Forget about improving your photography by buying newer,
more expensive equipment. It won't work.

The argument in favor of using expensive equipment is largely a spiritual argument. An example can be found in the words of the Leica company: 

"A person who reaches for a Leica is not just opting for a particular camera, but also for an exquisite new internal attitude that will affect this person’s way of taking pictures, it will even determine it." (Thankfully, this quote has now been removed from their web site)

With all due respect to whoever wrote that, it is nonsense. Dangerous, foolish, deeply distasteful nonsense that trivializes photography, flatters the dilettante, creates ridiculous expectations, and leaves Leica-users looking like morons.

Leica 35mm rangefinder cameras are well-designed, beautifully built, reliable, and start at $1500. Leica lenses are superb. A Leica in the hands of an experienced, talented photographer is a marvelous instrument, precise and responsive, but no better at making images than any other well-designed camera with a modern lens. In the hands of a beginner it's no better than a used '70s camera that cost $50.

All the top brand name cameras have claques arguing minutia and making foolish claims of superiority. Nikon, Canon, Contax, Rollei, and Leica all make excellent equipment, and each has a following of fanatical cheerleaders. Ignore them. To become a better photographer, you need to master the fundamentals of photography, not buy into an equipment mythology.

So put away your copy of that glossy photo magazine, with its beautiful ads for camera systems that cost more than cars. Ignore the gearheads, the tech-spec-spouters, the product evaluators and flacks. The day may come when you will benefit from a specialized lens or body, but that day isn't now.

This is not a sermon against technology. It may be that a sophisticated camera is for you.

It is a sermon against over-spending. It is a sermon about the pointlessness of a 1% improvement in image quality by means of a 2000% increase in spending.

It is a sermon about the futility of expecting sophisticated cameras to improve your photographs.

There is only one way to do that. And that is to become a better photographer

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