them. The concept is awesome, but product might as well have been made with tissue paper.

[cadmium]

Originally Posted by Thunderhawk

That brings to mind this. I went to the camera shop to buy a UV filter for a new lens . The one that was handed to me was very costly....I looked at the sales person and said that it would have to wait....The sales person said "wait, you shoot film"... I was then handed a non digtal UV filter made by the same co. and it was 1/2 the price.......?

I would think that light is light...... Am I missing something here?

Was the digital one a circular polarizer and the other a linear? The metering and autofocus on digital cameras have fewer problems with circular polarizers and they also tend to be more expensive.

[aam1234]

Cadmium...

Originally Posted by Thunderhawk

UV filter

Cheers

[rshunk]

Originally Posted by cadmium

Was the digital one a circular polarizer and the other a linear? The metering and autofocus on digital cameras have fewer problems with circular polarizers and they also tend to be more expensive.

It's not just digital - all AF cameras can run into problems with linear polarizers.



Bob S.