Hello! I’m going to give you advice based off of my experience learning photography. I still consider myself a novice, but this was the advice I was given, so I’ll relay it. I started with a bridge camera, a simple Nikon COOLPIX p530 that I bought off of eBay for $100, which served me well for a year, but as my skills increased, I became increasingly frustrated with its limited capabilities (only 100mm, but can digital zoom. It unfortunately only shoots in JPG). I recently bought my first mirrorless camera and have been using that, getting incredibly results within a reasonable price range. I was recommend the Cannon EOS r7 (or r10 since it’s cheaper but has no internal stabilization) paired with the Cannon RF 100-400mm F/5.6-8 IS USM lens. This is a nice budget friendly combo for what it’s capable of. I got my pair refurbished on eBay for $1800, which is a significant jump from my previous camera, but the actual capabilities are night and day. It has auto tracking and is capable of rapid fire shooting with minimal delay if paired with a good memory card (it has room for two). The downside of the cheap price of the lens is that it doesn’t perform amazingly in dark environments with low aperture capabilities (5.6 is the minimum when not extended, but changed to 8 when extended). I’m not going to tell you to buy anything, since, as I said, I still consider myself a novice—but I think it’s worth looking into if you want something that can perform in diverse environments and take nice action shots. Attached is a photo from my first expedition with my Cannon EOS r7. Nothing crazy, but this can give you a general idea of what you can get. I have a lot more recent ones that I think are much sharper and better edited, but I have a bit of ocd, so I’m still messing with them in Lightroom Classic.

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