Guide to Photographic Gear/Table of Contents/Gear Acquisition Syndrome

Ever heard of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (or GAS for short)? Commonly used in music and photography, Gear Acquisition Syndrome describes the cumulative and excessive buying of gear. Now since this is a guide to buying gear, it would seem that this book is just the perfect recipe for getting GAS.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome

While this book is focused as a guide to buying gear, let me tell you this: This book does not advocate the excessive buying of gear. 3 lenses may be enough for a beginner, 6 for a professional, and so on. This book's purpose is simply to guide you to getting a perfect piece of gear if and when you decide you need a new piece of gear. Throughout the rest of this book, we will assume that you are reading because you want to know what gear to get.

Now onto GAS. In order to cure GAS, you must learn to identify it first. There are many stages to GAS as it progresses, and we will touch on them here.

The first stage is where you begin to want to buy gear. You have reached a low point in your photographic studies, and your mind tells yourself: If I can just get that one piece of gear, then everything will work again. However, you know better, and you resist that until it tortures you so much that you click that "Buy" button.

The second stage is guilt. You get your piece of gear from the store and come home. But when you are supposed to have fun a play around with the new piece of lens, instead you hide it and feel guilt. You regret buying the piece. However, after a few days, the guilt wears off and you are finally able to enjoy photography again, until...

The final stage. This is where GAS gets cruel. Depending on gear, GAS will slowly creep back to you again. You will want to buy more gear again. And the whole cycle will repeat again and again.

But how do you prevent Gear Acquisition Syndrome? There are several ways, and I will talk about them here. The first is limiting yourself. You see, there is a balance between gear and creativity. More gear does mean more opportunities, but you end up relying on a hunk of shaped metal instead of your own creativity to take a picture. When you limit yourself, you are forcing yourself to be creative.

Finally, do you really need that piece of gear? Always ask yourself this before you buy anything. Do you really need that lens? Does it limit your work? Do you not have any other gear that can do the purpose of this gear? If these questions are all "yes", then you can go ahead and buy without guilt. But if one of them is no- if it doesn't limit your work, if you don't need it, don't buy it.