I'm not sure that I understand the thinking behind this question. I happen to like 'grizzled' equipment, as you so aptly call it, but I wouldn't keep a pristine spare for Sunday best. If the grizzled piece of kit is good enough to use at all, it is good enough to use anywhere, in my opinion. However, I do understand the motivation behind keeping a spare as a replacement in case the day-to-day one gets trashed (e.g. eaten by a killer whale).
I don't like new, pristine camera equipment. I can only feel comfortable with it when it's been through the wars a bit. When I got all my Contax gear new I felt very intimidated by it until it had been scuffed around on railway floors, dropped from apple trees, scraped in the bilges of fishing boats, and generally lived a bit. -- Cheers, Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: Fred [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 11 February 2006 14:37 > To: Collin R Brendemuehl > Subject: Re: The Sacrifices > > > 1. Which lens are you willing to get beat in a harsh > environment when > > you don't want to take the nice lenses out to play. > > For me, the harshest environment is whale watching. For the > last few years, my solution to this has been a couple "user" > copies of lenses that are really good (which "spares" the > prettier copies of those lens designs). > For several years I have used two bodies, one with a "scuffed > up" A* 300/4 and the other with a "grizzled" A 70-210/4. > More recently, I have sometimes, for the long lens, used a > "veteran of many wars" F* 300/4.5. In all cases, these > lenses are in good shape optically and mechanically - their > only defects are cosmetic. For me, using such extra "user" > copies is the best solution... > > Fred > > > >
