Mad Idea

Covey

Hi,

This really is a madcap idea, but just on the off chance that a few people might bite.

Anyone interested in pooling resources to buy some of the more expensive/unusual gear out there.

I'm thinking here of stuff like a 500mm prime, lensbaby, fisheye, dedicated Macro that sort of thing and not neccessarily new either. It's the sort of stuff beyond the reach of most people. Also, I've seen/found that when you do manage to buy something like that you don't neccessarily use it as much as you anticipated. 15-20 people would mean 2-4 weeks use per annum and knowing you have it on a particular week would focus the mind a bit.

Obviously insurance would come into it and a fair roster etc.

As I said just a madcap idea or...

T.

rymus

bit mad alright... Would possibly work better in a closer (geographically) group. Shipping a very expensive lens around the country would get rather hairy at the best of times.

Having said that, it's a nice idea. A kind of camera club/co-op where you get a load of folks to shell out on mind bendingly expensive gear and then share it throughout the year. I like it, although in this case I'd say the logistics make it unworkable.

You'd want to stick to the hugely expensive stuff thats out of reach for your normal Joe Soap though. A lens baby isnt exactly hugely expensive, ditto a fisheye or a macro lens. Go for the 1Ds MKII's of this world, the Canon 500L's and so on. How and ever, I can only imagine that throwing a few hundred quid into a pool of people to fund a co-op might lead to pandemonium on a biblical scale.

Take one dodgy character that decides on his 2 week stint with a €4000 lens to head off to Australia... never to be seen again. If you buy cheaper kit (anything under €1k), you might as well save up for your own and not have to share it with a load of greasy fingered, glass smudging, bacteria spreading hoores with filty sensors... But that's just my take on the whole mad idea.

Alun

Tried a similar-ish thing in an estate I lived in once, where we all got together and bought some expensive not-used-that-often tools and DIY stuff. In effect we created our own, for free, hire shop. Despite the fact that we all knew each other fairly well, there were still a few people who took the piss, and ruined it for the rest .. monopolising one tool for weeks on end, and then returning it in terrible condition, or misusing something and then claiming "it just broke" and refusing to pay for it. Didn't work out basically, and there was generally less of a feeling of neighbourliness around after the whole excercise folded than before

Covey

Just to clarify, I wasn't thinking only of very expensive stuff (though that also) but less expensive stuff, that one might not have enough use for to buy it i.e. fisheye, lensbaby, etc.

Getting it around the country shouldn't be any problem. Courier only and the recipient pays.

T.