As someone who did editing on fancy Macs and PCs costing >$10k at work, let me just give you a heads-up. Mac is far more stable. Any M2 should be decent for photo editing. I’ve had Adobe programs crash maybe once in a year when editing on a Mac. On the Windows, it crashes every 3 days if I’m lucky.

Buy an Xrite or Calibrite color checker. Go create a profile for your lens and lighting setup. Boom. You have scientifically correct colours now.

Sony sensors are notoriously bad at discharging the sensors when powering down. That creates a lot of static. I recently switched from Fuji to Sony and I have had dust spots 4 times in 3 months. Compared to 0 times in my 2 years with Fuji. A local Fuji user also carries his full kit without a single lens/back cap. And he stores lenses in his pockets without lens caps and gets zero dust issues.

I use the Ulanzi Zero Y tripod. Pretty good, compact, and light. Far cheaper and superior to the PD tripod. Might not carry long lens well though. Depends on your setup.

It needs to have good composition, layers, context, and lighting.

For street photography manual is faster esp with vintage lenses that have hyperfocal marks. Or when I’m shooting film.

You can simply punch in with focus peaking to get it right. Though it won’t work on DSLRs.

That takes skill and practice. Keep it up!

Keep posting them. Unless you’re shooting people with a 70-200 (that is seriously creepy) you don’t have much to worry about being creepy. You can’t please everyone, so just do what you like.

I use a PD everyday Zip 20L. But do pack in a small sling for light days too. Maybe a Wotancraft Pilot 7L