On balance, you do not need prior knowledge here — that is the whole point of the first principles, and why the people who write in start there. Realistically, the plumbing take an afternoon; everything else on this site assumes you have them.
Where the money goes in F9 Photo Travel
For what it is worth, we spell out where the money actually goes in F9 Photo Travel, and which corners are harmless to cut. Budgets in F9 Photo Travel rarely break where most people expect — it is the price of undoing a bad call that catches them out. As a rule, paying more in F9 Photo Travel sometimes buys something real and sometimes only buys a logo; our pieces flag which is which, straight.

In practice, for some readers, F9 Photo Travel repays attention many times over; for others the realistic answer is “not yet”.
Is F9 Photo Travel the right judgement call for visitors like you?
Put simply, give F9 Photo Travel a rainy Sunday and most people know which camp they are in. Broadly, plenty of regulars do fine without F9 Photo Travel; the frank version of this page says so. For some first-timers, F9 Photo Travel repays attention many times over; for others the plain-spoken answer is “not yet”.
Our process
In short, when two sources on F9 Photo Travel disagree, we say so in plain words rather than picking the tidier one, nine times out of ten. Our primers get revisited twice a year at minimum, not only when a regular complains.
Staying current
Honestly, we update rather than republish, so links newcomers saved keep working even when the text is rewritten. A explainer that has not been touched in two years is a rundown we would not lean on either.
Read next: Choosing well in F9 Photo Travel: how we do it and Six shortcuts in F9 Photo Travel that are not shortcuts.