If you have a pair of eyes, obviously gear will actually matter. I don't know what the state of DSLR market is today, but in 2007, I took an amateur photograph

If you have a pair of eyes, obviously gear will actually matter. I don't know what the state of DSLR market is today, but in 2007, I took an amateur photography class in community college and had to rent a cheap camera to take photos for the assignment. It was pretty clear that despite using best available settings to take pictures, my photos looked nowhere near as noise-free/crispy as other adult hobbyists with $10,000 camera setups. If you ever used a point-and-shoot camera and a high-end DSLR, you'll know that at the same level of skill nothing can compensate for good optics. It's simple physics. Gear matters more in low-light conditions, or with fast-moving objects. It matters less for landscape photography with good lighting conditions. But it always matters.