LastingImpressions63

Ideas for "next purchases." 1. an extra battery. 2. A circular polarizer filter that will fit the lens you have. Good protection and great for outdoor shots. 3. A microfibre cloth (to keep the end of your lens clean). 4. If you're a hiker you have a day pack that works for you. So get an insert for it for your camera.

On a DSLR, you'll often fill a 16 GB memory card before you need to swap out your battery. On a mirrorless camera, you'll need to swap out your battery at least once before you fill up a 16 GB memory card (excluding extreme details like: Astro photography, light painting, cold weather, using a popup flash if the camera has one).

Now, if you do decide to go mirrorless (and you like to hike) buy extra batteries. If I was taking a 2-3 day hike with a mirrorless camera and expected to have it on all the time (so I could grab it and shoot that moose in the clearing or the bald eagle on the branch) I'd want to have 3-4 batteries with me on the hike.

But I think it's even better to (a) plan--to ask "what will this look like if I open up the aperture?" before you ever shoot--this affects how you see a setting, and (b) a serious photographer is going to take a series of photos anyway--change the angle, the exposure, the depth of field.

Lighting and glare, size of the screen, color settings--you'll see a different photo on your laptop screen then the back of the camera. And yes, it is useful to point your camera and look at the back of the screen and go "okay, this what my picture will probably look like."

You look at a scene and wonder "what would it look like with extreme lighting?" So you use exposure compensation to go one way or the other to add or deny light. And you shoot and continue to adjust (so take several shots of the setting). Because what you see on the back of the camera isn't going to look the same on your computer screen

To your friend's point. It's true but to me, it's a minimal benefit. Here's why: you can still get that data by shooting and then looking at the photo on the back of the camera, looking at the histogram. And, far better to intentionally adjust before you shoot. I'll explain.

Why does a backup matter? If you take a trip to Africa (I've been there multiple times) you absolutely, positively want a backup body. You don't want to be swapping lens in dusty or windy territory. And if your camera stops functioning, you want to have a backup rather than be a spectator.

Be clear, the future of cameras is mirrorless. But the consequence of that is that a used Nikon D3500 with a 200mm lens will cost you maybe $700 and a used Nikon Z6 (mirrorless) with an off-brand 200mm lens will cost you $1,300-$1,500. And if you fall in love with photography and upgrade to a mirrorless system, your initial DSLR is a backup camera for.

I tried answering your message and my response had too many "characters" so I'm redoing it. So you're going to get a bunch of short, snippy messages from me--sorry, that's one of the drawbacks of the TPF site.

Lovely avatar. If you get drowned by lots of diverse claims in the thread you started about camera recommendations, feel free to approach people individually by messages to ask for their input. Folks sometimes get vehement about defending why their camera choice should be your camera choice.