" All My Friends..."

on July 25, 2019
" All my friends...": a. Have Canon or Nikon DSLR cameras. Good for them. Separate them out into which person owns which brand and then make a list of the lenses they have. Compare the two lists to see who has the most and uses the best glass. That's the brand for you. Purchase a body and a six-pack and then go round to all the people on your list with the same camera and borrow their lenses. The other lot? The ones with the opposing make of camera? Ditch them...or go around to their place and borrow money to buy more beer. b. Have mirror-less cameras. A bit trickier as we are dealing with the Sony system, the Fujifilm system, the Olympus, and the Panasonic systems here*. You'll be able to bot off the Panasonic and Olympus owners as their lenses interchange, and the camera bodies are really nice units. If there are a number of Sony people and Fujifilm people in your social circle you are fortunate, but these are specific systems so you'll be narrowing down your chances of borrowing what you want instead of actually buying your own. It's one of the factors that'll push you to watch the CE sales and the cashbacks for the best bargains. Note: the best bargains under these circumstances can be very good indeed, so start a swear-jar to get money for the next round of sales. If you have a houseful of young adults it should be profitable in no ##@*!!ing time... If all your friends are Pentax or Sigma or Flapoflex people you will just have to do the best you can. If all your friends use Leicas they aren't going to lend you any lenses anyway. c. Go on African safaris and Alaskan bear expeditions. And the lions and the bears know to expect them. " It's Tuesday, Ralph - here come the tourists. Look fierce. ". d. Go on trips to the Greek isles. " It's Tuesday, Dimitrios - here come the tourists. Look ethnic.". d. Shoot macro. Join them. Start yourself out on jewellery and work your way down to bees and flowers. Get yourself a professional macro rig - it'll be the size and weight of a Bofors mount, and you'll be sorry when you have to haul it up a mountainside but you'll get steady shots after your heartbeat settles down and the sparkly lights go away. e. Shoot sports. Ah, that'd be the friends with the long lenses and muscley forearms. The ones with the terminal sunburn. The ones whose drive dial is sticky-taped onto High-Speed Continuous. The ones with the big cards, the big hard drives and the 14-hour culling session in front of the computer screen. I knew there was an explanation for that look in their eyes... f. Shoot real estate. Ah, you've had those phone calls at 3:00AM as well, have you? Where they want to borrow a speedlight because one of theirs has just carked it? You have to admire dedication, don't you, even if it is just running your head against a padded wall. g. Shoot weddings. They are not friends. Wedding photographers have no friends. They have associates, assistants, employers, clients, debtors, competitors, creditors, and mothers of the bride, but there are no friends. If you wish to be kind you can comfort them about it, but do not offer iced fruitcake or they will bite you. h. ArRRE ArtistS Did they tell you to spell it like that? See if you can enveigle one of them down to the next art competition that has a prize pool and hold them under the surface... * No we're not. Now there are Canon and Nikon mirror-less systems and adapters. Now you can pester everyone...
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