Suggestions for upgradding from SX50 (1 Viewer)

[Troyce]

My wife has given me permission to sink about $4000 into a new camera and lens. I've been using an SX-50 the past year, and while I love the zoom, I'm not fond of the manual focusing and want to upgrade to a quality Canon with interchangeable lenses and easier manual focus (or a faster and better autofocus). The cameras I'm considering are the Eos 80D and the 7D MK II. Suggestions? And suggestion for zoom lenses? The ones I want start at $15k and are right out I'm thinking somthing under $2k and go up to at least 400 mm. What combination have folks had experience with and recommend?

 

[HermitIbis]

The Nikon D500 is worth a look, with arguably a better AF-C. Popular with birders who can carry a 150-600mm zoom, or afford the 500 PF.

I had a Canon 450D + lenses, efov 700mm, the birds were too small. Changed to a SX50, efov 1200mm + TC, and loved it for stationary birds. Had a lot of fun with it for four years. Then I wanted to shoot birds in flight and bought a Nikon V2 + CX70-300 (efov 810mm) for 800 Euro. 1 inch mirrorless, 1kg weight, electronic shutter, 15 fps and more. The DSLR path wasn't for me: weight, costs, only 10fps, shutter noise, broken shutters.

With no budget restraints, maybe I'd prefer another mirrorless over my beloved Nikon1: the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II combined with the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 300mm F4.0 IS Pro lens. 1,9 kg, Euro 4,000. Twice the weight of the Nikon1, yet results can be great, as illustrated here.

Manual focusing is a strength of top DSLR cameras. Mirrorless do better than a SX50, but that's easy. I like the Nikon V3's back button focus, and the CX70-300 has an MF ring. - For ultimate quality and a myriad of (autofocus) settings, a DSLR remains top.