You good folks got some
great stuff in 2021! Keep it coming
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To answer my own question, I had to look back at the things I acquired this year. I didn't think it amounted to much - but I actually picked up lot more than I thought
Although not strictly photographic equipment, my biggest purchase of the year was a new laptop - a Lenovo Legion 5i 17 with i7-10750H CPU, NVidia RTX2060, 16GB RAM and dual SSDs for OS and data respectively. It has
way more processing power than anything I've previously owned, and it's made a huge performance difference to my raw processing and photo editing - so I'm including it for consideration.
I also acquired up a couple of cheap, new / old stock base-spec Lenono M72e Tiny mini desktop PCs (c. 2013), and upgraded them both to i5-3470T CPU with 8GB RAM and 240GB SSD, with Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS replacing the supplied Windows 7. Again, these aren't photographic equipment - but I set up one of them as a desktop PC in my study / home office (replacing the fun-but-limited Raspberry Pi 4 I'd been using) and - after the upgrades - it makes a nice, compact desktop for general computing that's also powerful enough to handle day-to-day raw, TIFF and JPEG processing with RawTherapee, Darktable and GIMP... which means I can do some basic post-processing in my study and leave my Lenovo laptop set up at the breakfast bar downstairs, where I spend most of my time
I didn't buy any digital cameras this year, as I'm more-than-sufficiently equipped for my needs (though I'll admit I drooled over, and enjoyed vicariously, the K-3III some of you folks have bought... an amazing camera, clearly!). I did, however, add a few inexpensive, vintage film cameras to my gear cupboard - a Canon Demi 35mm half-frame, Smena-8 35mm, new / old stock BeLOMO AGAT-18K 35mm half-frame, and a fully-serviced Agfa Isola II 6x6, as well as a super LOMO BLIK shoe-mount rangefinder to use with my various "guess-o-matic" focusing cameras
Lens purchases were very limited (as, again, I'm well-enough equipped)... a humble, cheap Pentax SMC DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL WR to replace the one I regretted selling years ago; a surprisingly-inexpensive Sigma 50mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro in K-mount; and a Minolta AF 35-70 f/4 - which needed a full service (and cost me nothing as a result) but - after a fair bit of work - is now a nice, fully-operational part of my Sony A-mount kit.
A couple of months back I bought some gear to set up a film-digitising rig, consisting of a CS-720 copy stand, EFH Essential Film Holder and multiple 35mm + 120 masks, Kaiser 2453 Slimlite Plano light panel and - more recently, to use with film that remains curly after drying - a Pixl-latr multi-format film holder. To convert the captured negatives into positive images, I bought a copy of Negative Lab Pro plug-in for Lightroom, a fantastic piece of software that removes all the hassle in getting colours and tone curves right, and results in lab-style output.
I also invested in some basic equipment and supplies to process my own B&W 35mm and 120 film at home
Now, I have to pick a favourite - and it's a tough call...
In terms of utility - i.e. the item I'm getting most use and benefit from - it has to be my Lenovo Legion 5i 17 laptop, as I do 90% of my raw image development and editing on it, and the performance is just amazing. Everything happens almost instantaneously, and I'm enjoying image processing much more as a result.
Then again, I'm a self-confessed lens nut... and I've been
thoroughly impressed by the Sigma 50mm f/2.8 EX DG. I bought it as a low-cost alternative to the Pentax SMC D FA50/2.8 Macro, and thought I would use it almost exclusively for my film digitising rig - but the image quality is so good that it's just a great piece of glass all round, and not just for macro work. I'm quite smitten.
But, oh... the old film cameras are things of beauty to me, and after a lull in my photography, I'm finding new enthusiasm since I started shooting a bit of film. The new / old stock BeLOMO AGAT-18K half-frame camera I acquired is just the cutest thing... but I haven't put any film through it yet, and it
could turn out to be a turkey (I
do hope not
). So... I think my favourite acquisition of the year has to be my Agfa Isola II 6x6 camera. I picked it up for a pittance, it's in beautiful condition and fully serviced, and the desire to try it is what prompted me to start developing and digitising film at home - so it's quite a pivotal piece of gear for me in that sense. Since running a roll of 120 through it, I've come to realise it's a hoot to use... limited, and challenging as a result - but so much fun... and it has a really decent lens.
I had to look up my purchase on eBay to remind me, and it seems I paid GBP £10.90 for that Agfa camera, including shipping. As it turns out, my favourite photography gear acquisition of the year was also my cheapest