The thing about working home all the time....

[connloyalist]

With the current health situation, the thing about working from home all the time is that it accelerates my GAS. The money I would normally have spent on lunch at the office, public transportation to the office and various other things over the past 5 months has gone into my GAS. Or to put it another way, the manual focus lenses I already owned have been joined by several new friends and a few accessories. Most of these new friends are originally from East Germany with the exception of one from Japan.

Seriously though, it is almost embarrassing. A nice thing about these older lenses: they don't break the bank. In the last five months working from home I have added a Minolta lens and several Carl Zeiss Jena's (one of which I store somewhere else because it unexpectedly turned out to be slightly radioactive) and Meyer Optik Görlitz's. I am especially impressed by the CZJ's. I added the CZJ 58mm Biotar to my list of "never sell" lenses.

Anyone else having this "problem" at the moment?

Regards, Christine

[vivaldibow]

[DigiChromeEd]

Hi Christine

Welcome to the forum by the way.

Yes, I have the same problem ha ha! I've acquired a Minolta XD7 SLR, a new, unboxed Weston Master V light meter and a Manfrotto tripod.

I'm back to work next week from furlough so normality will return soon. Maybe.

[DConvert]

[SkedAddled]

I've only added a Rokinon 14mm 2.8 Aspherical to my collection during the lockdown.
I've wanted an Ultra-Wide for the 5D, and grabbed it lightly used for about $150.
Not much incentive to go out and about for photography here though, as venues are
only recently starting to re-open in very limited ways.

It only lasted about 3 months for me, when the manufacturing sector was added to the list
of 'essential' industries/occupations. I've been back at work since late June.

I used the US federal boost to unemployment insurance for other stuff on my list:

I replaced my 24-inch 1920x1280 monitors with a pair of 27-inch 3840x2160 4k monitors,
after suffering a bad input processor on one of the old monitors. These are factory
color-calibrated, complete with a result printout in the box. The results are glorious!
Both are numbered close enough to have come from a single production run, so I
no longer suffer not being able to tune them both to a common color temperature.
Plus, I no longer limit most activity to the one display with a non-faulty input processor.
The pair cost just about US$500.

I also replaced my video card, upgrading it in performance specifications while also
acquiring one with two stable HDMI/DP outputs. I was winging it before, with one monitor
on MINI-DP and another on DVI-D. Both new monitors are now on full-size DP.
The card cost about US$280.

I replaced my crappy desk chair with a $300 bit of ergonomic goodness.
The old one kept slowly losing height, the back was sprung, and it was just
outright uncomfortable. It squeaked and groaned, too.
The new chair is an open mesh seat and back, made to high quality.
It's adjustable in many more ways than the old one, even with an adjustable
lumbar support. It actually rivals the Hermann-Miller Aeron chair,
which I have experienced, at a fraction of the cost.

I got a few extra higher-capacity batteries & a charger from Wasabi for my 5D Mk IV.
They easily beat Canon's battery packs for longevity, and cost a fraction of OEM price.
They also register fully with the camera, meaning that Wasabi has successfully
reverse-engineered the chip requirements for the camera.
Total cost was maybe US$60.

I picked up what's called an "Ergo Rest Multi Tripod" after seeing one mentioned
on another forum. It's a compact yet amazingly strong little thing, and should
give me good reason to head out in the winter to look for snowy owls to shoot.
Note the notch in the arm; it's intended to hook over a vehicle's window,
making it convenient to shoot from a car:

Its construction seems to be a semi-hard thermoplastic molded around
a solid metal frame. The frame is likely steel, judging by weight.
I can simply mount one of my ballheads to this device to make it complete.
While I am not a birder, I'm fascinated by owls, and the snowies are gorgeous.
This'll give me a good setup to go to a site near the local airport where snowies
are regularly seen, and stay warm in my car.
Sorry, but this hasn't been available for some long time.
If you want one, you'll have to search eBay or other listings.
This set me back about US$70.

We were both awarded the Federal boost of $600/week for at least 5 weeks
of overlap, so we managed to also put much of that into a savings account.

The wife and I have also added to our Blu-Ray/4k collection of must-have movies,
as well as getting her a newer and more reliable vehicle, and getting up-to-date
on a few financial obligations. She's gone to a much higher-paying job at a local
Amazon facility as well, so it's all worked out to our benefit.

[benadamx]

absolute same, having a little something turn up in the post every week or two has been one of the few things to look forward to of late, and i find myself spending upwards of an hour daily digging around on ebay etc.. but man, i have found a bunch of cool stuff

and i'm actually using it a bit more, my wife and i have been going for walks at dusk when the streets are empty, perfect for trying out all this fast glass, a different lens every night




#1

[cooltouch]

I've been working from home for the past 30 years so this is nothing really new for me -- except my wife has me imprisoned at home. She won't let me go anywhere because of my age and a few health issues that make me more of a risk if I were to have the misfortune of catching the virus. When I do manage to get out, it's with her, and she's enforcing all the hand sanitizer and gloves and mask stuff. And then it's mostly just to the doctor or grocery store. I sure will be glad when this pandemic has run its course.

[D1N0]

I discovered buying from Japan through Buyee which was very bad for the bank account :p