Post by Bonsai Guy

It depends on what you consider "budget" but there's some really cheap/good stuff out there now. Even since twetch shutdown the market has really improved.

If you are willing to buy used the Cannon RF lineup is pretty good. My current gear is the R50 with a RF 600mm F11 lens. That entire setup will run you 1100 bucks used and give you a decent camera body with an equivilent 960mm FOV (field of view). I like it primarily because I don't have to lug around heavy equipment. It weighs less then 3lbs and can fit in my Osprey day pack. It has a lot of limitations (mainly low light use is impossible without a monopod) but my priorities are more about mobility and what I easily travel with. If you wanted to go maximum cheap there's the cannon R100 body which would put you below that $1000 threshold.

AI has really changed my views on SOOC image quality. Editing software has gotten so good now you really don't need high end gear to be happy with the result. ON1 is pretty good but I've gone far with just tweaking the jpeg settings and having Grok give me light edit suggestions with Gimp3.