Premise: a desire to replace the ailing Nikon P610.
Solution: purchase a long telephoto lens for the Canon T100.
Selection: Sigma 150-600mm.
Problem: Many.
Let’s start with the price. It’s over $1,000, all said and done. That’s a lot of money to me. In fact if I had $100,000,000 I’d still think $1,000 is a lot of money – because I’m a cheapskate. Er, frugal.
Well recently it’s been “on sale” in the off-and-on method of modern con artistry. I mean merchandising. Yeah, that’s it; merchandising. Not con artistry. In any case the “sale” has amounted to a whopping 9% off regular price. Nine percent. Not even ten. This is with the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Holiday Season sales allegedly trying to lure people to buy with low, low prices. I laugh scornfully at their pathetic attempts. The lens is 20% too expensive to begin with, and 9% off is just a joke. Our sales tax is 12% here.
Then there’s the “other thing”.
My last eye exam included such terms as “cataracts”, “glaucoma”, and “epiretinal membrane”. All of which can be treated to varying degrees of success, but with no guaranteed results for any. And underneath it all I still have the re-attached retina and cloudy aqueous humor complete with floaters. In other words the best that can be offered is not going blind rapidly. Definitely not any hope of return to fine vision. Now for most people this would not be an issue, but for a photographer … seeing the fine details is essential. I’m sure some of you have noticed the decline in quality of my work since The Last Picture? Instead of nine out of ten images being good, it’s one out of ten being acceptable.
Given those circumstances one has to wonder about the practicality of investing in any more photographic equipment of any type at any price.
Wandering Words 
I too have cloudy eyeballs with massive floaters that drift by like seaweed. I also have dry eye and a curious inability to remember to add eyedrops, so my vision has developed the same focusing problems as the zoom lens I dropped too many times. I get it. It’s frustrating as hell, and, considering all of the defects of age we could be suffering from, it’s life-altering and yet minor to those who don’t experience it.
I spent my whole life trying to reach a point where I could afford the ‘good’ photography equipment; now I have it, and I still can’t see the picture. Life has its little ironies.
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