The beginner buying equipment is purchasing possibilities that practice must still sort out.

New equipment is a set of options, not an ability. The kit contains every version of the hobby you might turn out to want, and only time with it will show which of those you are: the person who goes out in bad weather, or the one who likes the tinkering, or the one who stops after a month. Buying is the easy half and it feels like progress, which is why so much of it happens.

Start with the least equipment that lets you begin, and let use tell you what to buy next. Anything you upgrade after twenty sessions will be chosen by experience rather than by hope.