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dylan604 • yesterday at 9:19 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

There's a saying "buy the glass, rent the camera" as camera bodies change much more frequently than lenses. There's more camera mounts now than when I first heard the saying though.


Replies

Gigachad • yesterday at 10:10 PM

I think you've mixed that one up, its usually something like "date the body, marry the glass", implying you'll buy and sell many camera bodies over time but keep good lenses. For non professional work you'd want to own both the body and lens, going to the rental shop every time you go on holiday or to a birthday party would be a pain.

For professional work you rent both the lens and the body so you can use the highest end gear specialized for the one particular job and aren't left hanging on to a $10k lens you use once a year.

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porphyra • yesterday at 10:01 PM

The saying is a little outdated, or at least it needs more nuance rather than being a hard rule.

Nowadays lenses are improving in image quality significantly, particularly in the suppression of chromatic aberrations, and sharpness across the frame in zooms and wide angle lenses. Cheap mirrorless lenses put legendary L glass to shame nowadays. A bunch of Chinese manufacturers have autofocus lenses with amazing image quality. However, the bodies are sort of plateauing with 24 MP sensors still being popular for many years.

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