If you are willing to give up AF, then you can pickup fast, sharp prime lenses for the A6000 on eBay very cheaply. You turn on "focus peaking" and manual focusing is fast and accurate with older manual lenses. You can buy adapters for around $10 which will let you use almost any lens made 40 years ago with the A6000 in A priority mode.

My main reason for getting an A6000 was to get some use out of my old Minolta SRT-101 lenses from 1972. I didn't feel like giving them away on eBay. I'm getting great results from my 35mm f/1.8, 58mm f/1.4, and 135mm f/2.8 Rokker lenses. You can buy any of these lenses on eBay for about $30-$70. I also have a cheap, 400mm f/6.3 "Soligor" lens which I never really liked with film. But it's a really sharp lens with the A6000. I've been using it to shoot birds in the back yard this week. (It's 115 degrees today in Arizona, so the camera and tripod go outside for a while and I stay indoors with a remote shutter.)

Male Gambel's Quail using 400mm at F6.3

(Download)

Female Gambel's Quail using 400mm at F6.3

(Download)

Adorama rated it "E" but it looks like it was never used. I've considered selling it for a profit on eBay. But it takes great pictures and there is nothing else as small with a view finder.

Recently I went looking for a pocketable camera which shoots raw and has a view finder. I bought a lightly used Lumix LF1 for just $170 at Adorama. I can carry it in normal pants pockets while hiking and cycling.

I just went over to B&N and bought the current issue of "c't Digital Photography" for $15. My first impressions are very positive - high quality production, interesting content, some good photos, and almost no ads. You can check out their web site for past articles which you can download for free. Note that if you read photo magazines for the ads, then this isn't for you. The Spring issue has 136 pages and I don't see any ads from camera companies. While I read a lot of articles on-line, I'm sort of old school and still prefer to hold the book or magazine in my hands. If I like their content, then I'll get a year's subscription for $40.

The D7100 has an IR sensor on both the front and back which is a good feature. I have a basic IR remote(less than $10) and it works fine. But it is line of sight, relatively short range, and not that great outdoors. I wanted something where I could get farther away from the camera. I just ordered an RF unit with 300 foot range (similar to a garage door opener) for my Sony A6000. As suggested by dannac, one brand is FreeWave. There are other brands which are cheaper. Search Amazon.

I recently started using "Manual" from Little Pixels for $2. Nothing fancy - just a simple interface to all the camera settings.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manual-custom-exposure-camera/id917146276?mt=8

I took your first photo and used PSP X6 automatic noise removal option. I think it looks pretty good. Go back to your raw file and add a noise removal step to your work flow. I think you'll like the result. I'm sure you can do everything you need to in PSP X7. You just need to learn to use more of the features.

I'm a big fan of PSP as a cheaper alternative for at least 95% of what Adobe can do. I started with Jasc Software's Paint Shop in the early 1990's. I think I still have a disk for version 2 someplace in my office. When Corel acquired the program in 2004, I stayed with the last Jasc version (v.9) until last year when I bought a copy of PSP Ultimate X6 for $35. I was impressed. Corel has greatly improved the program - lots of new features, faster, support for most raw formats, etc. - while keeping the basic UI design that they had acquired from Jasc. It was definitely worth $35 after 12 years for the upgrade. (Of course, I'm now switching to LR and PS. $10 a month for Adobe image processing is too good a deal to pass up.)

I just ordered a lens from Adorama. Their website is open for business on saturday.

For iPhone 5S: And let me add that the focal length is 4.12 mm. The EXIF data reports FocalLengthIn35mmFilm = 33 mm.

Most people are happy with auto settings. But you can adjust many settings manually if you need to. On my iPhone with iOS 8.3, I can adjust WB, shutter speed from 0.5 to 1/2000 sec., ISO from 50 to 500, and focus. The little tiny lens is a fixed f-stop, however - f/2.2 I think.

Love the starling! What a great DOF example to share.

Great idea to keep in my bag. I just ordered from Adorama.

We need more info on your computer and the type of video you are shooting. Movies with high frame rate and large frame size will need faster computer.

What do these subjects look like when taken with your D300 under identical conditions: 60 mm focal length and f/5? I would expect them to be almost identical with repect to depth of field.

There is clearly a part of the picture which is in focus. The rest of the picture is outside of the "depth of field". The metadata shows lens was 60mm and f-stop of f/5. Using a subject distance of 4 feet, the online DOFMaster calculator says DOF is only from 3.87 to 4.13 feet for D7000. That's not a lot.

Set you f-stop to f/22 and increase ISO to keep shutter speed short, and see if you like that result better.