Read if you want to share in my consumer angst.

Having tortured myself over the cost of this toy, this thing I can only barely justify buying, (“I don’t have kids or pets to photograph, nothing worth saving for posterity…”) I finally managed to get over it and fork out.

I decided not to order online, but to go to an actual, physical shop. A place with a counter on which my I can bang my tiny fist when needed.

‘Ivo’ was going to make me a deal. He’d take in my old Olympus OM10 body plus a 50mm and a wide angle lens, and he throw in some goodies. I’m paying 200 euro more than I would have online, so I expect some swag.

He makes me an offer (a 256mb card, a UV filter, a sun cap) and I agree, run my bank card through the machine and say: “Oh and by the way, I want the European one (EOS 300d), not the American (Rebel).”

They’re out of the 300d, of course. They have one Rebel left, with a Sigma lens. Ivo says I can take it home, he’ll order the 300d for me and I can swap the Rebel for it next Saturday.

Okaaaaay. I agree. I sort of have to, because I’ve already paid.

They put everything in the box for me and I cycle home, and get rained on. The closer I get to home the more frustrated I am with the deal. All that money, and I have to be careful with this loan Rebel for a week? All that hassle and I don’t even get the ‘it’s miiiiine’ thrill?

I unpack the box. What a bummer you have to charge those batteries first. Why can’t they come fully charged? I locate the charger and the cable…

It’s an American cable. Which does not in any way fit our Dutch outlet. I do my best Edvard Munch impression.

So I ring the shop. ‘Terribly sorry, we have the Euro cable here, can you come get it? We’ll give you a camera bag to compensate.’

By now my head is starting to hurt. I get on the bike, go across town again, pick up the Euro plug, refuse the bag (I have lots of bags) and instead get a polarisation filter. Ha! Just what I wanted. A small victory.

I cycle back home, get rained on again. Stick the battery in the charger, check my watch. 90 minutes to go. I start assembling the camera…

The Sigma lens doesn’t fit. Looks like a Nikon fitting to me. When I was buying my camera, two other gents next to me were buying a Nikon D70. I bet they got stuck with the Canon fitting. Can’t anything go right today? Fortunately, my own sweet 50mm and the 28-105 lens both fit.

I ring the shop again: ‘Say, if you’re a Nikon lens short, I’ve got it, thanks ever so much.’ I can’t help but be a little sarcastic. To be sure they get it, I tell them I am seriously pissed off. Unfortunately ‘Ivo’ is with a client so I get some other bozo apologising on his behalf.

So here I am, with a head ache, a lousy mood, an empty bank account and a camera I’m afraid to touch.

There is a counter and my tiny fist will be banging it next Saturday. And that 256 card I found already sitting inside the camera? They’re not getting it back.

I still remember how the feel of it in my hand and how it felt to press the release. It came with a slinky chain, which you could get your skin caught up in, and an odd little foot to stick flash bulbs on.

It was a present from my grandfather. He gave it to my mother, but I think he secretly wanted me to have it. He probably couldn’t justify buying me something that expensive. In any case, I used it a lot and nobody told me I couldn’t. There was a lot of picture taking in our family anyway. I used it till it broke, sometime in the mid 80s and kept it for a long time after that. I just couldn’t part with it and hoped it would mend all by itself.

When I was a little older I bought a Practica B 200, the only camera I could afford at the time. It came with a 50mm and a 150mm tele. It didn’t last very long, the electronics in it broke and it started draining batteries. But I used it to take pictures at school, mostly of teachers, for an entirely illegal magazine we ran called Plons (‘Splash’). It was a gossip rag with completely fabricated stories. We photocopied it on the school’s only xerox, in the principle’s office. I also used it to take pictures of sports events at school. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a lot of pictures of my friends with it.

Then came my Olympus OM 10, bought second hand some time around 1985. I had several lenses with this one, an 80-200 zoom, a wide-angle, a 50mm, a 70-150mm. All my early concert photography was done with this one and I used it to take portraits of my classmates in college.

I had a number of 35mm point-and-shoots next to the OM 10, a wonderful Samsung which broke way too soon. I then upgraded to their newer model – it wasn’t half as good as the old one. I also picked up a second hand Sigma, my first auto-focus SLR, but it never worked properly and drained batteries. I have a lot of problems with electronic equipment in general — sometimes I blame it on my being very static.

A few years back I got the Canon EOS 300 and it made me wish I had invested in a proper SLR sooner. Despite the fact that I’ve been taking photographs since I was 10, I’ve never been very good at it. The Canon made me take better pictures, I learned to play with depth of field, the images were sharper… I read up a bit on photography too, that helped.

Then came the digital cameras – my first one bought on a whim during lunch break when I was very bored and dissatisfied at work: an Olympus C2000. Fabulous camera, I wish there was some way to upgrade it from its 2.1 megapixels. I still have it, cannot get myself to sell it. The Canon Ixus (bought from some extra money I got around my 40th) I use now is lovely because it feels nice and is so easy to carry, but it’s a bit limited compared to the C2000.

I’ve been bothering people with my lense for thirty years. Why? Because it gives me something to do while everybody else shows off their social skills.