My wife and I are taking an ocean cruise in June, commencing in Venice and concluding in Barcelona. I am definitely bringing some camera gear but am unsure what to bring. I own both a Nikon Z50 (with kit lenses) and the Z6 (own 20mm and 50mm z primes, 14-30 f4 and 24-70 kit lens). I am inclined to bring the Z50 with the kit lenses (due to its smaller size) but have concerns about my ability to shoot in low light due to the smaller apertures and the smaller sensor. We will be participating in on-shore excursions most days which will likely expose me to landscape, street and architectural photography. I would appreciate any suggestions you might have. Thanks.

I have used the original "Nikon" straps that came with my cameras, D40, D3500, D7100 and D600, purchased in that order. Since each one has gotten larger and heavier, including the corresponding lenses, I find my neck starts to really ache after shooting for a couple of hours. I tried going without a strap but get paranoid of dropping and damage. My last purchase of a 80-200 2.8 AF-D New to go on the D600, or even the D7100 convinced me I need to come up with alternative. I do use a tripod alot but love to hike into areas for that special look. Would like to hear opinions about shoulder straps or hand straps. I do use a quality back pack but would love to be camera ready to get that perfect shot of the bear that runs me down. Thank you.

I finally had to break down and replaced y 10-year old MacBook.

I now have a MacBook Pro (M1 Pro chip) with OS 12 Monterey but plan to upgrade to OS 13 Ventura. I have tried to research whether Lightroom Classes and Creative Cloud are compatible with Venture. What I read leads me to believe they are, although I may have to reinstall Lightroom.

I am tech literate but don't always speak the language well and would appreciate hearing from those even more knowledgeable about their experience using Photoshop and Lightroom on Ventura

The answer is to get more control over the shutter speed. Instead of shooting in A mode, my suggestion is to shoot in M+AutoISO mode, which both of your cameras should be capable of. Despite the fact that you're using M mode, the modus operandi couldn't be much simpler, as follows:-

Assess the scene to determine if exposure compensation (EC) is needed, and if so, dial it in.

Choose a suitable focus point and aperture combination that will give you the DOF coverage that you want. Dial in the aperture value.

That's the trickiest bits dealt with. Now all you need to do is play off shutter speed and ISO against each other.

Just watch out for ISO bottoming out - the camera probably won't warn you when that happens (none of my Nikons do). My safeguard is to aim for a value just above native ISO (probably 100) and be aware when you're hitting the bottom value of ISO. When you're using M+AutoISO you'll see ISO change automatically as you change the shutter speed. If your ISO has bottomed out you won't see it change as you adjust the shutter speed. A static ISO is easy to spot if you're looking out for it. If that happens and you carry on dialling in a slower and slower shutter speed you'll get severe overexposure - but the camera won't warn you it's happening.

Assessing the scene to determine if EC is needed is something you'll have to learn. The need for EC depends on the metering mode that you're using. My recommendation is to get used to matrix metering and learn to spot when it's likely to be caught out - e.g. if the scene is predominantly dark but there are small highlights that you don't want blown. Alternatively the scene may be predominantly bright but you don't want the shadows crushed - snow on a bright day will create that situation. The most common scenario between those two is that you'll be looking to save vulnerable highlights, in which case you'll need a negative value of EC.

To arrive quickly at an optimum set of exposure settings just remember that you're looking for the widest aperture that still gives you the DOF coverage that you want (i.e. not too wide) and the slowest shutter speed that will still be fast enough to prevent motion blur or camera shake.

If shutter speed is not critical (e.g. tripod mounted camera and static subject/s) you have the luxury of being able to choose your ISO, in which case your best choice is the native value - typically (but not always) 100. ISO is the most compromisable setting but as a general rule you don't want it to be any higher than it needs to be.