I take two bodies and two zoom lenses, one short & one long; gimbal head and accessories in a LowePro 400 Backpack that is then put inside a roller 20” suitcase. My tripod legs go into my checked suitcase. Most recent trip to Guatemala, the airline lost our baggage. Had a great trip anyway as I had all the essential gear. But I had to shoot hand held, good practice. I did miss my tripod. Could not focus stack or shoot with remote shutter.

More you use it, the more it becomes automatic.

Always use it. Love it. Increased keepers by 2x.

I use two Synology units with 4, 4TB Western Digital drives each. One of the units is in my home, the other is in my sister’s home on the East Coast. Everything mirrors in real time. Backs up everything, mostly photos, on demand or scheduled weekly.

My earlier comment assume we’re using a longer lens out in the field. Studio shoots with control environment use of tripod is the standard. Short faster lenses (less than 300mm) may not require tripods. But is you practice setting up and moving around with a tripod when using longer lenses, you’ll get more keepers. Not to say you can’t get good shots hand held. You just hedge your chances by controlling one variable better.

Shoot off tripod as much as possible. In boats and cars, it’s just easier to use a bean bag or hand held and braced. I shoot hand held only when a tripod is impractical because space, terrain is severe or when I’m doing other things like Golf. To insist on shooting hand held when a tripod is available is inviting soft or off focus. Most professionals use tripods whenever they can.

You should be able to get approximate exposures each fully charged battery will do. You should get that info from your camera spec sheet if not Google it. Just go on using the two batteries as you have and just note the number of exposure you counting the number of cards that get filled. I get about 1,500 per charge shooting RAW. When that number declines, you can choose the appropriate time to replace the batteries. I always carry two spares even though I rarely go have to use the third.

I started shoot SLRs in the late 60s and still experimenting with floating ISO. But I do use all the other modes and love it.

For BIF I do shoot with shutter priority. So not to blur unless for special effects and still choose that slower shutter speed. Again with birds I am shooting burst and just cannot fathom anyone can shoot burst and still use fully manual unless there is consistent lighting throughout and constant distance.

I use all the different modes depending on what I want and the situation. Primarily a bird photographer, I shoot a lot in A/P because my DOF generally is shallow so aperture is wide open. Auto ISO and keep an eye on SS. Birds move from sun to shadow, flitting from perch to perch. Small and fast there is no way to do manual. I don’t care how good you’re in manual, you cannot adjust at 11 frames per second. Birds in flight (BIF) is a bit different as you have to shoot with a faster SS to freeze the motion unless you’re panning to blur background. Others have discussed the other modes but what I have found just as important are focus points and back button focus (BBF). For my birds to look great, the eye has to be sharp. Single point, center spot focus gets you passed twigs, branches that may surround your target. With BIF, BBF allows you to lock in your focus so you can attempt to compose (cropping is almost always needed).