What if you started from scratch again? Total Loss...

[darrellrhodesmiller]

i'm going through USAA. i have 5k of coverage. for 60.00 a year. it covers my canon 7d, and lenses.

[preppyak]

AAA as an example is requesting copies of my receipts.   Don't really care to do that, does that seem to be the norm?

i'm going through USAA. i have 5k of coverage. for 60.00 a year. it covers my canon 7d, and lenses.

I'm going through State Farm (personal property insurance), and I think I have about $4k of stuff insured for about $50/yr. So probably pretty close in price to USAA, though I imagine USAA would generally be cheaper. It will vary by state. What's nice is it covers every circumstance...so even if I drop my camera bag off a cliff and its completely my fault, they'll replace it.

The caveat is that you cant be making any money off of your equipment or you'd be required to go the business route. Didn't need copies of my receipts at all...just gave them the camera/lens name and my serial # and the processed it pretty quickly.

[7enderbender]

We should make it a bit more interesting. No insurance + you only have 2 grand to spend.

Canon F1n with a fast FD 50mm and FD 135mm, a decent enlarger and a bag full of chemicals

[odie]

I'd probably die cos that means losing both systems with a lot of lenses.

Maybe Just the Nikon with the D600 (when it comes out) and a 35.4G and a 430EX II for manual flash.

[cliffwang]

If the Nikon D600 is really under 2K, I might switch to Nikon.  However, I don't know Nikon's lenses much.
Otherwise:
Refurbished 5D2, 35mm F/1.4, 70-200mm F/2.8 MK2.

[BobSanderson]

I would buy used equipment but would recommit to Canon.

Body 40D        $300
50 f 1.4           $200
70-200 f/4L IS  $1000
17- 40 f/4.0 L   $400

[dryanparker]

AAA as an example is requesting copies of my receipts.   Don't really care to do that, does that seem to be the norm?

i'm going through USAA. i have 5k of coverage. for 60.00 a year. it covers my canon 7d, and lenses.

I'm going through State Farm (personal property insurance), and I think I have about $4k of stuff insured for about $50/yr. So probably pretty close in price to USAA, though I imagine USAA would generally be cheaper. It will vary by state. What's nice is it covers every circumstance...so even if I drop my camera bag off a cliff and its completely my fault, they'll replace it.

The caveat is that you cant be making any money off of your equipment or you'd be required to go the business route. Didn't need copies of my receipts at all...just gave them the camera/lens name and my serial # and the processed it pretty quickly.

I use State Farm as well here in Florida. It's a personal articles policy (non-business, currently) with replacement value, zero-deductible coverage. I was required to give them pictures of all items on the policy, including pictures of all available serial numbers (perhaps not entirely required, but does make underwriting much smoother), replacement cost of each item (not necessarily receipts, although I did provide those as well).

I was quoted $1.12 per $100 insured, which comes to just over $80 per year for me. I put everything into a multi-page PDF and emailed it to them prior to meeting with my agent in-office.

[KyleSTL]

This weekend I actually did an inventory and added up the total, depreciated, used value of all my equipment, and came up with $1850.  Quite amazing, considering I have only paid out-of-pocket about $650 for all of it.  Seeing the total value of my kit makes me think insuring it would be a good idea.

I would probably get a 40D or 5D Mark I and other used items and start building up a similar kit to what I have now (except update to a 70-200 f4L or f4L IS).  A Nikon D600 (or the Canon equivalent surely to follow shortly thereafter) would be very tempting.

[criza]

As much as I love my L glass I should have gotten Zeiss stuff in the first place.

Why? What about autofocus? I can guess the answer, because the Zeiss is sharper!?

I am experimenting at the moment with a A-1, and logically, manual focus lenses. I have to admit, I like to manual focus very much, and I will convert my 55mm FD lens to EF!

Until I got the A-1, manual focus was no choice, 'cause as lazy as I am, I am not using the manual focus ring with my L lenses. But now I try to discover, at least the FTM, so this week there was some insect flying in front of my 100mm Macro lens, and it was too small to put it on a AF point, and also quickly moving to follow it with a AF point (60D), so I tried to catch it sharp focusing with the focus ring. Did I succeed? Well kinda, see yourself. Probably the aperture was still to wide open (f/5.6) to get the whole thing sharp.




Still I would say for half of my pictures I need the AF, otherwise I would miss the moment..

[Daniel Flather]

750sq/ft apartment near the beach in México.

[criza]

750sq/ft apartment near the beach in México.

How much is that? And why Mexico?

[dickgrafixstop]

I should be so lucky!  I think I'd restart with a Fuji X pro and the 35 and 60mm lenses.  Rumors say a
longer telephoto is in the plans, so that would be my next purchase.   If I had to stick with Canon, I'd
buy the cheapest Rebel body, the 70-200 f4 is and the 50mm f1.8.

[preppyak]

I was quoted $1.12 per $100 insured, which comes to just over $80 per year for me. I put everything into a multi-page PDF and emailed it to them prior to meeting with my agent in-office.

Interesting, I must have just gotten a lazier agent who didn't want to put the work in. I think my value for VA was like 1.25 per $100 insured.

This weekend I actually did an inventory and added up the total, depreciated, used value of all my equipment, and came up with $1850.  Quite amazing, considering I have only paid out-of-pocket about $650 for all of it.  Seeing the total value of my kit makes me think insuring it would be a good idea.

Yeah, and I think the minimum value for a policy was $25, so you'd probably end up with about that as a premium. That said, I put in the replacement costs for my equipment, not their actual worth at that moment...since that is really what is important if I lose everything.

[Neeneko]

Personally I would use the opportunity to switch to Nikon.

Not because I am on the '5D3 sucks!' bandwagon or thinking ill of Canon, just when I first started I had no idea where I was going to go with photography and the direction I ended up going Canon sensors and lenses are not all that great for and have ended up being very limiting.

[Tayvin]

If you've been shooting a long time, then starting from scratch isn't as expensive as you might think.  I currently own a few Canon bodies and 14 L lenses.  Professionally - I use two lenses.  So when Nikon came out with a camera without an anti-aliasing filter and better DR - I jumped ship.  Two bodies and two lenses will run me around $11,000.  It sounds like a lot but I'll have those payed off in less than a year.  Another thing to consider is renting out some of your equipment when you're not working(only to those you know and trust).  I'm still keeping my Canon gear in case they make a camera I like.

You never want to change brands, but it happens