Does money equal skill?

This weekend while taking some photos in SF my friend and I discussed this question. Does better equipment equal better photographs? There are some people who say it’s all of the photographer’s skill, I tend to think it’s a mixture of the equipment and the ability of the photographer.

Let’s take this scenario for example. Two photographers, same skill level, both take pictures of a flower garden. Photographer A is using an entry level digital SLR with the kit lens and a 1gb memory card. Photographer B is using a pro level digital SLR with a wide variety of lenses, also has many gb’s of memory cards. With the two photographers taking the pictures of the same objects, who will have the better result? I would say Photographer B would have clearer images and with the greater amount of images taken, better chance to find a nice image of the bunch.

It seems like photography is one area that skill can be made up with better equipment more so that other skills. For example if a low skilled guitar player would have played a $2,500 Les Paul or a $99 Squire, I doubt there would be much if any difference in his/her skill since there is no way to “fake” play. But if poor photographer used pro level equipment and had the ability to take thousands of photos they would have much better chance to get a good shot but just taking as many pictures as possible.

I wonder if other hobbies also follow this pattern as well?

Rob