When you add power, that’s great, but don’t overbuy. Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) is a real thing.
Stop gear churn
We used to have a person in our office who had a box arrive almost daily from Amazon or B&H. They were constantly buying equipment and then as soon as they decided it didn’t work or they didn’t like it, they were reselling it, but at a loss. You don’t need to overbuy — you need to maximize what you have.
Rent gear
Stop buying gear just to decide that you don’t like it and then you’re going to sell it off. It’s not a good idea. Instead, if you’re unsure about something, rent the gear, try it out, make sure it works for you. There’s a lot of great rental companies like LensRentals, for example, that makes it easy to find the right equipment or to try things out in your workflow.
Recycle within the office or workflow
Instead of selling gear off, consider recycling within the office or moving it further down the food chain. Now that doesn’t mean that I never sell equipment, but I make sure that there are backups and spare pieces, and a lot of old equipment often comes in handy.
Think of the entire pipeline
Think of your entire pipeline as well. Make sure that if you’re upgrading things you’ve thought it through. For example, buying a new camera that shoots 4K or 6K means that you may need to buy faster hard drives or an improved computer. Don’t top out your computer with a bunch of RAM if it doesn’t have the processing power to go with it with the CPU or GPU. Think these things through and balance it out.
The challenge though is we do live in a society where everything is disposable. People throw things away rather than fix them, so try to make sure you understand what you have and maximize your equipment. Don’t be so quick to throw it away and buy something new.
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