Originally posted by aslyfox And I think you exaggerated the price difference
$15 to $150 is 10 to one. The "read everything ever written on the topic" approach without intelligent insight into what exactly people should be looking at, is tolerated at least by folks like myself because some people to seem to appreciate it. Even if more experienced users may find it irritating. Some newbies just like reading about photography and apparently have lots of time to sift through this stuff, even if many could come up with better responses off the tops of their heads.
It would seem to be about learning styles. For some "go read everything ever written" is appropriate. For others, they'll want to know about things they can physically touch and experiment with and are looking for advice from experienced users that will save them the time and effort of sifting through and evaluating written opinions. Especially since the level of reading comprehension of the knowledge seeker and their ability to correctly interpret written evaluations is unknown.
However people being unable to see out of their own learning style is also pretty typical. There are 40 different learning styles, most people believe there is one... their own. And they encourage others to learn the way they do, even though in many case that's impossible.
I remember back when I was teaching, when referring some students to a book, they'd respond, "If I could figure this out from the book, what do I need you for? Do your job."
Some of my best students had limited reading skills, but they understood how cameras worked when the functions were demonstrated for them.
When you're pid to do the job, you're expected to be able to use strategies that may not make sense to yourself as a learner, but make sense to your students. Hands on, visual, auditory, reading, mimic and practice, all learning styles. Readers are a small percentage of the total. Straight reading is rarely an effective solution.
Personally I think the O.P. is looking for sometime cheap he can play with where if it isn't the right thing, it hasn't cost him a lot. Extension tubes in my experience are the logical solution. My ex took my extension tubes when we split. I have many times spent a few minutes devising strategies as to how I might get them back, even if they just sat on a shelf 364 days a year.