I want to take wildlife/outdoor photos recreationally. I don’t want to get frustrated by photo quality, but I also don’t want to spend more than I need to. That being said I’m willing to consider expensive equipment, but only if it benefits my needs. Does anyone have some canned recommendations?
You should probably look to spend a big chunk of, if not most of your budget on your lens IMHO.
I’d say wildlife (or at least birding) starts at 300mm. You probably want to look at a crop sensor camera, it’ll let you get more out of your lens.
Image quality is a game of small wins, a slight upgrade in sensor here, a fractionally better lens there. You can pretty much always spend slightly more to get a slightly better image. The more challenging conditions you shoot in (low light, more distance from subject, smaller subjects) the more your gear will matter.
If your willing to go second hand, I’d look towards the Nikon D500 for a pretty bloody good camera for this.
Agreed, birding is about lenses and autofocus. Any camera body made in the last ten years will have enough image quality for this.