I still have that older equipment. (In fact, I even bought the updated model, and gave the original to a friend. She knows full well the kinds of pictures that setup has taken and it motivates her to improve) It's lighter, it's what I built my reputation on, and frankly the (later) investment in lenses and such for that platform wasn't cheap. In fact I'm very proud of how much attention I've gotten (which isn't that much, by influencer standards) with just a Costco kit lens and body.

> But it doesn't get you a higher rate of good photos.

Beg to differ here, if one knows what they're doing.

I do a lot of low-light, event photography, among other stuff, and the fancy expensive kit is just flat-out way better. I've shot thousands of these photos with both by now, and the extra technical flexibility is totally worth it. Hell, the extra sensor size and autofocus alone took me to a whole new level. Do you know how much it sucks trying to do low-light with manual focus at a DJ performance because your autofocus can't keep up? How much time do you want to spend twiddling noise reduction controls because the entry-level kit's ISO 1600 looks like crap? How much shadow detail are you willing to sacrifice? It's such a pain in the ass.

And through all that I like to take a few shots with my phone for the instant social media gratification... and those shots are never anywhere near as good. The color is flatter, depth of field is blah, everything is just...meh. They look good on instagram, but that's about it.

> I can think of precisely one photographic limitation I'd run into regularly even now: its high ISO performance was not that good. Otherwise I'd have that camera back to shoot with, even now, especially in the studio. Though I might rage at the maximum card capacity.

Growing up I messed around with 35mm and even had a SLR camera for a short while. But I got serious with my first DSLR (a Nikon D3100). Maybe I was wrong in expecting something comparable to my old 35mm stuff but the dynamic range sucked, high ISO sucked (1600 is grainy AF), autofocus with like 12 points with only one cross-type sensor sucked, and no matter how good I focused the image (even on a nice 35mm prime) I couldn't get the razor sharpness I was after. There was something about how that sensor processed certain light transitions that had a really nice quality, and the camera took a lot of hits, but ultimately I felt like I was hitting a plateau.

One example: I like to do long-exposure shots of firedancers doing their thing. Depending on the fuel type the dancer uses there could be a lot of dynamic range to deal with, and most of the other photographers in this space seem to struggle in coping with it: either the dancer is exposed nicely but the flame is blown out, or the flame is exposed nicely but the dancer is super dark (losing a lot of color detail if you try and fix it in post). Or they just try to squash both together and the picture looks like a bad HDR merge. Here is another place where the sensor and lens matters a ton and both my phone and my DX kit struggle. Can I do and have I done these shots on that kit? Sure. But the nice camera, with its amazing sensor, and the amazing lenses I have for it, are able to capture way more detail, and as a result I get way better results straight-away and spend way less time in post trying to fix things.