I voted no, as I also think it's the man not the machine.. but there is a certain progress in your own photo techniques which has led me to buying more expenisve lenses and bodies.
When I started taking photo's I knew nothing about things like aperture, shutterspeeds, lighting, composition etc.. Along the way when you make more pictures, see other photographs, read literature, you are starting to master your equipment more and at that point also start to see the shortcomings of your equipment. My first zoomlens was soft at 250mm and had vignetting which was very apparant. My first DSLR had a RAW buffer which is too small for high speed photographs. And as most of these shortcomings are solved by using other, more expensive stuff, my results got better from a technical and usability point of view. But this is merely a technical 'tipping point' in buying more expensive stuff.
But the other factor, which is the composition, lighting or how do I as an photographer percieve the subject and what choices do I make when I press the shutter is a totally different thing. I might have find a picture with my old analogue camera great composition wise, but wished I had beter gear to make it perfect..
The other way around still occurs when I use my current gear (Canon 1D and L-lenses). The picture may be razor sharp, perfectly exposed, but still not great due to a variety of (personal) reasons. A flyby of a CL-215 dumping water and when seeing the results showing the props not to be blurred is one of those examples which proves equipment is not everything..
so i thought i`d ask my good friends at scramble for their opinion.
