Boys' Toys

Having now got my new toy I've been looking at what other goodies are available and frankly I'm not impressed. There's all the usual stuff you expect for cameras - hugely expensive lenses that you'd love to own but would in all honesty probably only ever use once, thingies for remote control, taking photos underwater and all that, but then come the really odd things that are touted by so-called professionals who are clearly sponsored by the makers of the product they are touting - -like a portable diffuser which looks like a net curtain and is a snip at only fifteen times the cost of going into a curtain shop and buying a curtain - add the word digital somewhere in the description and you can multiply the cost even more. But of course if it isn't made by some company with a hugh logo to emblazon all over the thing you can't be a serious photographer - god alone knows what they'd think if you smeared vaseline over a skylight filter to give a soft focus effect (a fairly standard technique back in the day....)