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Comment by beat | Hacker News Reader

I love this! As a hobbyist in a couple of different gear-heavy fields (photography and guitar/recording), I've seen from experience how much gearheads obsess over exactly the wrong things. They'll worry about second or even third-order issues, while ignoring basic, obvious issues.

The internet is full of detailed discussions of camera lenses - barrel and pincushion distortion, lateral fringing, all sorts of issues you can only see when you're photographing test charts on a wall, with plenty of learned comments from other guys who shoot test charts on walls. This stuff panics people who try to buy cameras, thinking their ability to take good photos will be governed by these abstract numbers.

Feh.

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Maybe I don't see a lot of good photos because I'm not looking hard enough. But the problem with "GAS" is that it puts all the focus on the gear and takes attention away from technique/lighting/composition etc. You can make great photos with a pinhole box camera if you wanted to (and I'd probably want to see them more than some rich shmoe with a brand new DSLR with 400 mgpx's photos).

Spend your money on books, classes and prints. Not on cameras/lenses.

I always recommend two books to anyone asking about buying a camera - "Understanding Exposure" (Bryan Peterson), and "The Photographer's Eye" (Michael Freeman). These two books cover all the basics of exposure and composition in a pretty accessible way.

Those two books will get you farther toward taking good photos than any piece of gear will.

Evolution of a photography gearhead:

1) Buy the best possible camera - no good pictures ever

2) Buy the best possible lenses - barely any good pictures

3) Buy the best possible lights - now we are getting somewhere

4) Learn how to compose and capture the moment - Bingo!

Most people assume 1) and 2) are the most important, barely anyone does 3) and some do 4). Any digital camera since 2010 or so can produce breathtaking pictures with 4) and cheap zoom kit lenses, for studio work it's all about 3). Then to get to the ultimate pro level it's about Photoshop skills to finalize the look as desired.

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