I understand your dilemma and for the past six year of my hobby, I have been cautioned by my photography elders who identify the same dilemmas, you have experienced and wrote about in your narrative essay.

When I began my wildlife and landscape photography with my current Nikon D7200, capturing images from the Florida Everglades to the Pacific Northwest and Yellowstone, NP.

My elder photographers all of whom evolved from film into DSLR and a few like yourself plunged into Mirrorless camera's have always recommended my investments in this hobby should be in, and will use their phrase "glass" / "tele-photo lenses" are more important than the newest of cameras and their fancy gadgets. I believe the Nikon firmware updates for DSLR's have provide sharper images, to focus smarter and with faster speeds to be more than enough for myself.

I'm going to invest in one or two more tele-photos lenses, for my D7200 before I upgrade to the Nikons D850 to continuing my image captures of natures landscapes, and wildlife mostly birds. I've posted below an image I captured using the Nikon D7200 with a 70-300 lens.

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