Before you can begin learning photography, you must have a camera and lens. There is no way around it. At the very least, you need a smartphone or a point-and-shoot camera to start taking photos.

Choosing the right photography equipment often becomes a major challenge for beginners wanting to learn photography.

I know people who decided to get involved in photography only to spend months, sometimes even years, analyzing equipment in what I call equipment paralysis. They endlessly work to create a list of the perfect camera and lenses. The goal of this article is to help beginners overcome the first stumbling block in the process of learning photography—equipment selection.