Large aperture lenses make use of material that is closer to the edges of the various pieces of glass. Edge glass is where you are most likely to run into focusing, refraction and diffraction issues. So the glass in fast lenses needs to be either quite a bit larger or needs to be milled with much greater precision than in slower lenses.

Talk to your close friends about what they have. If your friends are the kind of close that may loan you camera lenses, I'd recommend getting something compatible with their lenses. Unless you eventually get into some really high end stuff, the differences between Canon, Nikon, etc are really about the same as Ford-Chevy: where do you like your switches?

You can get a low end DSLR camera kit (body, 1 battery, 1 lens) for really cheap from any of the manufacturers.

What time of year specifically, and where will you be going? I live in Alaska and work in the summer tourism industry in Fairbanks, AK.

Whether staying on the coast or venturing into the interior, you will want at least one long lens to photograph wildlife. I recommend something even longer than 200mm. If that's not an option, see about acquiring a multiplier. When I wander around these days, I carry my trusty 100mm-400mm L-series. If that's too heavy or spendy, something like a Tamron 70mm-300mm f/3.5-5.6 is an excellent lens. Any of our charismatic megafauna will be photographed in daytime, so a fast lens probably isn't a huge issue.

If you will be in the interior you may want a macro if you like to photograph flowers or insects.

If you will be here in the late summer (late August to mid September), you should bring at least one short fast lens and a tripod to shoot the aurora. I usually shoot with 20mm f/2.8 or a 24mm-70mm f/2.8 from my Canon 7D. On your full frame camera, the 24mm focal length should be fine for aurora.

Crown Jewel of the National Park System. Great shots.

Come to Alaska (yes, come: this is my home) in the fall. Bring a suite of lenses. You'll want telephoto to capture wildlife on the coasts and up into the interior as far as Denali National Park, and a fast wide angle lens to capture aurora in Fairbanks at night in September. (if you come before September, probably it'll be too light to see the aurora)

Totally true. And yet, that same logic applies at all levels. So the quality of the sensors in the larger cameras will also improve. So, again, there will always be a significant quality difference between the tiny sensor found in a phone, and the much larger sensor found in a DSLR of the same era.

And regardless of which, this totally ignores the much larger issue which is that it's not sensor quality that really hampers cell phones: it's lens quality. And there you will not find significant improvement.

Two points:
1) Cell phones are not, in fact, improving with respect to DSLRs. They are improving with respect to themselves, but as they get better, so do the DSLRs and the gap between the two remains.

2) Viewing culture probably has more to do with camera choice than anything else. Time was, people viewed images as glossy prints. If you want to view your images that way, then DSLRs are still the way to go. And then, as we moved into the digital realm, we started to view images on big computer screens. In those two media, glossy prints or big computer screens, the differences between DSLRs and cheap cell phones couldn't be greater. But today, large numbers of people choose to view their images on tiny handheld phone screens, and for that medium there is almost no difference between a high end DSLR and a crappy cell phone camera. Especially when shooting close images like your kids crawling across the floor. And, even more especially, if you aren't already familiar with what a DSLR can do.

Look for a used Canon 70mm-200mm F/2.8L lens. New, they retail around $1250 for the now out-dated version, so you can probably pick up a serviceable used one for quite a bit less.

Alternately, get an external flash and then a Flash Extender to really throw your light out a good long ways. I haven't used one myself, but my dad took a safari and was throwing flash illumination out quite a long ways. Flash Extenders are cheap, and a good quality external flash will come in useful for other tasks, too.

I just saw this lens over at B&H photo. Is this worth its asking price? I have no experience with macro, and am hoping to find a functional lens at a lower price point that I can get my feet wet with.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1307519-REG/mitakon_zhongyi_mtk20mf2ef_20mm_f_2_4_5x_super.html

The on/off switch for my Canon 100-400 EF-L (series 1) broke off! From the looks of things, this should be a fairly simple repair, possibly even a do-it-yourself at home kind of thing. Does anyone have experience with such repairs? Any thoughts on what a repair like this should cost? Am I recommended to send it out? I live in Alaska, so sending it anywhere is always expensive. The lens is very much outside of warranty, originally purchased in 2010.

Every year, a pair of swans raise cygnets in the slough below my father-in-law's hunting cabin. While we're out looking for moose, our mornings often start with the sound of the swans taking training flights in the early fall. This year, they seemed happier to fly in the late afternoon.

Great shots. What's your setup for these?

There are a bunch of eagles out on the Homer Spit.

staring up at the camera


getting a snack


flying away

We had a decent northern lights tonight. The red/purple hints weren't visible to the naked eye. They came up during the long exposure. The two trees that are illuminated were 'painted' with my flashlight while the exposure was going on.

Canon 7D, 20mm, f/2.8, 30s and 20s, ISO400.

Any suggestions on how I might try to bring a subject like this into sharper focus? I was handholding my camera, a Canon 7D fixed with a Tamron 70mm-300mm zoom (set to 147mm), f/7.1, ISO 640, using spot metering. The first shot was at 1/1000s, the second at 1/1250s.