Can you have too many cameras?
I have my favorites displayed in and on the glass-front cabinet. The rest of the shooters are mostly located in a four-drawer plastic chest, and there are some bits and pieces in cardboard boxes under my desk. So, I feel I am getting close to an answer to my question.
Of course, the answer to the "how many is too many" question will be different for others depending on circumstances.
I have put together the following questionnaire which should be helpful.
- Have you taken an early retirement?
- Does the government send you a check each month?
- Do you live in a small bungalow built early in the past century?
- In the past year, has your wife acquired a piano?
- Is there a portion of your house you are willing to defend against all intruders?
- Do you insist that every camera you own produce photos?
- Do you have more than one cat?
- Does "100" seem like a large number?
So much for the physical world. I have also busied myself of late with tidying up my digital spaces. I shut down my web site some time ago, leaving quite a few orphaned bits of data. I'm slowly incorporating those fragments of camera lore into my blog, but that is a considerable challenge given the volume, as well as the fact that the Blogger platform has undergone some significant changes over the years.
I was able to come up with a camera count using the tagging feature built into Blogger, and I have posted the resulting tabulation in the right-hand column. Each item there is actually a link to all the posts about each camera. The number in parentheses shows the number of individual posts for each camera, which is revealing about my camera preferences.
2 comments:
I reached the point of too many about two years ago. I live in a 1400 SF brick ranch built in the 1960s; typical of the period it lacks storage space. My favorite cameras are on the fireplace mantel and on a particular bookshelf, plus a few other places here and there. The rest are in rollaway plastic boxes under my bed, and in the drawers of my side tables that flank the family room couch.
I've given away all the cameras people wanted to take, and am selling the rest on eBay. I'm whittling it down to the ones I'm likely to use again, and a handful to which I've developed an emotional attachment even though I'll never shoot them (my No. 3A Autographic Kodak, for example).
The upside of selling these cameras is that the income has almost entirely funded my film processing all year.
I have kept my collection to a reasonable number by selling cameras to finance the purchase of others. I've given a few away as well. There have been a couple of cameras that I have sold, then some time later, purchased another just like it because I missed shooting them. Probably the only camera I have gone a little crazy over is the Nikon F2. I have six right now plus a few bodies I keep for parts.
Your camera list along the right rail of the blog is impressive!
Post a Comment