Replying to What camera?

Embarrassingly made a NSG thread for this, but am stoked to find this forum and am appreciative of Jamie's questionnaire. Here it goes!

Recently had my point-and-shoot stolen out of my car. Looking to invest in a new hobby.
I'm leaning towards mirrorless cameras for their size and portability.
I'm pretty much a camera newbie.

Leaning towards Sony a6500 or Fujifilm XT2 from my internet browsing

I also realize that my budget is not much in the grand scheme of things so I understand there will be compromises.

1) What is your budget? How much money can you spend right away, and do you think you can get more money to invest in the future?

Ideally around $1000 for body and starter lens just to get the feet wet. Do want to invest later (currently a student) and use the same body.

2) What experience do you already have with cameras? Have you ever even used one before? Have you helped your friend out with his camera? Have you owned your own?

Little experience. Have taken a HS photo class but haven't retained much knowledge. Only owned a P and S.

2) What gear, if any, do you currently have? (tripod, old camera lenses, mics, etc)

None

4) What are you planning to shoot and how do you want to use your camera? Are you going to use this with the sole purpose of shooting skiing? or do you think you might try other stuff as well (movies, documentaries, short films, etc)

Want to shoot almost exclusively outdoors things. Hunting, hiking, skiing, biking.
More focused on stills but still want decent video in case i stumble upon something crazy in nature.
Really want to be able to shoot birds, so taking pictures in motion is somewhat important.
Not looking for a follow cam and making ski edits- mainly stills and maybe some video footage of friends for fun.
*essentially a little bit of everything.

5) Do you want a camera that you can hand to your friends, that could or could not have film experience, and let them shoot you? or will you be doing all the filming?

It would be awesome to be able to hand to a friend or stranger who can take a quick shot- I'll be primarily handling the camera.

7) What computer do you currently have/use to edit (if not currently editing, what would you most likely use)? If you can provide specifics, such as hard drive space, RAM, processor size, that would be great.

Macbook pro.
Have not thought far enough in advance to consider editing softwares. This is a hobby so ideally something more budget friendly.

**This thread was edited on Nov 3rd 2019 at 4:17:03pm