Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

They say that gear doesn’t matter, but it does

steverydz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 49 posts

Re: They say that gear doesn’t matter, but it does

#5

Post by capableweb »

As someone who does photography and videography, "Gear doesn't matter" is less about that the gear doesn't matter at all, but more that beginners tend to focus more on getting good gear rather than sharpening their skills, before they have the skill to use better/more advanced gear.

A bit like buying really good monitors for audio production before you really trained your hearing so you won't hear any difference between standard and really high quality monitors.

The "return on investment" for sharpening the basic skills in the beginning when learning a new subject is much more important than getting the latest and greatest gear, as that won't give you as much knowledge and experience since you won't really know why it is the greatest gear, and how to fully leverage it.

That's why people say "Gear doesn't matter", because in the beginning, it mostly doesn't. Just like "Premature optimizations is the root of all evil" doesn't mean absolutely all upfront optimizations are indeed evil. If you're sufficiently experienced, you'd recognize when it's premature vs not, when it's worth upfront investment vs not. But for a beginner, it's easier to remember a simple dogma, and let them figure out that it does matter a little bit, once you get better at your subject.

Re: They say that gear doesn’t matter, but it does

#6

Post by xahrepap »

I feel like this can be applied to most fields.

Do you need an IDE to write, for example, Java or C#? No. But it sure is nice! And you can do some pretty cool code analysis and refactoring with some good tools.

Do you need a jointer, a planer, a bandsaw, a CNC router, a … as a hobby woodworker? No. But it sure is nice to have the right tool for the job.

I’ve seen some pretty clever hacks by people to work around not owning a specific tool. They work great for a one-off. But you really need to learn your workflow and identify real bottlenecks and address them.

This post is a great reminder not just photography, but to a lot of things in life. :)

Re: They say that gear doesn’t matter, but it does

#8

Post by JohnFen »

capableweb wrote: post #5

As someone who does photography and videography, "Gear doesn't matter" is less about that the gear doesn't matter at all, but more that beginners tend to focus more on getting good gear rather than sharpening their skills, before they have the skill to use better/more advanced gear. A bit like buying really good monitors for audio production before you really trained your hearing so you won't hear any difference betw…

I think this is tied in with Adam Savage's observation that practice alone gets you 80% of the way to mastery. Talent is what gets you the the other 20%.

Gear strikes me as being similar. High-end gear won't really improve the work of someone who is much below the 80% mastery mark, but it can make all the difference in the world to someone above it.

I also really like his approach to buying gear: if it's the first of a particular kind of equipment, buy the cheapest version you can get. Use that, and you'll learn if it's actually helpful to you and, if it is, what qualities are really important. Only then go out and buy the best version you can afford.

Re: They say that gear doesn’t matter, but it does

#9

Post by earleybird »

xwdv wrote: post #7

You’ll realize gear matters when you stop taking shitty iPhone photos of everything and use a proper camera with actual focal lengths.

Upvote for the chuckle while reading. Yes, we can very much have a blind spot from using whatever our current toolset is.
Post reply on HN