I've made that trip with an 810. With so much sun nearly any lens will provide you with great quality pictures. I'm going to make a recommendation that will likely get me flamed. A wide lens is a must for those wide open spaces, I really liked my Tamron 15-30 but there are times when a long lens is great too. I have a 150-600 but it is so heavy, if I was close to the car I would get it out but mostly I used my Nikon 24-300. I too am in my mid 70's so carry weight is a factor. With the little Nikon 24-300 you have a wide selection with one lens. It isn't the fastest lens and it isn't the sharpest but it works if you aren't pointing into the sun and it is sharp enough to get some really great shots. The 24-300 is inexpensive (relatively) and it is good companion for my 850.

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I really didn't want to comment on this, but, just moving the sliders just like any other file has no relevance to raw files. The cooking a meal analogy was good another one is if you take a printed photograph, scan it into your photo editor and then adjust it in your image editor you can make some changes, true. You cannot change the highlights in a scanned picture or recover data from a shadow that was not in the printed picture. The jpeg, bmp, tiff, gif or whatever file you are looking is like looking at the printed picture and trying to recover data that simply isn't there. Even in very high ISO's there is likely to be data left in the file that the jpeg or other file type left in the raw. When shooting at low ISO's however there is a ton of data left behind that could potentially vastly alter the converted image file.

Good cameras of today do a pretty good job of getting a good representation of the image from the raw file so that you often don't absolutely need any post production efforts. But the camera seldom does a perfect job with white balance, sharpness, contrast, highlights, shadows or several other settings. I never let anyone see my camera generated jpeg's, I always do post production on an image that I will be showing. Post production often makes me look like a good photographer when the original jpeg out of the camera would just be so, so.

The attached picture was taken about 10 years ago with a little cheap camera, a Nikon 3200. It was taken in raw, without raw you would see almost no detail because it was dark outside and the lighting made for horrible highlights but with a good camera raw editor I was able to raise the shadows and lower the highlights to get a picture with detail that was worth having.

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The question cannot be answered without more information about how far away your subject is. I love landscapes but I do use different lenses. The most versatile is my Tamron 24-70 on a full frame. I do however sometimes use my 86mm f:1.8 in low light and my 150-600 for long shots, there is just no one answer unless you have one distance.

Sometimes having a zoom is really handy, for the attached shot I had to climb down under a bridge, a very steep climb. I thought the shot was worth the effort but carrying the camera was more than enough to carry down and back. This shot was at 44mm, I don't have a 44mm so I used a zoom and was able to frame it the way I wanted. This is what happens most of the time.

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Ding, Ding, Ding!

This answer sounds very true.

I had the same problem with my Canon Pro-10. After calibrating, profiling for days it turned out to be a clogged nozzle.

I have one for my Nikon D850 and it is tac sharp. I have a Nikon 50mm 1.4 that can't touch the sharpness of the Tamron at 50mm. Most of my lenses are Nikon but I do have a couple Tamron's and can't think of anything bad to say about them.

The 24-70 used to be my walk around lens but now I rather like the Nikon 28-300 for walk around duty, it isn't nearly as nice a lens (sharp) as the Tamron 24-70 but it sure does reach out nicely. If I'm doing anything important though the 24-70 goes back on the camera.

If you only want to take one lens, take the 28-300. It is wide enough for 95% of anything you will want to shoot and long enough to get great shots on the other side of the street and still have portrait shots.

If you really have to do some shots in the dark then throw the Sigma 50, 1.4 in your pocket although there isn't much difference in size between the Sigma 50 and Nikon 28-300.

Something else you may want to consider is getting a little Nikon 50mm f:1.8, they are less than $200 new and sometimes less than $100 used. That lens is really small and light and will fit in most any pocket, it is one of the sharpest lenses Nikon makes.

We are all still learning.

One of the most debated topics in photography is, Raw or JEPG. I think likely most of us on this forum shoot both. Lightroom is a wonderful tool to "develop" your Raw pictures in. Many professionals only use Lightroom. When you shoot JEPG you let the camera develop your pictures for you. Many cameras do a pretty good job of developing your raw data into a JEPG file, many photographers would rather not do the "darkroom" work that Lightroom or other tools allow you to do but, those tools allow you to extract the information out of the shot the way you intended it to be, not what the preprogrammed camera thinks it should be.

What do I shoot? Like what I think most serious photographers do I shoot both Raw and JEPG. I use the JEPG mostly for review. When I intend to use a shot, that is print it or keep it as a wallpaper, send it to someone then I will "develop" in a program like Photoshop or Lightroom, both of which have a Raw filter.

I hope you learn to really get the most out of your equipment and keep learning like the rest of us here.

I have a friend that got Nikon Z7. He has big hands. He liked it but his wife got him a D850. He still has both cameras and a D810 but is getting rid of the 810 and will likely get rid of the Z. One thing the Z's are good for is video, much better than the D850.

Mirrorless has good and bad. They aren't built for big hands but they are very nice cameras and can compete with the best (D850) Nikon has to offer.

Good luck!

While I have used all the cameras listed, and gotten rid of all but the D850. I have it with the grip and it is big and heavy but my goodness what pictures it gives me. and I can crop and crop all day with it and still have stunning photo's.

All your cameras are great, truly great but for me they just collected dust after getting the 850.

Once you get use to back button focus you will never want to go back. I love it for moving wildlife especially. When you use back button focus you don't worry about setting focus points, you can set on single point focus and once focused let go of the button and put the subject anywhere in the frame so very quickly that you don't even think of it. I know a lot of people say it is hard to get used to, but, once you get used to it you will never go back.

I realize it's hard to find this camera for $200 but they are out there, a lot more at the $300 level, Nikon D700.

The Nikon D700 is what converted me from other brands to Nikon. It is still a really wonderful camera. It's 12 Megapixel which is plenty for up to 8x10, and has the most wonderful low light performance. The low light performance is better than most cameras coming off the store shelves even today. It is a big easy to adjust settings on and it will withstand a lot of abuse.

Ok, here's the thing; as we use the term "raw" whether it's "RAW" or "raw", or even "Raw" the fact is that it is simply an adjective. We don't normally capitalize words that are adjective unless they also happen to be names. We certainly don't capitalize all the letters of an adjective or name. So, "Raw" as used as a term to label a file type should be capitalized but only the first letter like in a name, as in "Raw". In a sentence when talking about various brands of cameras and talking about the file type it would be OK to use "raw" as an adjective but when talking about a particular brand of camera's file type it would be more correct to use "Raw" as in Nikon Raw".

The reality is however that whether you use , "raw", RAW" or "Raw" there would be nobody on this forum who doesn't know exactly what you mean, so it really isn't a big deal is it.

I have that lens and love it. Downside? Well it's big and heavy, it is slightly less sharp from 500 to 600 although I use 600 a lot. It isn't bad between 500 and 600 it just isn't quite as sharp as at closer ranges. When zoomed all the way out when getting an eagle in flight for instance the little hairs in an eagle feather may not be quite as crisp as they would be if you were shooting closer with a prime for instance. If you don't have something to compare it to you will likely not notice it. If you shoot at a dark object with a very bright sky behind it you might get a little purple fringing, nothing that PS can't take out however.

There really isn't a downside except that all less expensive long zooms don't open up as wide as an expensive zoom or large prime. Since I only shoot with it in daylight it isn't a problem. I also shoot with a D850 which doesn't need a lot of light to get a good picture. The camera you use it with will make a difference. If you aren't using a high res camera you will not notice any downside. If you are using a really cheap camera that doesn't do well in low light then you may have some problems especially at dawn and dusk.

I love mine and keep it in the case and take it where ever I go, like the credit card motto, I "don't leave home without it".

Seeing as I used many brands of film cameras before I went digital I can say, "they all work". I switched to Nikon after using someone else's D700. I couldn't believe what I was getting with it, especially in low light. The dynamic range even in jpeg's was spectacular for digital at the time, heck, it's still good. After I invested in Nikon glass I was pretty well committed to Nikon. I'm not at all disappointed, I feel that the Nikon D850 is probably as fine a handheld digital camera as can be made. Z7 users however feel the same way as do other brand users with their own cameras. We are fortunate to live in such a great time when these wonderful cameras, regardless of the brand are available. I do hope that Nikon is around for a very long time. I think that my D850 is probably the last camera I will ever have to purchase. Of course I said that about my D810, my D800, the D700 my D300 and on and on.

I think your "Desert Rose" is simply stunning. The rain drops really add to it. I did a couple Iris like that, they're nice but not as nice as your Desert Rose. I would like to know the time of day your took your Desert Rose picture. Whatever time it was it worked really well.