Technology changes every year and it's very tempting to keep up. But like I say on my YouTube channel too often (and again here), I can't get the cheap immigrant farmer out of my blood. Farmers are incredibly resourceful. You have to know how to fix everything and how to get a job done with the tools you have. If you start taking your tractor in to get fixed or buying specialized equipment for every small task, you're bankrupt. You need to fix through the night so that your hay baler is ready to bale as soon as the hay dries in the morning because there's a big storm coming after lunch.
But I digress.
This mental apprach was ingrained in me and comes in handy when I think about equipment. Maybe to a fault. It's helped me avoid incremental upgrades in equipment and instead wait for "game changing" (oh god i hate that term) updates that will have a meaningful impact on my workflow.
One could argue that a feature that saves you a few seconds on set could make or break your shoot. We all have a problem letting extreme cases define our choices. But don't live in fear... become a better-organized creative/filmmaker/photographer. Build a system that ensures that you'll never forget your ND kit vs. thinking that internal NDs are the solution to always forgetting them. This is a YOU problem and this only means there will be something else you'll forget.
All of this to say you can get really far if you professionalize yourself before you professionalize your gear.
You can buy a Red camera, a 10k drone, $10k of lenses. But if you don't know how to get through a shoot day sanely, noone is going to want to work with you. If you haven't studied, practiced and built your craft. A skilled person will shoot laps around you with a cheap mirrorless camera.
Buy based on absolutely crushing needs, not wants. Build a business that's sustainable. It's so hard to make money as a creative person, make it equally hard to let it go to all the folks lined up to take your money on a very shallow promise that you know deep down is a ruse.
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