I was in my local camera store this morning, just browsing, and overheard a conversation between an old veteran and a newbie. The newbie was looking to buy his first digital camera. After some chit chat the newbie asked the old vet what kind of camera he had and that’s when it got interesting. The old vet says “I never tell anyone what kind of gear I have, for your own benefit you should research and buy what’s ultimately best for you which has nothing to do with what’s best for me”. The old vet then offered to help the newbie with the research and that conversation was very interesting but much too long for this post. I may put something together later in another post as his advice and reasoning was fascinating. He made one particular statement that the proponents of do your own research will love and it’s the only argument I’ve heard that gives me pause. He said that by doing your own research (regarding the purchase of a new camera) by the time you finish you’ll know what’s best for you and you’ll be ready to start shooting right out of the box. You’ll be asking questions like how do I do this or how do I fix that instead of asking questions like, what’s this for and what’s that do. I thought about that for a quite a while and as I mentioned it’s the one argument I’ve heard that would give me a reason to say “do your own research” but even then it would only pertain to the purchase of new equipment. I had to leave a lot out of the conversation I overheard or this would have turned into a novel as the two chatted for at least half an hour. I stood there and intently listened to the whole thing. I couldn’t resist walking up and shaking the man’s hand. I told him that it’s rare to see that kind of help given to a complete stranger in such a caring and compassionate manner.