G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome)

Yep, I have a terminal case of this :(

When I began an interest in photography in the early 80s, I started with a nice Pentax ME Super with a 50mm 1.4 lens.
Back in those days, the kit grew only slowly and modestly, I never had more than two SLRs, and each had a 50mm prime and I had one Vivitar series 1 70 to 210 zoom that I bought second hand.

I built a darkroom in the shed and stocked it with the usual stuff, a couple of enlargers, extractor fan, paper, chemicals, beer fridge etc. But never really had G.A.S. back then. Maybe due to financial constraints.

When the digital age struck and I got my first DSLR around 2010,  a Canon 450D, I was sucked in by the technology and the number of features that enabled me to control my shots in ways that the old film cameras lacked, in short, I was gobsmacked. I still have that camera by the way, it's light and It does what I want.

I began looking at lenses and they were all too expensive, especially good ones.

Then I became aware of adapters that could be used to fit the good old prime glass from the old days onto my modern DSLR - then the floodgates opened. These great old lenses were plentiful and (relatively) cheap, I was happy as a pig in plop.

This was pinpointed as the Typhoid Mary of my G.A.S.

I accumulated a prime lens of each focal length, mainly because zoom lenses of the day were considered not the sharpest and had problems with flare.

Then, my satisfaction from shooting digital waned, I would set the camera to AV, selected an aperture, frame and press the button. It seemed like I had little involvement in the process and it gave me little satisfaction.

Now, I admit, this is not the fault of the digital camera, it was my fault. I could have been using manual mode and I could have spent more time composing and thinking about the image, but the nature of digital seems to make that hard to do, it's instant and quick and it didn't seem right for me to 'hinder' that instant procedure. It's like driving a Maserati and never changing up from first gear.

I began to long for the involvement of shooting film, where I had to take each shot with great care, because film isn't cheap and the effort of developing and scanning were significant. But that very fact made each shot more important to me and once again I had the satisfaction of crafting an image.

So, in my mind it follows that if a couple of film cameras and prime lenses are good, more must be better.
I began being interested in the old film gear, The  history and story of the camera and the manufacturer, and I found it fascinating. I would discover all I could about each camera I purchased, downloaded and stored that information and the user manuals I bought from lifesaver  Mike Butkus.

I really enjoyed shooting very old and primitive cameras and making an acceptable image with them, soft as they were, they had character, and no more controls than were necessary to take a picture.

My aim became to own a representative camera  from each major marque, and I did,
And then I did some more, ad infinitum :(

Now when I see an item for sale that I don't own, I almost need to be 'chained to the mast' like Odysseus when he saw the Sirens, to prevent myself buying more stuff.

Unfortunately, I ran out of chain and now own a humongous collection of film cameras and lenses.

The Sirens won.