When I returned to photography as a hobby, after about a decade away from it, I watched a lot of YouTube videos. I really enjoyed them. But I also internalized some ideas that ended up costing me a lot of time and money.
I started to think that I had to “build a camera kit.”
I got it in my head that it might be normal to own many cameras.
I grew concerned about various features—autofocus speed, stabilization, video, weather resistance—that were not really relevant to me.
Most fundamentally, I acquired the notion that there was a right way to do things, and that it mattered that I do them in that right way. That having been determined, of course, by a large group of YouTubers whom I’d never met.
It’s taken me a long time to see that it’s all an illusion. The only person who cares about my photography is me. I’m the only one I have to please. Adding in other voices can be helpful, but also distracting. The conversation there is way too focused on equipment, when equipment is pretty much the last thing that’s interesting about photography.
So I’m cutting back on YouTube, and trying to just enjoy photography itself.
All-Seeing Eye 