One of my major flaws is that I always have a curiosity about various things and then feel the urge to buy equipment. Over the years, I have discovered a good technique: when I want to buy something, unless it is obviously useful (like a charging cable or a RAM module), I will add it to the shopping cart and then wait for a few months to see if I still really want it. If at that time I still want it, then I start doing research to see if this thing can meet my expectations.

In many hobbies that require purchasing equipment, I see many people advocating for a gradual progression: starting with entry-level equipment and continuously upgrading based on your needs. But I believe that this approach is not widely applicable. Take camping as an example, if you are going camping on foot, every gram of weight is important, and entry-level equipment will not meet your needs. In this case, buying entry-level equipment is simply a waste of money. However, if you are driving to the campsite, entry-level equipment doesn't need to be considered for weight and you only need to focus on functionality. Photography is similar, if you are only taking portraits, any camera other than those from the early Nokia era will suffice. But if you are into astrophotography, you may need to spend more money on a telescope rather than the camera itself. However, for bird-watching, both the lens and camera are equally important. Your camera needs to be sensitive enough to capture clean photos in low-light conditions, while your lens needs to provide sufficient quality light.

And one good thing from that flaw is I learnt how to gather information from different sources and how to make evaluations based on them. And nowadays, if I did my homework adequately, I generally get what I expected. And one general experience I learnt from those decision-making processes is that: You don't always get what you paid, but you have to pay first before you will get it. And you don't always pay money. For example, a good second-hand gear is cheaper in price, but you need to pay an extra amount of time to learn what to watch for and finally pick up what might fix your need. And with brand new gear, you pay a lot of money.

So when I said my new monocular is not as good as kowa or swarovski, I don't mean it's bad, instead, it's a feature for this price range, and I know it when I buy it.

But anyway, the future me might have a new homework to do, for swarovski, and possibly for cameras and lens too.