Worst Photo Purchases I Have Made

I am sure we all have at one time or another made a purchase we late regretted. I know myself have made a few of them over the years.

Ring Light

The first one I regret was a ring light. At the time I was interested in doing macro photography. As I soon found out lighting was a very important part of doing macro photography I started looking for a solution.

I did not have enough lighting in my room to keep the shadows of the lens off the subject. So I went to amazon and bought a cheap Polaroid ring light.

Now I will say there is nothing wrong with the ring light itself. It works as it was intended to. In fact, I still have it sitting in a box in my closet just in case I need it.

The issue I had with the ring light was the coiled cord. Whenever I put my Tamron 70-300mm macro lens into manual focus the cord would pull on the lens taking it out of focus.

The other issue I had with it was when I tried to use it for my YouTube videos to give me more lighting. It worked but around the whole video, there was blown out areas from the light.

The reason I regret the purchase was not because the item was faulty but I have only ever used it two or three times.

Polaroid 48 Macro LED Ring Flash

Filters

Another item that I bought and do not have much of a use for are a couple of filters. I bought these back when I was shooting film before I was able to get a 1-megapixel digital camera.

The two filters that I had purchased were a softening and macro filter.

The softening filter did just what it sounds like it would do soften the image for an artistic look. On the cover of the box, it showed a bride looking pretty that was supposedly taken with this type of filter. I have NEVER used the filter for any photographs.

Polaroid Optics 52mm 3 Piece Special Effect Camera/Camcorder Lens Filter Kit (Soft Focus, Revolving 4 Point Star, Warming)

Again another filter I never really used was the macro one. It has a clear hole in the middle and the rest is frosted out so only what is right in the middle will be in focus. Interesting idea but again I have never found a use for it.

I do not have an example of the Macro filter but you can check Amazon and you will see the new better versions there.

I have had tons of other items I have bought and never used but these are the ones that sprung to mind while thinking about this post.
What are some of your worst photography purchases? I know I am not the only one out there that has done this.
Let me know in the comments below!