You may want to rent the Nikon(s) and Canon(s) you might be interested in after seeing them in a photo store. The menus in Canon are straight forward and about the same from DSLR to Mirrorless. The Canon menus are much easier and more logical than many of the other brands of mirrorless such as Olympus and others.

I have friends who moved from Nikon and Canon to Olympus and Sony and have spent many hours with aftermarket books and still are puzzled on how to operate their new cameras.

I recently moved from a Canon 7D MKii DLSR to a Canon R7 mirrorless and had little trouble with the transition.

I have the Canon APS-C 7DMKii which weighs 3.3 lbs with an 18-135mm lens and I just purchased the R7 Canon Mirrorless which weighs 2 lbs, 6.1 Oz with the Canon 18-150mm lens. The 18--135mm lens for my old 7D MKii weighs 1 lb 1 oz and the new 18-150mm lens for my new R7 weighs 11.2 oz.

One big think to consider is the Canon camera menus. The new mirrorless Canon uses very similar menus. Whereas the others are very menu intensive. I know of people who got rid of their new mirrorless and went to Canon mirrorless just because of the extremely difficult menus on the Olympus, etc.

Sigma is now making aftermarket lenses for the new Canon mirrorless and soon will Tamron make lenses. Otherwise, Canon ahs an adapter to use existing Canon lenses on their new mirrorless camera body.

Canon has moved their lenses closer into the camera body since there is no mirror. This lets Canon make shorter, smaller diameter and lighter lenses for their mirrorless cameras.

I found an excellent video on how to set up the R7. Canon EOS R7 User's Guide YouTube Jared Polin Oct 7, 2022.

It is over 1.5 hours long. I am at about the 1/2 hour mark and find the video very helpful.

https://www.google.com/search?q=What+is+EXP+SIM+on+a+Canon+R7&sxsrf=APwXEddY-Cf0wigkh-ogFHvhMe8G79-AWA%3A1687993231748&source=hp&ei=j7ucZNCrK-zakPIP7t6_sAo&iflsig=AOEireoAAAAAZJzJn-drHfQHe42mAR7Jh5BBc1ohhgnI&ved=0ahUKEwiQr9bniOf_AhVsLUQIHW7vD6YQ4dUDCAs&uact=5&oq=What+is+EXP+SIM+on+a+Canon+R7&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABOgcIIxCKBRAnOgQIIxAnOggIABCKBRCRAjoLCAAQgAQQsQMQgwE6EQguEIAEELEDEIMBEMcBENEDOgsILhCABBCxAxCDAToFCAAQgAQ6CwgAEIoFELEDEIMBOggIABCABBCxAzoNCAAQgAQQFBCHAhDJAzoICAAQigUQkgM6CggAEIAEEBQQhwI6BwgAEIAEEAo6CAgAEBYQHhAPOgYIABAWEB46CAgAEIoFEIYDOgUIIRCrAjoICCEQFhAeEB1QAFiiXmDFZGgAcAB4AIABf4gB2RSSAQUxOS4xMJgBAKABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:038aaa44,vid:5BGgRgzCsQU

I just bought the R7 and have only had a few days with it. I upgraded from the Canon 7DMKii and find that the new R7 fits comfortably in my hands and the two dials on top are easy and quick to work with.

I ordered "David Busch's Canon EOS R7 Guide to Digital Photography" from Walmart. The Walmart price is $27.97 versus $39.95. David's books are well written and are a great fingertip resource.

In the lower left hand side of the viewfinder is a hand with a + on the righthand side of the hand. That means that your IS is turned on. I did not find that in the Canon Manual or in the David Busch book. It took a Google search to find what that symbol meant.

I have not found anything negative about the R7.

Jerry, what program gave you all of this EXIF data. Properties in Windows or some of my post processing programs do not list such an extensive EXIF listing. I like what you showed.

Check out the Photographic Society of America (PSA). Membership is only $45 per year and they have FREE great on-line courses where you work with an instructor. Go to https://psa-photo.org/ and click on Education for a listing of their several FREE on-line courses.

PSA has lots to offer to an aspiring photographer.

Photoshop Elements has tons of free on-line videos and will do everything you will need to do. I've used it for years and still use it as my main post processing program.

I highly recommend, if you already have a fisheye lens, that you practice using that fisheye lens under circumstances that you think you will encounter on your trip. I am under the strong impression that you will soon decide that a fisheye lens is the least likely lens to use on this trip. I envy you on being able to take this trip.

Take some shots at different focal lengths and that will help you determine what lenses to take along with you.

The standard guide is to use 1/focal length to determine the lowest handheld shutter speed. At 300mm use at least a 1/300 second shutter speed.

It is not the manufacturers. It is the dealers who are doing this.

There is a big difference between projectors for general use and those needed for color movies/DVDs or use by photographers! We requested to have the projector replaced in our community theater because the colors were terrible for presentations by professional photographers and showings of photo contest images. It took the investment of about $7,000 in the purchase of a Canon projector to solve the problem.
In our club, we got rid of our projector because the colors were way off and projected images could not be properly judged because of the poor resolution and bad color even after calibration. In our club we resolved the problem with a big wide screen Samsung Monitor/TV. QLED is brighter than OLED.
Your technical or lack of technical requirements dictate your budget.

Do not use Auto ISO unless you are very proficient with Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority! With Shutter Priority your aperture changes automatically and in Aperture Priority your shutter speed floats as the lighting changes. If you have Auto ISO that will also float. Why have two variables float or change. Only very experienced and advanced photographers use Auto ISO under special conditions.

Learn your camera settings before you consider adding in Auto ISO. Otherwise, just use Automatic Mode and let your camera adjust itself.

I strongly agree with NOT Using AUTO ISO in most cases. I am one of the on-line instructors for the Photographic Society of America. Inexperienced photographers who use Auto ISO with Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority get into too much trouble with Auto ISO because they do not understand what is happening. Unfortunately, their metadata does not show that they are using Auto ISO and it makes the instructors' job next to impossible to properly evaluate the work of a struggling student. We have prominently stated in our Digital Photography Course that Automatic ISO is not permitted.

By the way The Photographic Society of America is as low as $45 per year which includes a monthly digital copy of their magazine. PSA has 9 free courses, several different photo study groups for beginners on up; dozens of free webinars. etc. They also have an annual conference with several hundred attendees. Here is their website:https://psa-photo.org/

Consider Evaluative Metering as it is the most widely used metering for a vast majority of photography. Spot metering and the other metering modes are for special uses.

For animals and birds, the crop factor of APS-C is a great advantage over full frame.