{"id":31691,"date":"2024-12-25T05:00:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T10:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=31691"},"modified":"2024-12-23T14:06:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T19:06:23","slug":"gear-acquisition-syndrome-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/25\/gear-acquisition-syndrome-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Gear Acquisition Syndrome in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been very happy with my Sony A7 IV camera since I bought it a few years ago.\u00a0 It does everything I need it to do and I\u2019m not sure what would tempt me to trade it in.\u00a0 So, I haven\u2019t bought any photo gear in quite a while.\u00a0 But recently a new lens has tempted me.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a long story (and thus the reason it\u2019s a post). About fourteen years ago I bought the Sony (badged as Carl Zeiss) A-mount 135mm, f\\1.8 lens.\u00a0 It was an extremely extravagant purchase at $1,500 and I couldn\u2019t justify it in use terms because basically it was a very long portrait lens for which I had very rare need.\u00a0 But after seeing some of the extraordinary results it could produce, I plunked down the cash.\u00a0 And it was every bit as sharp and contrasty as the critics claimed.\u00a0 And I managed to find quite a few excuses to drag this big heavy lens with me to places and events where longer and shorter and lighter lenses make better sense.<\/p>\n

But not too long after this purchase, Sony, in its infinite cruelty, stopped making A-mount cameras and went mirrorless.\u00a0 I won\u2019t repeat my long sad story of enduring the e-mount introduction.\u00a0 But I will mention that Sony salved over the initial problem of having no lenses for their new mirrorless cameras by producing a line of attachments for adapting A-mount lenses to e-mount cameras.\u00a0 They were designated with the prefix LA-EA and numbered successively 1 through 5.\u00a0 And with each introduction I dreamed of my e-mount cameras working with my A-mount lenses as if they were native lenses.\u00a0 Well, that never happened.\u00a0 Granted they got better.\u00a0 But even the LA-EA-5 never allowed my A-mount lenses to enjoy the full capability of the camera\u2019s auto-focus or special features like magnified view, in the same way as my e-mount lenses could.<\/p>\n

And so, one by one I sold off my A-mount lenses and mostly bought the e-mount equivalent lenses (or just didn\u2019t replace them).\u00a0 But not the 135mm f\\1.8.\u00a0 By the time the equivalent e-mount lens appeared my A-mount lens was no longer very marketable.\u00a0 A-mount lenses had a fairly small pool of users and so the market prices sank to fairly low prices.\u00a0 And when the new lens came out in e-mount they wanted $2,100.\u00a0 And that seemed a bridge too far for a lens that wasn\u2019t really needed for a major part of my shooting style.<\/p>\n

Over the years third party manufacturers have come out with their versions of this lens in the e-mount.\u00a0 First Sigma, then Samyang and now Viltrox.\u00a0 Each time I looked at the combination of price savings and quality and I shrugged my shoulders and said meh.\u00a0 But finally, it\u2019s reached the breaking point.\u00a0 A review of the Viltrox lens (actually several reviews) claim that it is very slightly better than Sony\u2019s $2,100 version but at about 1\/3 the price ($760).\u00a0 So, I checked the trade in value of my old A-mount lens and finding it to be about $350 I mailed it out and now await my thirty pieces of silver (figuratively) before finishing off the transaction to buy the Viltrox.<\/p>\n

Wrapping up the lens gave me a pang of regret.\u00a0 It was a beautiful piece of kit that had worked flawlessly when attached to the camera it was designed for, the Sony A-850 DSLR.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the lens\u2019s fault that the geniuses at Sony had almost simultaneously with buying the Minolta camera line, relegated all of its products to obsolescence by going mirrorless.\u00a0 But such is life.<\/p>\n

Well onward and upward in 2025.\u00a0 I will record the arrival of the new lens with photos it produces.\u00a0 After all that\u2019s the real reason they make these darn things.<\/p>\n

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View from Campsite 5 at Toroweap<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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SONY DSC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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SONY DSC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been very happy with my Sony A7 IV camera since I bought it a few years ago.\u00a0 It does everything I need it to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3366,1263,3,659,237],"tags":[461,20,2334,3315,2291],"class_list":["post-31691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-photography","category-photography-reviews","category-reviews","tag-photography","tag-sony","tag-sony-a-mount-135mm-f1-8-lens","tag-sony-a7-iv","tag-sony-a850-dslr"],"yoast_head":"\nGear Acquisition Syndrome in 2025 - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/25\/gear-acquisition-syndrome-in-2025\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gear Acquisition Syndrome in 2025 - 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