You are welcome Daniel, best to explore techs and see how you go, but don't get to
'hung up' about trying to please folk, they are your captures, all anyone can do in feedback is make suggestions, you then have to distill from them and discard anything that may not be relevant so to speak. The more you shoot the better your reaction time & thinking is, you will soon do a lot of things instinctively and know when to increase ISO, SS, DoF etc. PP is easily learnt, the hard part is getting the capture and exposed well. Obviously in forests light will be a premium, so perhaps getting some deer out in the open may help the techs perhaps?
Don't be uncomfortable, cameras these days are designed to cope with high ISO, folk who are reluctant to change or try will have soft images because they have insufficient SS because they did not push their ISO beyond 800 or 1600. You have nothing to loose and a lot to gain Daniel, be brave and take the plunge