Gear snobbery and stress relief

 Everyone inherits genetic traits. Everyone also inherits socialized traits. Amongst the males in my family, we all tend to have ADHD (at least the attention deficit part, if not the hyperactivity). We also all tend to obsess about having good gear. Whether it's work benches, electronics, trucks, or outdoor gear, we all have our little obsessions.  Now, I realize that this is a quirk common to most American males. Still . . .

Two years ago, when our four-year-old computer was in its death throes, we didn't have the money to buy the computer I wanted. But we did have the money to buy the parts. So I built my own. And it has been an awesome computer. It took me months to analyze all the parts for compatibility, buy them all and figure out how to build it.  But the effort paid off.  Most people wouldn't go that far though (still nothing compared to my brother Robert who has spent the better part of a decade perfecting his own custom work bench though).

When we needed a family size tent, the models available at the local sporting goods store weren't even close to being good enough to stand up to a real mountain storm. I started obsessively reading tent reviews online and in outdoor magazines.  At least I didn't decide to sew a tent.  But my wife, who was raised to make do with what's on hand, raised her eyebrows high when I wanted to spend nearly $500 bucks on a tent. Still, she trusts me, so I bought it. And she has been in love with it ever since (and basks in the complements she gets at her family reunion camping trips every year). The moral of the story is, good gear = better results.

Simply put, I hate having crappy gear! I'll wear cheap clothes. I'll drive a crappy car. I'll give myself haircuts to save money. But I can't do crappy gear. It just doesn't do its job right. When it comes to outdoor gear, such problems can get you killed in a jiffy doing the types of alpine activities that I'm interested in. Even the 'minor' things can nail you. Going cheap on a mountaineering jacket won't necessarily mean its waterproofing is lacking. But if the material doesn't breathe right and you soak yourself from the inside out with perspiration, you could still wind up getting hypothermia from your own moisture.

The little things matter. So I tend to buy the pricey gear - not absolute top of the line - but pricey. I buy Lincoln/Cadillac-level gear, while there is the BMW/Mercedes level above that, and the Ferrari/Lamborghini level beyond that. Well, sometimes I buy at the BMW/Mercedes level - but only when the money's there.

My brother Jason and my dad are both into 'enthusiast' photography more than I am, and thus they both own fancy digital SLR (big, relatively expensive & relatively fancy) cameras.  I've generally been more interested in getting the most out of small and light equipment under the paradigm of "the best camera is the one you have with you".  That's because I won't carry an SLR up in the mountains.  If the camera won't fit in a pocket, it ain't goin'.  Still, I also have to admit that little (digital) cameras take crappy pictures.  There's just no way around it.  In a world that is used to ultra-low quality cellphone cameras, most people don't notice the difference.  But I do (especially since I photoshop, as is obvious from the pics on my blog). 

Well, our family's little digital camera, which was an absolute top-of-the-line model for subcompact digitals when we bought it, is now dying.  Its pictures tend to be cloudy and the battery is on its last legs.  I was going to step up to a good compact, like the Canon G11 - still pocketable, but capable of better pictures than any subcompact.  And then I found out about about the new Micro Four Thirds format cameras.  Nearly full-size SLR sensors (bigger sensors = better pictures - much more important than # of pixels) and simplified controls in a compact size camera body.  Que angels singing from heaven and flowers bursting into bloom.   Now I can have a pocketable camera with swappable lens that will take very high quality images that my wife can also use to take snapshots of the kids.

The Olympus E-PL1 is the camera I've picked after another round of obsessive research.  It's definitely Lincoln/Cadillac range in terms of quality.  For most people accustomed to paying for subcompacts, the total price would seem like Ferrari/Lamborghini territory.  However, for a professional photographer, the price would seem more like Kia/Hyundai territory.  It's all relative.  What isn't so relative is that, with the extra (awesome) lens I'll also be picking up, this baby will produce pictures better than I could ever have dreamed of getting from my old subcompact.  I'll finally be able to hang out with my dad and brother and not have camera envy. 

Now we just gotta wait for the stinkin' Army to pay us.  They're late!  Oh wait, and we're still waiting for the stinkin' University to fix my account.  They're late too!  So uh, yeah, we're pretty broke at the moment.  But when you're horribly overstressed, it's just good fun to imagine what you'll buy someday.