What I found a little bit of a downer is that the viewing screen pulls out at an angle, but doesn't pivot the way my earlier (D7100 as I recall) did. I have been using one for about 3 years now, and am happy. I had a fair number of legacy lenses and they all worked (and dictated my not seriously considering a Full Frame camera). I give it an B+ to A- as compared to what I would have optimally liked, but I don't think there is anything better for my purposes. I would replace in kind if I had to replace (but would do a lot of research about what might have come out since I bought it first).
Live in San Diego with house in Borrego. Previous comments cover the biggest highllights I think. Flowers are definitely starting, but not what they will be! Coyote Creek and the drive to it is also good. Don't miss the visitor center and its garden. I prefer Hellhole Canyon over Palm Canyon -- fewer people and a bit less challenging (I am 79). If you have 4-wheel drive, Font's Point is great. In a different direction, more up towards Ranchita, we also like Culp Valley Campground and trails in that area. You will suffer from "too many options" so don't let decision paralysis ruin your first trip!
I use (on the MAC) FastRawViewer. It provides a variety of tools for examining the photos (histograms, etc.) and let's me move images to other folders. In my workflow I usually never discard a "reasonable" photo, but want to quickly move them out of the folder that will be imported to Lightroom. Thus my Lightroom catalog and image file disk is only about 5% as big as if I kept everything. It's fast, easy to use, allows seeing panels of images; enlarging images; etc. I inspect, reject, and then use LR. (It's great for seeing blown images issues, focusing issues, etc.)
I had a similar event occurred when I was photographing birds in a lagoon in the early morning in Carlsbad, CA many years ago, and, in a house across the lagoon, a father became concerned I was photographing his daughter. Police arrived. Took quite a bit of explaining (showing them images on my camera that I had taken) before they accepted my story, but did tell me to move on.
Orion Telescopes sells a fairly inexpensive, motor-drive astrophotography tripod/mount that would turn this into a really good astrophotography setup as well. You may need also to buy a mounting plate (a sort of rail that fits the mount, but Orion's mount may come with it. Perhaps $200 or so.
There lots of YouTube and other resources on the web about food photography. I suspect much of that would apply to you as well, and might give you some (for leather products) distinctive perspectives.
Very good and thoughtful additional replies!
Thanx to all. PH, you actually addressed one of my questions whether a DX lens on an FX camera would really be "equivalent", and, your math shows it clearly is not.
I think I am back to the 7200/7500 decision...
Hadn't thought of that issue! Will want to see how it looks. I do lots of flowers, and then landscapes. For both framing is important.
Time to upgrade my D5100 and looking a FX, but I have a lot of DX lenses and don't want to walk away from them all at once. Will my 50mm DX lens, on an FX camera, still behave like it does on the DX camera -- i.e., since it uses only about 2/3 of the FX sensor, in that context is it still a "DX lens" on a "DX camera". Is the quality as good. Could I distinguish the image between the DX lens on FX and the DX on DC?
Thanx for your replies. I feared as much. And it is possible to by an EXIF file editor application (at least in Windows) that allows you to enter the lat/long into the exif file for the image.
What has been the community's experience using the Nikon D7500 (or, presumably similar, D850) with Snap bridge -- I am particularly interested in extracting GPS from my phone (Samsung Galaxy S8 running Android 8.0.0) and am concerned about connectivity (and reconnect when the camera/phone go to sleep or are turned off) and the accuracy of the GPS itself. My alternative is a third-party GPS unit connected to my current D5100 -- but I am considering moving to the D7500.
Check out free android apps for phones, etc (probably IOS too) that I think will give you shutter release control without a new device at all. I think they work with wireless cameras.
Ask the officials if you can join the official photographers; or they may even have an area in "general seating" that is set up for photographers. Sometimes they officials can be very accomodating; and sometimes NOT. In any case, enjoy the game!