this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
1509 points (99.2% liked)
memes
10398 readers
1915 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- [email protected] : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- [email protected] : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- [email protected] : Linux themed memes
- [email protected] : for those who love comic stories.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As a counter example, I bought a $100 camera from a pharmacy when I was 15 that took low to mid quality photos and I was so happy with it. I learned about focus, bokeh, framing, etc despite having like 6 preset settings, and that got me into photography. Later I bought a low end DSLR and took 1000 pictures a day during the summer.
For wood carving a $60 set of knives was enough to get me into the hobby, now I get to spend too much money on stuff.
Cheap options can be very helpful to find out if you like something.
There is some minimum that seems to work well enough in a lot of hobbies. Can't always go for the cheapest, but you may not have to go that high, either.
Amateur astronomers tend to hate on Walmart telescopes, and there are reasons for that. Still, the optics in any of them are better than Galileo had, and he saw a lot (admittedly, he also didn't have a hopelessly light polluted sky). It's a matter of setting expectations.
A $25 Baofang can get you into amateur radio after getting your technician license. There's even a version now that doesn't spew spurious emissions on harmonic frequencies and fuck things up for everyone else.
I once traded a somewhat older GPU for a fretless bass, amp, and effect pedal. The guy had just moved, his GPU died, and seemed like he wanted to get rid of some of his stash. While that was an exception, there's probably some guitar guy in your city that wants to clear some stuff out and is willing to make a deal.
I started off with a Canon Digital Ixus as the first ‘real’ camera that I bought. Absolutely adored it. A full metal build and about the size of a cigarette packet. I took it everywhere and shot a few vacations on it.
But it honestly wasn’t until I got my Canon EOS 350D that I could actually attempt to really learn photography. Because now I could use manual settings, learn how to use them, use filters, try new techniques, get more creative, etc.
When I needed to invest in something like a flash, tripod or lens I always applied the same thinking: buy it so it can grow with you. Of course, eventually we got full circle and I ended up back at analog photography developing B&W Minox film in my kitchen :D
Anyways, I’ve never regretted buying better, but I’ve definitely regretted cheaping out. So I don’t if I can avoid it.