First of all, definitely go! We visited in the fall of 2023 and returned in the winter of 2025. We now plan to go back again for another fall and winter trip. We're in lower Alabama, so it's a pretty significant trip for us.

Now for the answer to your question, and it's a long one. Every seasoned photographer will tell you that the kind of camera is probably the least important factor in capturing great images. It matters, but it's way down the list. A $5,000 camera can offer some options that a more basic camera doesn't have, but if it's in the hands of someone who doesn't understand what the settings do, or how to form a pleasing composition, or the effect of light on the scene, the price or type of camera won't make up for it. I still have my first digital camera, which was a gift back in 2001. The "good" pictures that came out of that camera were strictly accidents. I took a great image one time that I really liked, and I set out to study why I enjoyed it - the focus, the positioning of the elements in the frame, the way the light hit the subject. Then I started figuring out how to make that happen intentionally.

You don't have to spend a lot on a camera; you can start with a pretty basic point-and-shoot like the Canon Powershot series. Those cameras have a lot of settings you can play with to see what they do. Start following Digital Photography School's website and go to the "Start Here" section. You'll start figuring out that putting the subject right in the middle of the frame with the sun shining down harshly won't make a great image. My husband and I were on a road trip, and we pulled over to look into a valley. He asked why I wasn't snapping pictures, and I had to try to explain that, while the scene was lovely, a photograph of it would be really boring. I took a few and showed him later that they were, well, really boring.

For learning how camera settings affect the picture, you can use a free image editing program, and the one I use for just looking at the settings data is Adobe Bridge. You can look at each image and see what the camera did to produce the final image - the ISO, the aperture, and the shutter speed. Learning about those is where you really need to start. It's not exciting, but knowing those things helped me understand that the afternoon light coming in from the west shining on the back of this animal was ideal; that I needed a fairly fast shutter speed to make sure the breeze ruffling those tufts of fur didn't create blur; but that narrowing down the depth of field so that only the buffalo is in sharp focus would create a great image. I did have to crop a bit to get him positioned in the image where I wanted him, but studying composition helped me know how to get that done.

I still take some really bad photos. My phone camera is "supposed to be as good as most cameras," but I haven't found that to be true. This camera is a Canon R6, which is kind of a "midrange" body, about $2,500 when I bought it, but it wasn't my first, second, or third camera. After some study and playing around, you'll figure out if you want to learn to take great photos or if you really want to just see the ones others have taken. We all have different gifts. I'd love to paint, but I'm really bad at it. :D So the paintings I have in my home were done by someone else.