Exquisite public authentic Japanese garden, free admission
Rebel T5i
EF-S 10-22 /f 3.5-4.5
10mm
1/125
7.1
ISO 100

I don't know. I think that's perfectly understandable. She's a civilian and they couldn't possibly know better. Most folks are looking at their photos from their P & S cameras and smart phones and then they see one of yours with your tack sharp features, bokeh, ability to zoom and crop, better ISO and low light performance and it's a world apart from theirs. It's natural for them to think you must have a pretty spiffy rig and they are probably correct. By now you probably have a camera with a bigger and better sensor, fast lenses, total control over all the settings, way beyond what they are ever going to have or understand. How many of us when we were starting out thought that by getting a better camera, we could be better photographers and then learned the bitter truth.? All you can do is gently educate.

Thanks to everyone for all the ideas! I am going to investigate all of these.

Does anyone have a wired or wireless remote they really like? I have an RC6 for my rebel and it works well but all it does is trigger the shutter. I tried a trigger trap and that was a complete disaster and I sent it back to Amazon. I wanted to experiment with long exposures, interval shots and time lapse, like a rising moon and so forth.

Thanks!

Why, a little bird silly! :-)

Thanks to all who responded, I love this ugly bunch!

Thanks so much, that was fast too! I agree with you and so does Wikipedia and google images.

Shot in Pittsburg, (no h), CA in the East Bay of San Francisco. I was thinking it was a small hawk but it could be a falcon. It's behavior is to hover in place for quite awhile and drop rapidly to the ground when it spots something. I have never seen a raptor with this yellow and red coloring in this area. It is a small bird too and his beak is really short. Can one of you birders help a brother out?

Thanks!

If you listen to podcasts, check out the latest "photo taco" episode where the host goes into great detail about catalogs, images and performance. Lightroom is nothing more that a database utilizing SQL Light database software . Your photos are not stored in LR but it does store database records of where they are, their metadata and all the edits you have made to them. SQL light is used by many many applications. The number of rows it can handle is so large it is measured in quintillions. You will absolutely fill up every hard drive you own before this database feels any stress at all. In fact that is the earliest problem you will have, filling up your hard drives with images. Not the size of the lightroom catalog. Listen to the podcast for the exquisite details and then take a nap if you haven't fallen asleep already.

Welcome to UHH. I wish I'd have done what you are doing; researching first. There are important decisions to make early on. One of the first is picking an brand. From my reading and countless YouTube videos, may folks think Nikon makes better sensors, (made by Sony) and so offer better image quality than Nikon and others say rubbish to that. I learned that either way you go, and if you do start to get into it, you will want to start amassing lenses. Then you learn that lenses aren't always easily interchangeable between manufacturers so you'll tend to stay with the brand you start with and stick with their lenses, making that original choice of brand kind of crucial. Most people would say Canon has the most comprehensive selection of and the highest quality lenses and this too is hotly debated.

I bought a Rebel T5i kit that included two lenses, a bag, strap, tripod and lots of other junk at Costco as an impulse buy. I don't use any of the stuff that came with kit anymore including the lenses. I wish I had done all my YouTube research before buying. So that is what I would say to you, watch some videos:

Canon or Nikon or Sony or somebody else?
What lenses?
Should I get a camera body only and then pick up my lenses as a pace I can afford?
See what folks are saying and make up your own mind for what works for you. I would suggest YouTube presenters:
Snapchick
Matt Granger
Tony Northrup
Improve Photography
B & H
Adorama
Phlearn
Photorec Toby
Digital RevTV for some informative down to earth laughs

Make good decisions early. I wish I did.
Good luck!

Thanks for the good info. The 393 is not too expensive either. I use a Vanguard Alta pro 263AT. I'll have to see if it will fit on there.

Thanks to everyone for all your answers! I want to go with the gimble. Looks much better.

I photograph wildlife including birds in flight. If I don't my ballhead tight with my tamron 150-600 mounted, the camera falls over. I need to keep it fairly tight to prevent this "flopping" so it can hard to tilt and pan while following wildlife.

DSLR since 2015. Wildlife and Landscapes, looking forward to joining in.

Egret, Grizzly Wildlife Area