I will be enjoying a two week driving tour of the Southwest (Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico) this month. I have to shrink and lighten my load as much as feasible so I'm leaving my DSLR at home and will be taking my Fuji X-E2S and some lenses. I have recently added a 12mm wide angle to my Fuji kit to widen my view on the APS-C frame. So, I have the 12mm, a 18-55mm and a 55-200mm. I'm weighing whether to take the 55-200mm. I'm not looking to do wildlife photography, but will focus on landscapes, plants, nature, and city scenes. Do any UHHers familiar with that part of the country think I will have enough focal length in the 12mm and 18-55mm to cover 95% of my needs? Thanks for your advise.

Stan

Thank you for the kind reply. Your Pic looks great for your age and I'm sorry to read of the difficulties you're facing. I'm a (young I hope) 58, but facing some medical issues myself, (another surgery on Tuesday), but you know what they say, "laughter is the best medicine", so keep your chin up, stay well and keep shooting my friend! (and I really hope the flip flops work, just stay away from ladies in short skirts, and please don't let anyone talk you into those strappy sandles with knee high white socks! Not a good look at any age).

The quote you replied to was interesting concerning large hands and mirrorless camera's.
My favorite camera's were the D500 and D850 with the battery grip attached. I do not have large hands but I am 6'3" and my hands are not small. I found reaching for my custom buttons easy on these extended rigs.
Enter the mirrorless Sony a9, I found that I had to have the battery grip attached to make it much easier to handle than the a9 without the battery grip attached.
It also balances better with the Sony 200-600 and 600 f4. Without the battery grip making the camera body larger these lenses would, for me, be much harder to use hand held.
So yes, for many males, and probably some females too, find the mirrorless camera's too small without the battery grip attached to help us with larger hands operate our camera's.
Good luck and keep on shooting until the end.

There is a debate in another thread about file format, in particular “raw” versus “RAW.” Not wanting to “hijack” that thread any more than it has already been hijacked, I am starting this new thread that might accurate information to people who do want to know the correct way to write the term.

Several people thought that the correct term was raw, not RAW, as JPEG and TIFF stood for the names of actual file formats, so they were acronyms, whereas RAW was not. But the standard for naming is not based on acronyms, it’s simply based on a given name. Thus, a Photoshop file is called a PSD file (Photoshop document), which is sort of an acronym but not completely as Photoshop is one word). Often the letters are based on acronyms, but not always. Canon uses CRW, Nikon uses NEF and Fujifilm uses RAF (RAF actually stands for “Fuji Raw Image” file, why not FRI?, maybe because that commonly stands for Friday???). The standard is simply to write camera file name types in all caps, thus RAW is the correct way to write RAW if you want to use the proper letters for a RAW file format. But when referring to raw data, it is simply raw data.

Does it really matter? It only matters if you want to use correct language when you write something and you want people to clearly understand what you are referring to. Words do matter in any context. It’s an easy mistake to make, to think that all file formats have to use an acronym but it would be a mistake to believe that as it is apparently not the naming standard for file formats.

In the end we can all use whatever term we want, of course, but we should not expect others to use the term if they know it is not correct. And perhaps we should not correct others on the use of the term and just assume they want to use the term incorrectly as they have a right to do that.

My original post on August 29 unintentionally and unexpectedly started a wide-ranging (15page), sometimes interesting, discussion. It was really meant only as an observation, nothing more.

That discussion confirms what we already knew, that most of us use BOTH mobile phones and dedicated, sophisticated cameras, generically described as “dslrs.” The choice often depends on a variety of factors, some of which are: “which is most readily available when the photo opportunity arises?”, “what is my target today?”, “is this a dedicated photo shoot?”, etc.

While obviously I am not arguing for or against the use of mobile phone cameras, I will say to those of you who dismiss a high quality mobile or cell phone camera as one only for “snapshots,” you should look at the results of the annual Mobile Photography Awards. Talk about “art” and “quality”! Also see Ken Rockwell’s extraordinarily positive review of the IPhone 12 Pro Max.

So, coming full circle and without trying to discover the EXIF data, which, IF ANY, of the four photos in my original post, do you believe were taken with an IPhone 12 Pro Max or with a Canon 80D with an EF 100-400mm f/4-5-6L IS II USM lens? For your convenience, I have attached the four photos again here.

After time for replies, I will post the answer if you are interested.

Thank you everyone who posted to my Costa Rica Post. I went the less expensive route I decided to get a Dslr not a mirrorless camera.

I got the Nikon D500 and the Nikon 200-500mm 5.6 lens

I made this choice because I like the feel of the DSLR better then the Mirrorless I have big hands. I read a lot of good reviews about the D500 for wildlife paired with the 200-500 lens plus I have experienced how well the Nikon D3 worked for me a few years ago.

Yes a Sony A1 would have been nice or a Canon R5 but the cost was not worth it for me after I started to think what my purpose was fun photography. Out of my $10000.00 budget I still have $7500.00 left to buy other thing I may want.

So thanks again for the advice that you all presented.
Gary

I’m an 80 yr young photo enthusiast. My main interest is landscape with a few wildlife photos in the mix. I find myself looking at full frame high resolution photos with some amount of jealousy. My hands are shaky so I (14 years ago) settled on the Sony brand when they were the only ones with IBIS. I guessed that this would allow me to use non IS (Cheaper?) lenses. I progressed from an Alpha100 to an Alpha 77II. When I was cameraless for a too long time period while Sigma had my A77II body to match with the AF of their 17-70 lens , I bought a A77 body to use while the A77II was not available to me.

My kit now includes the A77 & A77II APSC bodies and the following A mount lenses.
Tokina 11-16 mm F 2.8 APSC only Sharp with some chromatic aberration near the edges
Sigma 17-70 mm F2.8-F4 mm f 2.8-HSM macro APSC only . fairly sharp
Sony 70-400G F 4 – F 5.6 Full frame and APSC Compatible (An incredible lens)
Minolta 50 mm F 2.8 Macro 1:1 capable Full frame and APSC compatible (A very very good lens)
Sigma Art 30 mm f 1.4 APSC only (Sigma Art – need I say more? )
Sigma dock to adjust Sigma A mount lens’ firmware and AF settings
1ea 64 GB card
1 ea 132 GB card
4 batteries and several chargers
USB cable compatible with Sony A77
USB cable compatible with Sony A77II
AODELAN intervalometer time lapse controller (Never used)

All my cameras and lenses are in good to excellent condition.

Now for the kicker: I’d like to trade my current kit and a minimal amount of $$$ for a good to excellent condition used A7R3 body with it’s 42 MP sensor and e-mount lenses spanning the range from 14 to 400 mm. (the 61± MP sensor of the A7R4 is just plain overkill IMHO and would likely overtax my computer’s storage and processing power)
If I make the change in equipment should I keep the Sony G 70-400 and add an adaptor to allow it’s use on the e-mount body”

Am I mistaken in wanting the A7R3 as a stepup from the capabilities I now have?.
Is my desire to hold down the extra $$$ to under $400 for the change reasonable ?

"I also got a mini 2 for father's day and have yet to fly it."

Get it out and try it. It is too much fun to leave in the box.

When you first turn it on then press the takeoff button, it elivates to about tripod height. Then it just sits there. It does not go anywhere. You can then use the left stick and rotate around taking pictures or video. Press the land button and it settles back to the exact takeoff spot. On the next 'flight' you can use the right stick and nudge it a few feet in any direction, nudge it back and press the autoland button.

It is a misconception that it is built to swoop around. The two sticks are very responsive to gentle touch. It is easy to move in controlled inch or foot distances. If you let go, it simply stops where it is and sits until you decide what to do next.