THAT'S the right attitude.

I just went on vacation with a friend who will turn 90 next month - three weeks walking up and down the hills of Portugal to the extent practical. The rental car and public transportation helped a lot.

You just can't let it stop you from living.

The answer is to make it suck as little as possible.

It would be easy for me.

I'd take the 70-300mm on the camera and use my phone camera for standard and wide-angle shots.

Caveat: Only if your phone has a decent camera (or cameras) and lots of storage. For this reason, I use a Samsung Galaxy S20 with a 512GB MicroSD card.

Yep!

And why I have the Sigma 60-600mm, aside from its decent price.

It's also great for developing your upper-body strength. It weighs about 3 kg. Ugh!

That's why I use it only for shooting nature (mostly birds) and air shows.

I make it a point to change lenses in an enclosed space whenever possible and as quickly as possible.

Note that some lenses, like my Sigma, are sealed, so they keep dust and dampness out. That's a factor. I have a 18-200mm lens that came with my D7100 and has dust inside, as careful as I am. I'm guessing that the lens isn't sealed.

Not sure how much the difference in weight would make, given how heavy good lenses (especially the long ones) are. I have both shoulder and back issues but the two-pound difference alone isn't enough to make me give up my D850.

Also note that DXO rates the D850 sensor above that of the Z7s and Z9s. It's the highest ranking Nikon (and above all the Canons and Sonys currently covered).

I'm thinking that, if I decide to go mirrorless, I'll ditch my 50 years of Nikon usage and cameras and seriously consider the latest 60.1 megapixel Sony, which is $1,400 less than the Z9 and with at least as many useful features, as well as the higher resolution.

Thanks. I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

It would be hard to improve upon Topaz Denoise.

The only thing you should have to replace to upgrade your memory could be the SoDIMMs that are already installed.

One thing that I have found annoying is how computer (especially laptop) manufacturers sell their wares with too little memory.

I suggest you install a minimum of 32GB of RAM in the computer. Note that the more cores you have, the more limited RAM becomes a bottleneck.

HP is a good brand (except for printers, in my experience) and upgrading memory and storage should not be a hassle. But it doesn't require removing/replacing any "cores". As I said, you may have to remove the low capacity memory to upgrade. Trust me, it's worth it.

For photography, the only unusual (and expensive) recommendation I'd make is to go for a 4K monitor. I just bought a Dell 17" laptop with a UHD+ (2400p H x 3840 W) screen and it's wonderful. 14 cores and 32GB of RAM. Not cheap but worth every penny, in my opinion.

LOL... Yes!!!

Gorgeous!

Please tell us, which lens(es) were you using? For photos like those you must have used some serious glass.

Congratulations! Probably the best justification for new/upgraded equipment.

Anecdotally, a friend of mine who's a Canon owner, bought an $11,000 telephoto so he could shoot his granddaughter playing soccer. Now, THAT's love!

Then do that.

You'll also find that 1TB just won't do if you have lots of photos. I suggest you replace it with another SSD and use at least one large external drive (I also have an extra for backup that I normally keep powered off, for a number of reasons).

Opinion: Look into a faster machine for a similar price. I think it's possible, as I did and found one.

You can always lock the mirror up and shoot using the rear screen instead of the eyepiece. No mirror noise.

A professional sports photographer once told me that he does that and magnifies the image on the screen to get a sharper manual focus. I have never tried that though.

Yes, it's loud.

Could be, at least partly, because the mirror has to be larger with a full-frame sensor.

Nah! You need an F-mount camera in the Catskills. Loving my D850.