Digital Home Thoughts: Do I Have a Problem Buying Too Many Cameras?

Above: starting in the middle and going 'round, that's a Nikon D300, Panasonic GF1, Panasonic TS1, Flip Mino HD, Panasonic ZS3, Kodak EasyShare M1093 IS, and a Nikon D5000. I took this photo with my HTC HD2.

I have to admit that since the birth of my son, I've become a bit of a camera whore enthusiast - I just can't seem to have enough cameras with the right features in the right places to capture all his cuteness. Yes, I'm a completely biased father, but comon', this is one cute kid. ;-) Not shown in this picture are my Canon HF100 and Canon G1 video cameras (the latter I haven't used in a couple of years) - and I also forgot to include my Canon SD870 because it was tucked away in a container below one of my monitors. Yeah, I have a lot of cameras. The question is, am I using all of them? For the most part, yes.

Day to day, the Nikon D300 sits atop a shelf in my office, awaiting the serious shooting days (family gatherings, holidays, etc). The GF1 gets used a fair bit - it's a "floater" camera, sometimes in my office, sometimes on the main floor, etc. I adore it because it's small, light, and has a super fast (f/1.7) lens on it with great image quality - it's so easy to pick up, turn on, and get great pictures. The Panasonic TS1 has a permanent home in the diaper bag, so it gets used mostly by my wife, but it's also my one and only waterproof camera, purchased specifically for my son's first time in the pool and "swimming" lessons. It worked really well - once I reminded myself that, yes, I really could get this camera wet.

The Flip Mino HD stays upstairs in our bonus room, where my wife and son have most of their "play times", and it gets used quite a bit for capturing cute moments on video. In fact, I'm not kidding when I say that the Flip Mino HD didn't get used beyond a quick test - even once - until my son was born. It was given to me at a Microsoft Mobius event in 2008 though, so it's not like I felt I wasted money on it. The Panasonic ZS3 stays on our main floor, and gets used quite a bit for both video and photos. The Kodak EasyShare camera was purchased from Dell Canada for $99 - I was curious about how bad a $99 camera would really be - and was surprised to find it's not too bad! It doesn't get used very often and in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bought it - but it's nice to have one camera I consider "disposable" or would lend out to someone without worrying too much if it came back in perfect condition.

Lastly, we have the D5000. This camera stays upstairs and gets used quite a bit - I leave the 35mm prime lens on it (a fast f/1.8) and the Gary Fong Puffer. The Puffer does a nice job of diffusing the flash, which gets used now and then even with the fast lens. I don't use the D5000 for shooting video, largely because it's such a pain to manually re-focus. The Flip Mino is never very far away when we're upstairs though, so we reach for it when there's something we want to capture on video.

In terms of workflow, at the end of each month, I gather up all the cameras, take them into my office, and one by one offload the images (which get pulled into Lightroom) and videos (which get put into a folder). I use Lightroom to process the raw and JPEG images, and as for videos...well, I'm still looking for a video editor that meets my needs.

How many cameras do you have, and how do you use them? Any camera purchases you regret?

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He loves taking pictures!

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