Only the best
It's nice to finally be at the point where I have the money to buy quality products and in the process support things that I feel are worth supporting. Over the past couple of years, I've started realizing that most of the time (there are notable exceptions) you get what you pay for when it comes to, well, pretty much anything. In the process, I've become someone who'd rather use the best tool for the job, and will pay a price to do so. I'd rather pay for something that I know will help me achieve my greatest efficiency and productivity levels than settle for something that just gets the job done.

The best example at this point is probably my camera. As I've mentioned before, I splurged and bought the Canon 20D over the Digital Rebel XT, primarily because the 20D just felt nice in my hands, and was a few hundred dollars more expensive. At the time, the fact that it felt nicer in my hands, and was better than all of my friends' XTs (bragging rights are always a plus) was reason enough to spend the extra money, which at the time I had an abundance of. It was worth every penny though, for reasons I never would have imagined I'd care about a few months ago. Take, for example, the framerate. The 20D can shoot 5 shots a second, versus the XT's 3. "That won't really matter, I don't really shoot sports or anything anyways," was my reaction to that. However, had I not had the 5fps 20D I probably wouldn't have snagged what's probably my favorite picture I've ever taken. If it's not evident from the picture itself, he was swinging around the pole and then let go, and I got about three frames of him falling away, the best of which was pretty much perfect. That was a situation where milliseconds made the difference between a good shot and a phenomenal shot. (Of course, Costco's 12x18" enlargements for $3, combined with their free ICC profiles and accurate color calibration, make a great picture even better). There are other things about the camera which have proven more useful than I ever thought they would too, but that's been the most notable one so far. To me, that picture is worth the few hundred dollars extra I paid for the upgrade to the 20D.

On a similar note, I've learned since getting my camera that the lens you use affects the quality of the pictures you take far more than the camera does. I've mentioned lenses before, but the difference between my current lens and the kit lens that came with my camera is like night and day. The 50mm f/1.8 Mark II prime is Canon's cheapest, lightest lens... it costs about $70, and is made of somewhat cheap-feeling plastic that explains the $70 cost. Optically however, this lens is absolutely amazing. It really is crystal clear sharpness-wise, even wide open, not to mention it's gorgeous bokeh (background blur) and its f/1.8 (read: FAST) minimum aperture. Why would Canon sell one of its most optically brilliant lenses in a cheap plastic housing for less than $100? Simple: 50mm is the equivalent of the human eye (the best way to envision this, is that if you're looking through a SLR camera with a 50mm lens and you open the other eye, things will be the same size in both eyes), and is probably the most common focal length prime sold for any camera—in photo last year, we used 50mm primes pretty much exclusively, for example. One of the biggest advantages I've found with using a prime over a zoom is that it forces you to use your feet to zoom instead of standing in one spot and zooming with a lens. It makes me think about the composition of the shot itself, the angle, framing, etc., more because I can't just stand and follow a subject, I have to physically move closer if I want to zoom, for example.

Mind you, the 50mm f/1.8 lens isn't the highest quality or sharpest Canon lens available (there's a 50mm f/1.4 lens that sports USM and a metal mount, for example), but it does the job for me and as of right now serves my needs perfectly. On the other hand, my dad could really do with a large focal range, telephoto lens for his train pictures (yes folks, he sits and takes pictures of trains... it's supposedly quite relaxing, and I'd much rather do that than say, sit and fish all day... but that's probably because my dad enjoys it). There are numerous zoom lenses with a 70- or 75- to -200 or -300 type range that Canon sells, however the only one that's less than $1,000 which hasn't gotten mediocre reviews is the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS lens, which Canon introduced in August of this year (as opposed to the 50mm prime, which has been around for over a decade, I believe). It runs about $650, give or take, which is steep when you could essentially buy two point and shoot digital cameras for that price (and nice quality ones, too), but given its reviews and the 3rd-generation IS, I think it might just be worth springing for. We'll see though, we'll see...

Another fine example of things I get anal about quality-wise is paper. I've learned that the paper you print something on can make a huge difference in a person's initial reaction to whatever it is you're printing. When it comes to schoolwork, it may not objectively increase my grade, but it certainly has the benefit of a subjective grade increase. For those of you who don't know, I'm a printer/font/typeography/etc. nerd, and it bugs me when something looks awesome on the screen and then doesn't look as great on paper. The quality of paper can make a huge difference in quality, especially when you're dealing with laser printers. Yes, you can buy a ream of beige-ish (when put next to a truly-white piece of paper, at least), light-weight paper for less than 1¢ per sheet, and it'll still work fine in your printer, and for something like research or what not which doesn't really matter (a.k.a. there's no grade, money, business deal, etc. attached) it's great, and dirt cheap. But when it comes to representing your work, which you've put time and effort into, isn't it worth a dollar or two to print it on paper that's as good a quality as the work printed on it? Currently, I'm addicted to HP's Soft Gloss Laser Presentation Paper. It's very bright white, you can print on both sides with no bleed through whatsoever, and it just feels nice. It truly is soft-gloss... it's not matte but it's not photo glossy either... it's just glossy enough to make text and graphics pop and to feel really nice in your hands. When you pick up something printed on this paper, you immediately say "ooo" (unless you've felt it before), and subconsciously you think, "if this is good enough to print on nice quality paper, it's probably worth my time." Instant brownie points, before the person even looks at what's actually on the paper itself. And the best part is, it was only 10¢ a sheet... I bought a box of 200 sheets last year (to use with Hodge's Color LaserJet, which I truly miss), and I've still got a good 50 left, after printing photo fliers and Centanni presentation notes and pretty much all of my essays, etc. on it last year and this semester. If you have a laser printer, buy some... if nothing else, you'll have teachers pulling you aside and telling you, "I love this paper, it just feels so nice." I'm convinced it actually affects my grades on papers, maybe not significantly, but enough to make it worth my while by far. Besides, it's nice to stand out from the crowd and be unique.

There are numerous other instances in which you get what you pay for, but there are other notable things where buying on teh cheap (intentional misspelling of 'the', for those who might jump at the chance to correct me) gives you just as much quality as you need. Computer memory, whether it's RAM or flash memory (CompactFlash, etc.) is usually good enough no matter how cheap or free it is after rebate or on sale. I just bought 2x512MB memory sticks for my G5 (finally bumping it to over 1GB of RAM) for $30 a pop at CompUSA on Blue Wednesday (a.k.a. the Wednesday before thanksgiving, which as far as I know doesn't have a color associated with it, so I took the liberty of making up my own, because colored days are always better, especially around Black Friday). Despite being some brand I've never heard of before, they worked like a charm, even in my relatively-picky-about-RAM G5. I was happy.

CD-Rs are also better bought for <5¢ a pop, because usually even the crappiest brands work fine in CD players and obviously will work just fine in computers. I remember when my dad used to refuse to buy CD-Rs unless they were free... when Thanksgiving rolled around, we'd stock up on free CD-Rs (usually after rebate, but who's counting?) and be set for the next year. This year, however, there were no such deals, which was very disappointing. Thankfully, we still have a good 100 left from earlier this year, and given the rate at which we now use them (maybe a couple a month), they'll last us a goodly while.


As for why it took me a week to crank out my thoughts on this subject, especially given my promise last week to finish it "tomorrow" and the fact I had it pretty much half-written that night too... beats me. It's probably because I enjoy keeping all my avid readers in suspense. Or more simply because I didn't get a chance to sit down and type for a contiguous period of time. Either way, now you have it.