RedHuey

This. Sorry you aren’t enjoying having to do what you don’t prefer, but that’s what life is. Being a professional anything is all about having to do it. Enjoy it not really mattering while you can.

I use manual focus as much as practical. Certainly whenever I am doing close or macro shots. Or shots where I don’t feel like fighting the camera to get what I want.

But the issue is that manufacturers don’t want to using manual focus. They give you the possibility, pretending to be magnanimous, but then they remove the things that made it easy back before 1985. Most modern lenses don’t really have easy to use focus rings, and the camera viewfinders make it by default difficult to judge focus. And on mine, if the camera is set to use AF, if I turn it off by an override button, it will turn it on again after a time. Annoying.

That said, I use focus peaking, set pretty high, to help.

If this is a school project, talk to your instructor if you have hit a roadblock. Nobody else should be doing your homework for you. How will you learn? Hopefully, that is your goal here.

This.

The last thing anybody needs to be doing is taking yet another set of “snapshots” of the Grand Canyon, or anything else. It’s all been done to death and is all over the Internet if you need one. Nobody has said anything interesting in a GC picture for decades. Think of something interesting to show. And family.

Ok, against my better judgment…

Exposure is the same with every camera and lens. If a scene needs 1/100th @ f4 for correct exposure, it will need that setting (or it’s equivalent, like 1/200 @ f2.8) on every camera and every lens. Exposure is independent of sensor size. Exposure is independent of the camera or the lens. It works this way because everybody agreed that makes the most sense over 100 years ago. That way, you can pick up any camera and the exposure will be the same for any given lens.

However, a smaller or larger sensor (or film) size will have other effects: depth of field will be different at the same f-stop with a FF versus an APS-C sensor. Field of view will also vary with the same lens on two cameras with different sensor sizes.

There can be other less important effects, which are being argued about here pointlessly, but ignore them for now. What is important that that exposure is always the same, no matter the sensor size, but a different sensor size will effect depth of field and field of view.

Just learn that. Ignore all the other nonsense in this thread for now. None of it is the important part. Once you completely understand what I have told you, then you can start looking at things like noise, etc.

This is the simple correct answer to your question. No doubt someone will argue with it. Ignore it like I will.

There is so much misinformed nonsense in this thread that it would be utterly impossible (and likely pointless) to even try to address it.

It makes me sad that with so many “photographers” and amazing gear, this is where we are in understanding it. Not talking about the OP who asked a simple question that should have been answered and not created the pile of dung in evidence here.

I'm a lot further in than you are. If you actually need certain technology to get a particular shot, go for it.

But if you are just taking 50 near identical pictures of the same bird, fully automatic in every way, hoping that one pic in the 50 will be "perfect," then don't kid yourself. You are counting on the luck backed by technology, not your abilities as a photographer. You are practicing lucktography. I don't care how many guilds think you are the cat's pajamas. You are getting great shots by luck and tech, not your skills.

Nat Geo cares about the shot. Not how you get it. They want that 1 in 50 perfect shot. That's what they pay you for. But they publish photos, they don't practice photography.

This.

Even camera manuals have this fact wrong. Not to mention photo sites and conventional wisdom on the Internet.

Noise comes from light. At least the biggest part of it does. It does not come from the sensor, or amplifying sensor noise, for the most part. As equipment gets better and better, equipment noise has gone way down. Almost all of the noise you see is from light itself and there is nothing than can be done about it.

Seeing more noise at higher ISOs is because light noise is related to the square root of the number of photons. A lower number has a relatively higher square root. Less light has relatively higher noise. In lower light conditions, no matter what you do, you are working with less light, and thus more noise.

The base ISO is the one where the sensor system is designed to have the highest signal to noise ratio at the “correct” exposure.

Lol. The old “don’t gatekeep me” defense!

You got into photography a year ago and have no training in it. That’s fine. There is nothing wrong with that and every photographer was once there.

No, you camera cannot climbs mountain, etc. on its own, but what are you actually contributing other than aiming the lens at something? Seriously? What? The answer is not very much, and you are kidding yourself if you think otherwise. I suspect if someone handed you a manual SLR and 20 rolls of film, you’d not come up with much.

I don’t care what you, or anybody else, wants to do to entertain yourself, but don’t kid yourself into thinking you are practicing photography when you point a fully automated camera, that is doing all of the work other than aiming, and taking 150 burst shots of a bird, so that can later dig out the one “perfect” one from the camera’s work. That’s lucktography. Accompanied by a walk, if you prefer, but you aren’t doing much more.

If you ever want to actually learn and get better, you have to leave this mindset behind, at least temporarily. Repeat after me: “There is no perfect shot out there waiting for me. Only the shots I take.” Practice mindful, thoughtful photography, and you will learn to take actual pictures that you can be proud of. Lucktography teaches you nothing useful.

The fact that you (and lots of others) think there IS only one shot is the problem. This is the mindset created when high quality cameras gave people with no real appreciation or understanding of photography the ability to take apparently pro-level photos.

Unless somebody ELSE’S money is paying for you being there, and you naturally need to work under their limitations/requirements, you should be practicing photography, not trying to luck into the elusive “perfect” shot.

Everybody is now taking the “perfect” shot. It’s no big deal anymore. Anybody can sit there for 10 minutes talking 150 pictures of the same bird at high burst speed and come up with the “perfect” one. It takes no talent or ability at all. None. Especially since only your camera is doing any work. Is that the kind of lucktographer you want to be?

Yes, and the perfection of the technical aspects of the camera (exposure, focus, lens quality, etc.), and the very extensive correctives available in “processing,” mislead photographers into thinking they are good at it, when in fact, they have done nothing other than pointing a camera in a general direction.

Who says the light at 2pm is crap? Seriously. Somebody who is not there? Common wisdom? This is another myth of perfection. You can take great pictures in ANY kind of light if you are capable of taking great pictures. Some of the greatest pictures of all time were taken in the “wrong” light. Don’t let the mindless crowd tell you when you can and can’t take good photos. This is just as bad as letting your camera do all your thinking.