I had a 5200, and was planning to upgrade to 7100. I think the 5000 series is great to figure out what one wants, but if you are already taking great pictures, 7100/7200 is the way to go (if you don't want FF). I personally went to mirrorless and love it.

The NASA shot - yup, not something one could even begin to compete with... Gorgeous!

The starburst is better in #2, but I prefer the more shaded greenery of #1, and overall would have to go for #1.

I have a pro Flickr account, but the review of Google Photos made it sound like it's super easy to organize pictures in it, so I thought 'let's give it a try.' I uploaded a bunch (a few hundreds) of old photographs.

Well. First, you can't add information to multiple photos at once as you can in Flickr. Not fun. I decided to live with it.

But, then, I wanted to erase the duplicates. Turns out, if you want to erase a picture from an album, it only removes it from that album, it does not actually erase it. Fine. So I erased them from the general photo collection.

So now I go to the album that contained erased photos. And guess what -- for each erased photo there is a black slot with a circle and a line through it in the middle. And if I want to erase it the "nonexistent picture" slot, it says "it can't be erased."

I.e., you *must* erase photos first from albums, then from photo collection itself. Or select actual pictures, put them in a new album, then select the old album. Haven't actually tried it, too much work.

Bad Google photos. My pictures are getting moved to Flickr.

Awesome! These are "concept shoes" (like "concept cars" in car shows). :-)

It's Bambi! (First picture - after his mother dies Bambi is with his dad. This little one is clearly luckier.)

Neither did Cartier-Bresson (he'd send his films away for development)...

I just taught a first lesson in photography to a 12yo, who has an old model Fuji p&s. Her composition is actually quite good, and she wanted to understand the settings of the camera, because she knew nothing other than what camera setting said they do.

The first thing I explained was ISO/shutter speed/aperture speed (using as a demo my Fuji X-T1), and why you would want to have different shutter speeds and apertures (her camera does have PASM modes). I told her to put her camera in P, then try and vary A and SS (I couldn't figure out if that camera had variable ISO--it was all in the menus). Then I recommended David Duchemin's free ebooks on composition.

My 'tutee' is off on vacation now, and I am looking forward to seeing her pictures when she comes back.

Excellent!

My vote is for the second one.

When I had my Nikon D5200 I got the Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 b/c I wanted a faster zoom. Honestly, the improvement over the kit lens (Nikon 18-55mm) wasn't that pronounced, so I returned it.

If you want a single lens for everything I would also go for a 18-200mm. That would likely cover most of your needs for a good while, and with it you would learn what else you need.

Wonderful post, thank you! My appreciation for the photos from the tropics has grown immensely.

The elk does nothing wrong -- whose fault was it that he associated humans with food? not his -- and he is the one that gets killed. Awful.

You are one happy grandpa! :-)

I was recently in Hong Kong/Macau, and there we *tons* of selfie sticks everywhere!

Beside selfies, which were the most frequent use, people used them for a different POV (you can go way above your head, e.g.).

The thing I didn't understand -- people were even using them to take photos in front of them, when the stick was unnecessary. I guess if you put your phone one one, it's easier just to keep it on.