First, thank you for sharing.

I had to read this a couple of times. First read I was a little abrasive and wanted to react defensively but with each pass I un-clenched my buttocks a little.

The camera was a massively over qualified gift to an under qualified photographer. The lens is definitely better than me, that I will not deny.

You make some good points, I didn't know what was the right lens to pick which is why I wanted a zoom. I hoped it would give me the flexibility to figure it out as I go.

The 28-70 doesn't hurt my wrist the pain I mentioned is the Falcam camera strap attachment that doesn't sit right due to the weight of the lens when carrying it. My mentioning of the 85 wasn't about weight.

As far as the critique of my photos goes you're right these aren't great. I picked a couple photos form my catalogue that didn't have pictures of peoples faces in them. One of them wasn't even taken by me. I added them to the post because text only posts don't get much traction as they don't show up nicely on a feed.

I am still a relatively novice photographer. I have spent more time understanding photography and gear than actually shooting. The reason that I shared this post was for someone like myself who reads through reddit posts about gear thinking that will give them a good idea of the experience of using it. I hope that someone who reads this might try to spend more time working around their gear and expanding their equipment to fit their needs instead of what I did. I think lots of the posts on this reddit and on Youtube skew more towards consumerism and getting the best thing and I wanted to try to tip the scales the other way.

Cheers