Camera Gear Does Not Matter
Mango Street recently made an amazing video that a lot of people have been trying to convey:
On the Christmas of 2012, my parents gifted my sister and I a brand new ~ Canon EOS Rebel T3i (on Black-Friday sale it was probably around $400~500). I begged for a camera and my sister, who is 9 years older than me, said that we would use it a lot. I ended up never picking it up for things i enjoyed and always abhorred my mother’s request to ‘take photos at the family party’…
High school came around and then I actually started playing more with fine art and digital mediums. Thats when I bought my first new lens — the Nifty Fifty. I have the older model mine was around $80.
The more I grew to love taking photos and capturing moments into pixel-proportions, I spent hours and I mean hours learning and watching from professionals. I decided to invest into another lens- by this time I was making some small pocket change from taking photos.
I decided to buy the 24mm pancake lens f/2.8 for about $120. This lens has grown on me so much the past couple years I’ve owned it.
You’d be surprised to know that this is the only gear I still have today after like 2 years of taking photos. But they get the job done and they preform reasonably well for me now.
No need for $3500 Camera with 2 $1000 dollar lenses. There is definitely a time and place for equipment like that — like weddings or sports- but regular portraiture or just having fun creating art you just need to develop skill.
My gear practically costs less than 800 dollars, and I’ve definitely made more than 800 dollars from using my gear.
