gdanmitchell
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pjmsj21 wrote:
The OP’s first sentence pretty much identifies what he is grappling with. I’m starting to lose interest in this hobby again. With a busy family and work life, shooting, editing, and posting take up too much time.
More or less gear isn’t likely to bring clarity. Not everyone has to love and spend precious time on this pursuit. Maybe take a break from photography and look at other ways to spend your leisure time that might provide more satisfaction and fit into the demands that you are balancing.
I agree with you here. I don’t think this is really a “gear” question at all. It is more of a question about how to think about a lessening of interest in photography, whether that is short- or long-term… and how to navigate that issue.
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gdanmitchell wrote:
Yours is a classic situation, and one I run into fairly frequently: A person who is enthusiastic about the idea of photography, passionate about acquiring lots of expensive gear, but not really doing a lot of photography for whatever reason.
I’m going to approach this from more than one perspective.
First…The kind of photography that appropriately relies on the kinds of gear you have is not for everyone. High end gear and many lenses (some that are arguably specialized) may not be what you really can or will do. You don’t mention what your specific photographic interest(s) is(are) aside from the worth goal of photographing your family activities. If the latter is the interest, perhaps getting all that high end gear is not especially relevant to that goal? In fact, it can interfere with the very family activities you want to photograph — you and your family may well see the time taken to set up shots worthy of that gear to be an intrusion and you may not want to cart around a bag with all those lenses. And, unless you are regularly making quite large prints of your family adventures, the high quality of those expensive lenses and body is not all that relevant.
Second… it is quite easy to become overly equipment-centric in your relationship to photography. In particular, the “I must have the very best” thread can lead people to focus on supposedly “best” gear rather than their actual, realistic photographic needs. The “shiny object” syndrome afflicts quite a few photographers, and forums and media and advertising push those buttons pretty effectively, generating a kind of disabling FOMO that can cause normally rational people to get swept up.
Third… There’s nothing at all wrong with engaging photography at a level that doesn’t require a ton of expensive gear, and in reducing the amount of gear you acquire to a more realistic level. Not everyone needs the very latest camera, multiple specialized camera, and a shelf full of lenses.
Fourth… why not just keep that A7R4 and the two lenses you like? They cover a lot of ground, especially for the subjects you shoot.
Fifth… If you do look at Fujifilm, while the little X100vi is a nice camera for those who are happy to restrict themselves to a single prime, also consider the XE5 which is equally small and will allow the use of other lenses. (It sounds like your favorite lenses are zooms, right?)
Sixth… or maybe just stick a very small 35mm f/2 or so lens on your A7r4 to produce a quite small setup and see how you like that style of shooting.
One more thing. I don’t know your history with photography, so the following may not be relevant. But I often think that if people found a way to make the same investment in learning photography (classes, books, time in the field, workshops, gallery visits, etc.) that they make in acquiring gear… that it might have an even bigger positive effect on their photography.
Good luck.
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Yeah, I just quoted myself. ;=) So that I can add one thing to my (already long!) earlier post…
I also went through a period of decreasing interest in photography a few decades ago. It happens, and it isn’t always a bad thing.
In my case, I was a very active backpacker at the time, and I used to go into the backcountry with a couple of 35mm cameras, several lenses, and boxes of film, sometimes going out for as long as a couple of weeks at a stretch. At that point in my life I was also involved in cross-country skiing and rock climbing. All of that started to make the photography feel more like an interruption of and distraction from the rest of my outdoor life.
Over a period of perhaps a decade I gradually backed off from the photography, eventually getting to the point where I was only carrying a small sort of high-end point and shoot camera, an old Olympus Stylus, in the backcountry.
Needless to say, my interest was rekindled staring in the mid-1990s with the advent of early digital photography technology, and by 2000 or so I was once again passionate about photography.
My point is that there can be natural cycles to the role that photography plays in your life. Like me, you might find yourself backing off for a while and then potentially getting back into photography later on. Or you might decide that, in the long run, that the sort of focused photography that requires regular practice and better gear doesn’t fit with the rest of your interests.
Time will tell.
Edited on Sep 29, 2025 at 10:25 AM · View previous versions
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