[kypfer]

What started me? … probably when M42 lenses, especially primes, became "obsolete" and "everyone" went after bayonet-mount zooms I realised I could pick up some really class glass for virtually nothing!
In the '80's Fujica produced the AX-5 slr which, with the appropriate adaptor, could use an M42 lens in open-aperture automatic exposure … not just the wonderful Fujinon EBC lenses, but any M42 auto-aperture lens!
Long before the days of internet and eBay and MILCs, the classified ad's in the back of the photo magazines and the second-hand cabinets in the local camera shops were littered with all sorts of exotic M42-mount glass for little more than pocket money
8mm fisheye, 16mm fisheye, 35mm f/1.9, 85mm Soft Focus, and on and on … they're all still in my lens cabinet and all still get used.
Hopefully, one day, I'll find a K-1 at a price I want to pay and I'll be able to take full advantage of them again!

[c.a.m]

Shortly after I had bought my first DSLR -- a Pentax K-7 and a couple of lenses -- I spotted an old lens in a local thrift shop.

Let's go back about 11 years to that fateful day... (cue the dreamy music and wavy scene...)

Hmm, looks to be in pretty decent shape, priced at $30 (CAD). I think I'll go back home and look it up online.

Back home, Craig discovers Pentax Forums: Woah, this lens is pretty good, and it'll fit my K-7. I guess I'll get it...fast.

Ten-minute drive back to the thrift shop: Great, it's still on the shelf. $30.

Woman at the cash: Did you know we're discounting electronics 50% today? This thing is $15.

Yee haw ... my first vintage lens. Pentax-M 50mm f/1.7. Pristine. $15.

(return back to the present...)

So, that lucky event started my quest for vintage Pentax lenses (and modern ones, too). Welcome, LBA.


- Craig

[tonyzoc]

So how did I become a camera border?...
It started with a Polaroid Swinger I got for Christmas 1966. Squeezing the shutter release collar while turning it and seeing the "YES" in the viewfinder got me hooked. I moved on to my uncles Exakta V and when I started working bought my first modern SLR, the K1000, which is all I could afford at the time. Then Shutterbug Ads came out... I started buying Exaktas and better Pentax bodies (MX, Super Program). Eventually I moved up to the hard stuff with my first medium format (Yashicamat 124g)... Next thing you know I had a Hasselblad 500C and several Rolleiflex, a Praktisix, a Kowa 6, and a 4x5 Speed Graphic. Then eBay happened.

[Sandy Hancock]

Pentax Forums

Ummm… pentaxforums.com

I resemble those remarks

[officiousbystander]

Having children and realising I had to record their lives. They're in their teens now and refuse to be photographed without scowling and complaining. GAS cured!

[Lord Lucan]

The drop in the price of [most] used film-era gear on Ebay.

For example I paid £50 for a used Pentax AF280T flashgun in 1988 (they cost ~£100 new then AFAIR) which is equivalent to about £130 today. However I recently won an Ebay one for £9.99, which would have been like £4 in 1988, an order of magnitude cheaper than I paid back then. I have "specialised" in used flashguns and now have quite a collection.

The obvious reason for the price drop in the used market is the move to phone cameras flooding the market with full size gear. But another reason is that many people assume that film era gear cannot be used on digital cameras. Remember in the ealy digital days the marketing people were putting the "Digital" label on everything from tripods to camera bags, and the impression has stuck. That is partly true of course, for example with lenses unless you are a Pentax or Nikon user. In the case of flash units it is a matter of knowing some technicalities about them. Yes, I know about adaptors.

Most film era gear is probably going to landfill now, and I feel I am saving some of it from its fate! Acquiring and playing with vintage gear is a cheap hobby compared with some I can think of.

[LesDMess]

My wife would not agree that I am under control

I will say there are a lot fewer things I'm really searching for, and I've turned down some outstanding deals on things that would be better off on someone else's shelf.

A lot of GAS/LBA/whatever is also cyclical... if an urge comes along coincident with a good deal and a fat wallet, it's harder to resist... so I buy a lot less when I'm broke...

But I agree, the history is cool, especially that we get to play with it...

-Eric

I also found that if I am not looking then I am not acquiring . . .

Not one single bit of it!

I was hoping someone was more afflicted then me . . .

My grandfather collected cameras, so the collecting side of the hobby was always lurking in the background for me. I always had a few nice cameras, but not a collection. A few years ago I moved close to an old school used camera shop. I was surprised to see how reasonably priced some of the classic cameras were with a warranty. I nearly traded my M3 and M6 but they offered me a ridiculous low-ball offer (£1k for both!) saying they weren’t worth much because they needed a service. So I got them serviced instead and started shooting film again. I realised how much more I enjoyed the process and results of film photography. After that I started buying other cameras that I was curious about in the 80’s 90’s but could never afford. I have about 40 cameras now, and am trying to resist adding too many more

Must be tough if it's in the DNA!
I understand businesses need to turn a profit. But good on you for rejecting the lowball offer as those could certainly fetch much more!

[ChrisPlatt]

Since 2006 I have been working the overnight shift, 11:00 PM - 7:30 AM.

IIRC it was pitched to me as "Just think; you will have your days free."
As a photographer I thought "Now you won't miss all the good light!"

Soon after I started working those hours reality set in. I soon found that after work
in the morning instead of making images all I could think of was my pillow and bed.
By the time I would get up in the evening it was getting dark.

Around this time film camera prices on eBay and from other Internet sellers were bottoming out.
I could finally afford the gear I lusted after (but had no money for) when I was in high school!
Think Modern Photography's annual gear roundup, the pulp pages insert, circa 1978.

For better or worse that's how this amateur photo hobbyist became primarily a camera gear collector...

Chris

[Wheatfield]

What started me on the path of GAS?

Girls, really.

This is going back to when I was about 15 and bought my first SLR. I've had GAS for half a century. My mentor was using Olympus OM1s, he had a lot of them as he was a prolific wedding photographer who didn't change film in the field. I guess he had fogged a roll once and decided never again, so he took something like a dozen bodies all loaded with a 36 exposure roll of VPS with him and as a roll of film ended he changed bodies.

I thought it was kind of cool.

I didn't get into the multiple body thing until I started using Pentax. My GAS has always been lenses. I remember that my 50/1.4 didn't get close enough so I bought some close-up filters and somewhat later, extension tubes. They kind of worked, but I really wanted a real macro lens.
So I bought one.

Then I got a girlfriend who really liked modelling, but she liked cavorting around in wheat fields with the camera far enough away that she wasn't as aware and conscious of it.
So, I needed a longer telephoto lens and bought a 200mm.

We parted ways and the next girl I dated also liked modelling, but her thing was finding some rathole building and shooting inside it.
So I needed a wide angle lens and bought a 24mm.

By that time I was well and truly on my way to a serious case of both LBA and a desire to do somewhat artistic photography of naked women.

When I left Nikon for Pentax I had an F3, FM, and FM2 and the 24mm, a couple of 50s and a 200mm.

Pentax came into my world when I was in my late 20s at about the same time some friends and I were setting up a studio. I was still mostly photographing models, but suddenly felt the need for an 85mm, a 135mm and a 35mm lens.
And so I bought those lenses and also started scouring around for pretty much any used lens I could find. Excellent Pentax glass was relatively common at that time and could often be had pretty inexpensively. The fact that my pals were engaged in an arms race didn't help me resist.

At this point I have pretty much every focal length from 15mm wide angle to 600mm telephoto primes in my collection/ kit.

[lesmore49]

I got my first 'good' camera in 1968, when a boss of the time, told me to get either a Nikon or Pentax SLR as a tool for my work at the company. I did. I didn't know anything about photography, however there was a photography dept. and some pro photographers who advised me.

I became an enthusiast in the early '70's and bought another camera....a ES ll, with a 50mm F 1.8, then a Bushnell 35mm F 3.5, a Bushnell 90-230mm, and a Pentax 135mm F 3.5.

In the '70's to '90's I accumulated more. Yashica TLR, Mamiya TLR (220)...with 3 lenses..80, 105, 180. Then a Leica Rangefinder (screwmount) and 50mm collapsible Elmar.
Olympus clamshell 35, Pentax point and shoot, K1000, 35-105 macro Zoon 'A' lens.

Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta B..and a number of other cameras...all used, including a Canon F-1.

Etc. and etc. I just hit the highlights.

Then digital...all Pentax and a host of lenses.

I keep the film cameras in a very nice, glass and metal cabinet (IKEA) in our dining room. About 15 cameras. I like looking at them, and yes I take some of them out and take pics with them.

I was looking for a Nikon F Photomic and a Pentax LX, also possibly a Pentax 6 X 7 to round out my collection. But no more.

I'm getting on in age, 70's...and I'm starting to downsize, not just camera equipment, but everything.

I also have two vintage motorcycles. My '67 Matchless 750 Scrambler and my '78 Yamaha SR 500 (big single). If my kids don't want the motorcycles...then over the next number of years...sad to say, the 2 bikes will have to go. But not just yet.

That is the whole thing about GAS/LBA. Eventually the collector or custodian as I see it now, will have to pass all this glorious equipment/machinery on...and hope that it goes to a good home.

If you have GAS?LBA....and you are on in years...you too will arrive at this point.

[nerky774]

I went down the GAS path on 2017. Before that I was a Minolta user, only two cameras at the time the XE-7 and the maxxum 7000. Got my first dslr on 2017 ( Pentax k-70) and everything went down the drain. I have a collection of
East German m-42 lenses between Meyer optik gorlitz and Pentacon from 50mm (domiplan) 135 mm, 500mm, 200 mm 240 mm,300 mm
and 400mm. Then I got a Pentax 67 MLU with the 55 mm, 90-180 mm, the 200 mm and 165. I sold the K-70 and bought a KP added a 300 DA* 16-50 DA*, 12-24 mm, 18-135 mm, and the venerable 18-135.

On the film side I have 3 Minolta XE-7, one Nikon F3, and two maxxum 9. The only full frame body is the D800 i got for 400 USD. I think I need to let go some of that gear to fund either a k-3-iii or a K1 ( i would love to see those m-42 east German lenses in their full glory)

[jcdoss]

...At this point I have pretty much every focal length from 15mm wide angle to 600mm telephoto primes in my collection/ kit.

Yeah, but what about your quest for naked ladies? How did that work out?

[Wheatfield]

Yeah, but what about your quest for naked ladies? How did that work out?

Quite well, thank you.

[fs999]

I am addicted to Camera Porn a Flickr group

[Wiltshireborn]

Once I committed to the proposition that software takes precedent over hardware and began doing the work to improve my post-processing skills... in almost no time at all, GAS became manageable.

Bet you can do it, too ... M

UPDATE: A good place to start...

But I have had a similar problem with buying so many different pieces of software too, so there is a GAS problem with software too ha ha!