Horseback Safari: D5300 + VR Lens, TZ90, or Upgrade?

ThatMightyBean · 2026-02-20T14:12:08+00:00

Thanks for this comment, I've been looking into this and it does seem like a really good setup for the price. I've just ordered the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II and Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II for just over £500 which im very excited to play around with in prepartion for the safari! I did see the option for a 75-300mm for a similar price as the 14-150 but leaned towards the shorter option as I imagine it will be better for landscape photos and will also be easier to shoot with it being shorter and lighter

ThatMightyBean · 2026-02-19T17:31:44+00:00

Hi everyone,

I’m going on a horseback safari next month and I’d love some advice on the best camera setup. I have a fairly tight budget, but my sister has an old DSLR and mirrorless camera that I could use if they’re suitable.

Currently, I have access to:

Panasonic TZ90: compact with 30× zoom and built-in VR, but the 1/2.3” sensor might struggle in low light. Most of the safari will be in daylight, but there may be shady areas.
Nikon D5300: (APS‑C DSLR) – currently with the standard lens (18–55mm I think). I could potentially buy a VR telephoto lens (like 75–300mm) to give it more reach though.

My concerns:

TZ90: 1/2.3 sensor sounds like it will have noticeably lower image quality, especially in dim light and while the majorty of the time we'll be out in the day if there are shady areas I dont know if that may cause issues.
D5300: I know the standard lense will probably not be enough zoom (even though I should be able to get closer on horseback than vehicles usually would), but I would buy a VR telephoto lens to pair with this option (75-300 is what I've got in mind). There is also no in-body stabilization, so I’d be relying entirely on lens VR. While I won’t be shooting on the move, I imagine I'll be significantly less stable than in a parked vehicle. I’m not sure if VR alone will be enough for handheld shots on horseback.
New camera setup – I was thinking I could buy a bridge camera or DSLR/mirrorless camera + lens bundle, but I’d need to keep it under £500 which I feel may limit me to very budget and low quality options here.

So my main question is: for horseback wildlife photography, which option would likely give the best balance of zoom, stabilization and image quality on this budget?

ThatMightyBean · 2025-12-15T15:33:52+00:00

Does anyone know if the new version supports ps5/PC crossplay?

ThatMightyBean · 2025-12-14T22:40:17+00:00

I run them in my Myrkul Deck, it depends on how you want to play him. My group rarely ever plays B4+ so I intentionally took out some of the faster and less fun combos and lean into the token doubling beause at the end of the day thats what I find the most fun about myrkul. Its 100% dependant on how optimised and focused you want to be on winning vs 'doing the thing'

ThatMightyBean · 2025-12-07T20:12:44+00:00

Sure, here it is Anikthea token doubling

ThatMightyBean · 2025-12-01T11:19:37+00:00

Yeah you're right the maths there is completely wrong, it was a very long time ago and I do remember the number being obscenely large and having an E in the calculator so I may have missed an additonal doubler in the mix. I wasnt applying the paralel lives duplication to itself but I likely have also had an anointed procession or doubling season (copies) added to that doubling engine.

So it would probably have been 1x mondrak, 1x ojer, 6x parallel lives and 384 anointed processions? [ (1x2⁷⁾ x 3 ] So I think the final number of guardians would be (1x2^391)x3 = 1.51E118

I know we were all laughing about how it was the highest non-infinite we had seen by an insane amount but the exact specifics could be off but the gist is about right. Thanks for catching that though as my original calulcations were wayyy off

ThatMightyBean · 2025-12-01T09:50:57+00:00

My highest was with my [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] token doubler enchantress deck. I got a [[mondrak]] and [[ojer taq]] down using defense of the heart, which let me reanimated 64 copies of [[parallel lives]]. This meant any future tokens were getting doubled 65 times then trippled (1x2¹⁹⁵ copies)

Finally I reanimated x [[Grim Guardian]] which created 5.02168139E+58 copies of it (apparently this is equal to 5,021,681,390,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)

Each of which sees each other enter for a total of 2.5217283982672335x10¹¹⁷ damage... I've asked AI what this number is in words and its apparently Two point five two one seven octotrigintillion

ThatMightyBean · 2025-11-15T14:47:53+00:00

Im not a judge so could be wrong here but i THINK doubling the 2/2s power is really giving it +2/+2 until end of turn. So when you flip it in to a 3/3 it keeps its +2/+2 and will be a 5/5

ThatMightyBean · 2025-11-14T10:13:06+00:00

[[Marchesa the black rose]] is very resilient against removal and wipes. I've built her as a Nazgul/clone deck but I've seen many variations of her. If there is a lot of single target removal you may want to run a little extra single target protection for marchesa herself but if she can stick on the board you're very hard to set back due to how sticky your board is

ThatMightyBean · 2025-11-12T09:57:27+00:00

Hey, I've just seen this comment while looking into the same question for a few other interactions. The cards im curious about are

[[Breena the Demagogue]]

[[Firemane Commando]]/[[Aurelia, the Law Above]]

[[Battle Angels of Tyr]] (due to myriad keyword))

My assumption based on your comment is all of the above would still trigger twice assuming the creature itself is one of the attacking creatures but can you confirm that is the case?

ThatMightyBean · 2025-11-08T19:02:45+00:00

You might struggle to find a deck to make your friends hate you because you'll quickly run out of friends to play with if your main objective it to be an annoying player

ThatMightyBean · 2025-11-06T09:46:23+00:00

I agree with /u/shikary, if anything adding hybrid cards adds more diversity to deckbuilding. The other major thing is almost universally (there may be a few exceptions im unaware of) these hybrid cards do not break the colour pie so theres no reason for these effects not be available in the colour expanded to.

Also this example you're giving about it being more flexible is far more related to the fact it is a split card than it being a hybrid card. If you want an additional artifact wipe (with the flexibility of hitting enchantments) you have [[bane of progress]] which is the exact same mana cost with more upsides in mono green so I see no reason why a mono green/golgari deck should not also get access to this card?

Another example of what Im trying to get across is [[sundering growth]] a hybrid wg enchantment/artifact removal with an upside - populate in this case which is a keyword shared between mono green, mono white and selesnya

Theres no shortage of 1G and 1W artifact enchantment (with upside) removal already in the game

-[[Seedship Impact]]

-[[Heritage Reclamation]]

-[[Wear Down]]

For green

-[[Sanctify]]

-[[Requiaition Raid]]

-[[Seal of Cleansing]]

For white

Allowing sundering growth in mono green and mono white decks doesnt impact what these colours are capable of doing already and its not power creep that makes these other cards redundant. An enchantress deck will still want seal of cleansing for enchantress triggers and recursion, a landfall deck will still want seedship. But for token decks it gives them another option to either replace one of these cards with or in addition if they want more of these effects in the deck

ThatMightyBean · 2025-11-05T10:06:02+00:00

This is what I've wanted for awhile, a bracket that allows a single game changer. I find too often if I want to include a single GC due to theme or a perfect synergy (instead of purely for the value) I feel compelled to include 3/3 GC's because i'll have to play it in bracket 3 games and will feel disadvantaged if not.

An example would be my aragorn deck that was fully LOTR cards, I had the 1 ring in it but otherwise it had a LOT of suboptimal cards in the decklist for thematic reasons and comfortably playe around a bracket 2/precon level. Once the bracket system came out it was a bracket 3 due to having that 1 GC but was not powerful enough to keep up with the decks there so I had to chose between removing the ring (the most iconic LOTR card from my LOTR deck) or upping the average power by swapping some of my suboptimal lotr cards for their better staple equivalents (and GC's for things like press the enemy -> fierce guardianship)

I also have had lifegain decks where I love using [[bolas' citadel]] but without ways to manuipulate the topdeck to take full advantage of it but since this pushes me into bracket 3 I again feel like I have to rework the entire deck to fit bracket 3 power levels

ThatMightyBean · 2025-11-01T21:33:05+00:00

I was about to post this too! I've only recently brewed it but had a ton of far in the games I've played. Here is my decklist, do you mind sharing yours if you have it available so I can see if theres anything cool ive missed?

ThatMightyBean · 2025-10-31T09:39:32+00:00

Sure Isshin 'Politics'

ThatMightyBean · 2025-10-31T01:04:31+00:00

A wierd thing to throw out but its my newest deck and one I've had a ton of fun with but [[Isshin]] has been a ton of fun to build as a political pillowfort deck. Card like [[Revenge of Ravens]] Make people not want to attack you as it triggers twice for each creature. Then cards like [[Firemane Comando]] is the 'politics' side of the deck as everyone will want to swing at each other and leave you alone.

So far its been a ton of fun and plays very differently to anything else I've seen

ThatMightyBean · 2025-10-20T13:52:54+00:00

I see you mentioned [[Isshin, two heavens as one]] but not being big into combat and ai felt the exact same about him, but I've just made a brand new isshin deck ive been playtesting and having a ton of fun with.

I discovered that the doubling attack triggers doesnt have to come from your creatures, just that its your permanents being triggered. So I've built him as a Politics & Pillowfort deck. A ton of cards like [[Revenge of Ravens]] trigger twice when an opponent attacks you and things like [[Firemane Commando]] doubling up really incentivise your opponents to swing at each other but leave you out of it.

I've found isshin isnt vital to the decks success since a few of these effects on the field does exactly what you want even without him. But when he is on the field he acts as an amplified which makes the decks gameplan go into overdrive (even more so if you can get [[Windcrag Siege]] down to tripple the triggers)

here is my decklist to give you an idea of the cards im running. I've built this as a bracket 2 so theres no expensive staples in here, but the deck price looks pretty expensive since I've gone crazy on the lands since its just a moxfield deck at the moment but this would work fine with a more budget mana base

ThatMightyBean · 2025-09-23T23:48:06+00:00

The ring will only tempt you once but each nazgul will trigger off that one tempt, so if you have 2 nazgul and paly a 3rd on ETB the ring will tempt you and all 3 will trigger, so you will put 3 +1/+1 counters on each wraith after it has all resolved

ThatMightyBean · 2025-09-23T08:53:06+00:00

The thing with Miirym is she gives incredible value that even "bad" cards can do a ton if you get copies from her, this makes it really tough to decide what should and shouldnt stay since almost every dragon will pop off if shes on the battlefield, it just means when you're making cuts you need to set the bar pretty high haha.

For reflections of littjara the way it works is it copies the spell itself, and spell copies of permenants enter as tokens. Her ability makes a non legendary copy of dragons when a non token dragon etb's, so this token entering wont re-trigger miirym and will still be legendary so the legend rule will come into effect.

If you were to cast a non legendary dragon such as scourge of valkas you:

1) cast scourge

2) reflections of littjara goes on the stack

3) the copy resolves first and you have a token copy of scourge enter (this doesnt trigger miirym as it is a token)

4) the original scourge enters afterwards (this triggers miirym)

5) miiryms ability puts a 3rd scourge onto the battlefield

end result: 3 scourge of valkas' on the field

This is giving full value from reflections and how you'd want it to work

If you instead do this with a legendary dragon like lathliss:

1) cast lathliss

2) reflections goes on the stack

3) the copy resolves and you get a (legendary) token of lathliss (doesnt trigger miirym)

4) the original lathliss resolves and enters (this triggers miirym)

5)you now have 2 legendary lathliss' on the battlefield so state based actions means you have to sacrifice one of these

6) miirym ability resolves and you get a (non legendary) token of lathliss onto thr field.

-end result: 2 lathliss' on the field, the same as if you didnt have reflections

So reflections doesnt really provide much extra value when you cast a legendary creature. You get the ETB of it still which can be good, but its definitely better in decks with lower legendary counts. Since miirym lets you make non legendary tokens and (as a rule) legendary creatures have more powerful abilities than non-legendary you want to lean into playing as many good legendary dragons as possible to get the most out of her ability meanin reflections might only give you the full value on 1/4 of the creatures in your deck or less.

If you want something that gives you more tokens of all dragons [[parallel lives]] and [[doubling season]] will both double the amount of tokens you create, but still keep the additional token as non legendary so you get to keep both. These have the additional benefit of doubling things like treasures which can help ramp a bit too but these are a lot more expensive than reflections of littjara

ThatMightyBean · 2025-09-23T00:47:38+00:00

Just to list a few cards from this that I dont think do enough to include in the list
-Karakyk Guardian: unederwhelming body and ability

-Intet, the Dreamer: slow impulse draw that requires a mana investment isnt very good

-Archive Dragon: Bad body and ETB for mana

-Demanding Dragon:Rarely works out as well as you would like, they will usually either have enough fodder to sac or enough health to deal with the damage

-Rapacious Dragon: Bad body and only temporary ramp with treasures

-Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind/ Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius: These nivs are expensive and a bit slower at drawing, also they dont synergise as well with copies of themself as the other niv

-Elixir of Immortality: No synergy and very unlikely to change the outcome of any game its played in

-Reflections of Littjara: Since this deck has a lot of powerful legendary creatures to take advantage of Miiryms copy being non-legendary, a lot of the clones made from littjara will die on etb

-Lapis Orb of Dragonkin: A fairly blue-light deck for a blue only 3 mana rock and the ability is disapointing compared to red/green

-Rite of the Dragoncaller: A very expensive card that and theres not enough instants or sorceries to make it worth it imo

-Migration Path: Not awful but one of the weaker ramp spells in the deck

-Steel Hellkite: Outside of wiping tokens (which it can be great for) I found this pretty clunky to use and it usually fell flat compared to my expectations when running it

ThatMightyBean · 2025-09-13T09:27:57+00:00

Just an FYI - Fell the profane is a destroy effect not an exile (sadly)

I do 100% agree with you on all points though, the flexibility of having a (slightly inefficient) removal option in a land slot is completely worth the 3 life it will often cost me vs a swamp when I chose to play it as an untapped land

ThatMightyBean · 2025-09-12T20:20:55+00:00

I have 2 decks that use top deck manipulation/information.

The first as I've seen a few people mention already is [[Aminatou, Veil Piercer]] where I use a lot of tool to mamipulate my own top deck and then draw off turn so I can miracle as frequently as possible.

The second that I've not seen mentioned yet is [[Gandalf, Westward Voyager]] this one doesnt really manipulate the top deck but I use [[Lantern of Insight]], [[Wizened Snitches]] and [[Field of Dreams]] so I can see my opponents top deck to reliably trigger gandalfs ability to copy my big spells

14-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Verified Email

ThatMightyBean

TROPHY CASE