Originally posted by K-9 Do people get too hung up these days on the aspects, controls, and features of their camera, rather than how to frame, light, and expose? A lot of photography discussions lean toward sharpness being a bigger concern than composition.
Once upon a time, SLR cameras were mostly the same. You had apertures starting at 1.4 and going up to 22 depending on what lens you put on, and shutter speeds in full stops from 1 to 1/500th or 1/1000th. Focus was manual, by means we all know. That was all the control you had, aided and abetted by incident or reflectant light meters which anyone could buy - your Weston could become my Weston; my Sekonic could become your Sekonic. The sensor was independent of the camera, and the sensor you put in your Leica was the same sensor someone else could put in their Asahiflex. Hell, by rewinding, counting frames and shooting blanks, you could put the same physical roll of film in both cameras.
Things began to change when cameras got on-board metering. All of a sudden, more of the facilities were integral to the camera - the light meter on your Nikon F was no longer the light meter in my Spotmatic or the one mounted on top of my SV. Then AF came along, and the focus control module and actuation system in your Nikon or his Minolta or her Pentax wasn't something you could carry over when you picked up the other person's camera.
(I'm not even going to go into the argument about whose lenses are/were best; that's a dive down the rabbit hole if there ever was one.)
Enter the gear-head. The more there is to differentiate one camera from another (exposure control, focus control, etc.), the happier s/he is. Or maybe not, because s/he's also forever in pursuit of the best and must always have the next big thing. In part I think this is a status symbol - "I have the best" - and in part it's because they're hooked on the idea that better gear means better pictures. From there on, it depends on what you mean by a "better picture". Perhaps these people at their extreme have no true creativity, which is why they cling to sharpness as an ultimate measure.
Ultimately better gear just means getting the same picture more easily, and of that I thoroughly approve. But if you don't have an eye for composition and light, that picture is still going to be unappealing.