Canon is developing more super-telephoto lenses [CR2]

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In Scotland they are free. College/university is not free in the rest of the UK, USA etc.

I think you get student loans in England that may or may not only come of your wages when you are earning enough. But that is besides the point. In a thread about super-tele lenses I said "One big white a year is affordable for most I would think" in reply to someone suggesting "You couldn't afford anything else either". That turned into all kinds of daft posts regarding people not being able to afford one, or having other expenses, or average photographers.... in a topic about lenses lenses an average photographer will likely never even consider, much the same way I don't look twice at a 50 f/1.2 for 85 f/1.2.

I strongly believe that pro photographers and definitely hobbyists can afford these, in some cases need to afford these. Much the same that a garage has to invest tens or hundreds of thousands in equipment, or when I need to buy a 28 core CPU to do my work and 256 GB RAM, or when in 2010 when I was rocking a 2x6core CPU with 128 GB RAM.. most people don't need that, but it is a tool for my job and if a photographer needs a 300 f/2.8, 200-400mm f/4.0, and 600mm f/4.0 I am sure as bugger they'll have those tools to do their assignments.
 
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JohnC

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If you pay £0 tax a year or £1m tax a year you get the same access to education and healthcare services so they are indeed free as in free beer. Certainly not a 'expense' you should be budgeting for when deciding how much money you are spending on business and/or hobbies. And again, the topic keeps devolving into all kinds daft scenarios to fight the case that photographers can buy these lenses... if pro's can't buy them, who can? How is a business surviving if it can't buy the tools?
I’m sure a pro that works in the genre that needs these lenses finds a way to get them because they are a tool of the trade. I suspect there are a lot of pros that might like to have them, but don’t need them..and therefore can’t justify the cost.

Then the hobbyists are a completely different topic.

I get your point, and the fact is that if I decide I want one bad enough I’ll by one. Although I’m fortunate enough to be able to it is still a large expense and not one I would make lightly.
The fact of the matter is there are a huge number of people, probably pro and hobbyist alike that may really want one, or need one...but can’t afford one due to other factors in their circumstances. These lenses aren’t bought by the masses, and never have been. Why? They are very expensive.
 
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I’m sure a pro that works in the genre that needs these lenses finds a way to get them because they are a tool of the trade. I suspect there are a lot of pros that might like to have them, but don’t need them..and therefore can’t justify the cost.

Then the hobbyists are a completely different topic.

I get your point, and the fact is that if I decide I want one bad enough I’ll by one. Although I’m fortunate enough to be able to it is still a large expense and not one I would make lightly.
The fact of the matter is there are a huge number of people, probably pro and hobbyist alike that may really want one, or need one...but can’t afford one due to other factors in their circumstances. These lenses aren’t bought by the masses, and never have been. Why? They are very expensive.

They are indeed very expensive, never suggested they where mast produced or bought up in their masses nor affordable to all. I said I expect most (which was implying target audience, in a thread about these, previous buyers looking to upgrade) would be able to afford them and likely need more than one. A RF 200-500 f/4.0 for me could be a only lens or paired up with a 300 or 400mm f/2.8. But as I have said a few times in this thread, I see owners of the 180-400 or 200-400 also having a 300mm f/2.8 and 600mm f/4.0.

Like you don't go into a pub and suggest everyone can afford a boat, but you may have that expectation talking to fishermen. In the photography club I visited everyone had a number of big lenses depending on subject, and it makes sense, if you buy a 600mm f/4.0 you are very limited in subjects.
 
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JohnC

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They are indeed very expensive, never suggested they where mast produced or bought up in their masses nor affordable to all. I said I expect most (which was implying target audience, in a thread about these, previous buyers looking to upgrade) would be able to afford them and likely need more than one. A RF 200-500 f/4.0 for me could be a only lens or paired up with a 300 or 400mm f/2.8. But as I have said a few times in this thread, I see owners of the 180-400 or 200-400 also having a 300mm f/2.8 and 600mm f/4.0.

Like you don't go into a pub and suggest everyone can afford a boat, but you may have that expectation talking to fishermen. In the photography club I visited everyone had a number of big lenses depending on subject, and it makes sense, if you buy a 600mm f/4.0 you are very limited in subjects.
Fair enough, that clarifies your perspective. Thanks.
 
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I agree, a 15k per year budget for what many consider hobby is quite a lot.
Yes, but its not anywhere near 15K - at all. Even going above 3K/year is extremely rare for a camera hobbyist.

Lenses have long shelf lives and good resale values that spread the costs a lot. A RF 85mm may cost you 2.700$. But that's only ~190$ per year if you have it for 10 years and sell it afterwards. Buying every single RF lens available (including the two new super zooms) would not even get you close to 4K/year - its actually only 300$ per month.

And that's not photography but lens collecting... :D

(Bodies will of course add to the yearly cost. But unless your hobby is both lens collecting and camera body collecting it does not matter much.)
 
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JohnC

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Yes, but its not anywhere near 15K - at all. Even going above 3K/year is extremely rare for a camera hobbyist.

Lenses have long shelf lives and good resale values that spread the costs a lot. A RF 85mm may cost you 2.700$. But that's only ~190$ per year if you have it for 10 years and sell it afterwards. Buying every single RF lens available (including the two new super zooms) would not even get you close to 4K/year - its actually only 300$ per month.

And that's not photography but lens collecting... :D

(Bodies will of course add to the yearly cost. But unless your hobby is both lens collecting and camera body collecting it does not matter much.)
oh I agree, but if you're buying a super telephoto L lens per year, you are north of 10k per year if you are buying new. I know over time it may not be that much but...

On the other hand, I seem to be able to spend quite a bit every year in some way. Maybe I'm trying to keep up with the wife's purse collection.
 
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oh I agree, but if you're buying a super telephoto L lens per year, you are north of 10k per year if you are buying new. I know over time it may not be that much but...

On the other hand, I seem to be able to spend quite a bit every year in some way. Maybe I'm trying to keep up with the wife's purse collection.

You run out of super tele lenses to buy in 2 years... And even I canny get more than two past my husband before I would be asked why I don't get us a car with air-conditioning. I do sell off my older lenses to help fund, but not on this occasion. My old lenses where from 1988, and long overdue upgrade and I will buy one big lens a year and possibly a few smaller ones like a 100 macro. I don't need to make them as a business decision thankfully, if someone needed these for work I could only imagine they would take out a business loan and pay it over 5 years like a joiners does?
 
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JohnC

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You run out of super tele lenses to buy in 2 years... And even I canny get more than two past my husband before I would be asked why I don't get us a car with air-conditioning. I do sell off my older lenses to help fund, but not on this occasion. My old lenses where from 1988, and long overdue upgrade and I will buy one big lens a year and possibly a few smaller ones like a 100 macro. I don't need to make them as a business decision thankfully, if someone needed these for work I could only imagine they would take out a business loan and pay it over 5 years like a joiners does?
I understand! That's a big budget for two years though :) It equals as much as some people's house payment/rent.

I have sold some lenses in the past, but in retrospect I wish I had kept everything. You never really get the return on it, and for the most part that equipment could be used for up and coming budding photographers as a hand-me-down. In fact my 5D4 will be going on a shelf for the most part although I carry it currently as a back-up. I still use quite a few of my EF lenses so they are in circulation. From a lens standpoint there isn't too much out there that I want that I don't have.. a big white might be one we will see.
 
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I understand! That's a big budget for two years though :) It equals as much as some people's house payment/rent.
It is about twice what I pay on rent. But my rent when I was in London for a bit was about twice that. And that was just a one bedroom red brick house with a small garden and lower ceilings. But getting a proper house in London is all but impossible, they don't build with stone there.

I have sold some lenses in the past, but in retrospect I wish I had kept everything. You never really get the return on it, and for the most part that equipment could be used for up and coming budding photographers as a hand-me-down. In fact my 5D4 will be going on a shelf for the most part although I carry it currently as a back-up. I still use quite a few of my EF lenses so they are in circulation. From a lens standpoint there isn't too much out there that I want that I don't have.. a big white might be one we will see.
I got £1000 for my 300mm f/2.8 L USM from 1988 just last year. That is pretty good going in my book for such a old lens and while it could be hand me down, it think a lens like that isn't a hand me down. You are giving someone something that needs a lot of skill and an expensive tripod to use properly. But aye, a 5DIV is a great learning camera and I tend to give away my old cameras or keep some of the more special ones for the office as ornaments.
 
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I think we are being a little silly here. The average wage in the USA in 2019 was $52,000, considering housing costs account for over one third that on average, add in taxes, food, utilities, travel, fuel, health care, clothing etc costs and anybody that thinks ‘keen photo enthusiasts’ can save enough for a big white a year is being disingenuous at best.
 
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Peter Bergh

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... The average wage in the USA in 2019 was $52,000, ....
Given that, in most countries, there is a small number of people with very large incomes, the average overestimates the typical income. You should use the median income, instead.

I recently checked (on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' web site) the typical (don't remember if it was median or average) income of a professional photographer in the US. If memory serves, said person made $34k in 2018 and $36K in 2019. Unless they can deduct the big whites on their taxes, they can afford the big whites much less than the typical person can.

Finally, most professional photographers get most of their income from portraits. You don't need and don't want big whites (except, of course, 70-200) for portraits,
 
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That's why I used the median, the mean is over $90,000.

Any professional photographer should be able to deduct 100% of their business expenses from their taxes, that's not the point. If I was a bird photographer who bought a big white last year and deducted it and still made $34-36K that's one thing; if I was a photographer who made $36K in my wedding photography business and I wanted to buy a $10,000+ lens then I'm not going to eat.
 
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SteveC

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That's why I used the median, the mean is over $90,000.

Any professional photographer should be able to deduct 100% of their business expenses from their taxes, that's not the point. If I was a bird photographer who bought a big white last year and deducted it and still made $34-36K that's one thing; if I was a photographer who made $36K in my wedding photography business and I wanted to buy a $10,000+ lens then I'm not going to eat.

Oh...well, most people equate the word "average" (which you used) with "mean" rather than median. Which is why you were misunderstood.
 
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Oh...well, most people equate the word "average" (which you used) with "mean" rather than median. Which is why you were misunderstood.
I always thought average was a generalization of the more specific terms mean, median, and mode?

Indeed when talking about disposable income and photo enthusiasts I’d think some kind of interquartile range calculation would be the most sound. Given the the top end can buy anything without a thought and the bottom range can’t buy food or health insurance. I would think most of us are somewhere in that interquartile range.


I never understood it specifically equated to any one of them, indeed it is one of the reasons we ended up with the term “lies, damn lies, and statistics”.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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Regardless of what statistical value used, 10-12k a year, for ANY year...is out of reach of the vast majority of individual people. The actual income may be there but there are many priorities well above photography that consume income for most.
Yes, that was the point i have been making!
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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To a statistician, "average" means "mean". (At least, that is the way we used it when I taught mathematical statistics in the late 1960s.)

“ In statistics, mean, median, and mode are all known as measures of central tendency, and in colloquial usage any of these might be called an average value.”

I’m sure you will understand I was not, to my knowledge, addressing a group of statisticians.
 
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