Camera kit
A few years ago this was my biggest weakness.

Went down to Jessops to buy a digital compact camera. I had a DSLR, a Canon EOS-300D, but decided a few weeks prior to this when I went to a friend's birthday party and realised there was no way in hell I could take a camera that big with me that I needed a compact camera. Something that would fit in my pocket.

A friend had just bought a Powershot A75 (3.2Mpx) which I rather liked the look of but wanted the model up, the A85, otherwise identical but with a 4Mpx sensor instead of 3.2 (I like to be able to zoom, crop and generally muck about with pictures in Photoshop so the extra resolution is nice to have). I'd spotted the A85 for £189, the next model up (A95, 5Mpx) was going for around £249. I also didn't like the look of the twist screen on the A95 as this looked like it was going to break.

So the Clifton branch of Jessops had the A75 in stock but not the A85. However I had a look at the A95 and discovered 3 things about it which I liked:

1. The twist/rotate screen was a hell of a lot stronger than it looked in the promotional photos so wasn't likely to break. Which means you can actually use this feature to hold the screen out when taking normal shots and you can flip the screen over to take a self-portrait.

2. You can flip the screen over and fold it back in so the screen isn't exposed when the camera isn't in use. (The LCD screen basically folds flat into a recess in the camera body with the screen against the back of the camera and the metal case facing outwards.) This feature sold me on the camera instantly - no danger of the screen getting scratched when it's in my pocket!

3. Jessops had the A95 on sale for £199, only a tenner more than I was planning to spend on the A85. Worth an extra tenner for a 5Mpx camera over a 4Mpx and the twist/rotate screen.

So I ended up buying this one. But that wasn't the impulse purchase. Oh no. That was just spending a tenner more than I'd originally intended (an extra 5% basically) and getting a much better product.

No, the impulse purchase - after I'd bought the camera - I was silly enough to have a look at a lens I'd been wanting for some time for the EOS-300D.

A Canon 10-22mm EF-S ultra-wide lens with ultrasonic focus (USM).

Yours for the very reasonable price of £549.

Let's just say I tried this lens on the display EOS-300D (might have been a 350D actually?) that was in the branch and ended up buying it.

Went in to spend just under £200, ended up spending £750.

Although I still have the lens 4 years later - and even though I've upgraded the camera body (I now have an EOS-20D) still works perfectly. Even better on the new body actually.

Photography is an expensive hobby (or at least the initial outlay is expensive). I'm going to shock myself now:

Camera body: EOS-20D, £475 (bought second hand, got £350 for my 300D and kit lens though)
Normal lens: Canon 17-85 IS USM, £399 (normally £499)
Ultra-wide: Canon 10-22 USM, £549
Telephoto: Canon 75-300, £299
4x 4GB CF cards - these have got cheaper, the first two Sandisk ones cost me £70 each, the last two Lexar cards I bought were £6 a time!
Various Cokin P-series filters ranging from £11 for tobacco/blue/ND grads up to £50 for a polariser

Oh, and ink, paper etc... my printer (Epson R1800) takes 8 cartridges costing £75 for a set.

But it's a rewarding hobby and the few photography jobs I've taken on (weddings, bit of architectural work) have pretty much paid for the camera and kit. It's not something I make money from but the little bit of semi-pro work means it pays for itself.
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Fri 22 May 2009, 15:31, 6 replies)

well, you know what your first mistake was dont you?
you bought Canon and not Nikon... ;)

seriously, good glass is an investment. you'll still be using those in ten years time. and ace that you get to do it for a (semi) living.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Fri 22 May 2009, 17:02, closed)

Ah, the old Canon/Nikon war...
I went for Canon when I went digital as I already had a Canon EOS 35mm camera so already had the 75-300 EF lens. Had I not already had that lens then it might have been a harder choice!

I'm a computer consultant by trade but I do enough photography work to pay for the habit, err, I mean hobby!
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Fri 22 May 2009, 20:49, closed)

It started with a Nikon D50
Now it's 7 cameras (3 Nikons, 1 Yashica, 1 Mamiya, 1 Sinar, 1 Leica) and 14 lenses.

Got a savings account? Not any more you don't.
(Toucan - http://www.titmonday.com, Fri 22 May 2009, 21:16, closed)

Excellent
a photography forum without the need to go to a photography forum.

I bought a Canon Powershot G9 as I thought it would help me to take better photos of the bits and bobs that I find with my metal detector (1cm to 5cm items, some flat, some bulky). Having pissed around with all of the settings, bought so called table top lighting from ebay (about 3 feet tall and just too short to light them from the floor), photo studio strip lights for the kitchen and experimented with full sun and cloudy daylight, I still can't get a photo that I'm happy with UNLESS I put the item on a dark surface. But I want a white back ground!

What would you do, any advice?
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sun 24 May 2009, 19:48, closed)

tried just keeping it ultra-simple
default settings on the camera, and taken in full daylight? then if it needs anymore tweaking doing it on Photoshop?

www.ephotozine.com/

www.thinkcamera.com/default.asp?sp=&v=1
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Mon 25 May 2009, 14:56, closed)

Yeah tried that
too much shadow.

Best pics I can get are on a dark green background in cloudy daylight. Two problems with that:
I want a white background.
Light is variable so e.g. two sides of coin are not the same colour when pics viewed side by side.

I will read the links thanks.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Mon 25 May 2009, 16:34, closed)