TheTiniestPeach

I tried using lens cleaning solution and this stain refuses to come off.

https://i.imgur.com/vLZ6u33.jpg

Could it be underneath the lens?

It is on the very edge of the lens so does it even matter?

I am taking a lot of portraits etc. but I never experimented much with low light and I really want to, becasue I think night sceneries are some of the most beautiful.

However, all my tries were utter failures so far. I tried different methods of lighting up the scenes, but it never brings desired results.

For example, when I was trying to take a portrait in a relatively low lit hallway using a flash with softbox, the subject close to the camera was lit beautifully, but the rest of the hallway was really dark and I could not capture the beauty of it. It also looked bad with the reflections caused by the flash.

https://i.imgur.com/uczMyyX.jpg (ISO 200, 56mm, f/2.2 1/160sec)

Is there anything I could do differently using flash or I have to try completely different mthod?

Or for example when trying to capture buildings, architecture or groups of people during a night while still having things in focus, how do I go around doing that? I see people doing some beautiful night photography with everything in focus and no blur (at least not enough to be visible on social media). I though of getting a tripod + longer exposures, but then my subject could be blurry.

Therefore I don't know what do I need to do and what kind of equipment I may need. I am using nikon z50 and sigma 1.4 56mm (mostly) but I also use kit lens 16-50mm when I can't move far away from my subject.

I started attending photography classes with a successful photographer and there's couple of things I was apparently doing very, very wrong. I do not want to question the photographer knowledge, but more so just to ask for "2nd opinion".

1.Studio portraits should only be taken with aperture of 5.6 or higher.

Is this true and does the same apply for outdoor portraits? Most of my outdoor portraits were taken with aperture 1.4 to 2.8, mostly because of less than optimal lighting conditions and I just love this beautiful bokeh.

2. I am apparently supposed to use viewfinder only and not camera screen to frame the pictures, with both eyes open to see the model. Also taping the screen to correct the focus is a no-no.

I was usually only using the screen since I lack the mobility (really bad knees injuries), so I preferred moving the camera around instead of my entire body to frame the pictures, having eye contact with the model is also easier this way for me. The focus on camera is also often not perfect and being able to quickly "correct it" by telling camera where to focus is very, very useful.

3. Using tons of lights and equipment to get desired results. The photographer that leads the lectures is very fixated on complicating the scene by using multiple of expensive lights and giant reflectors.

Personally I don't own a ton of equipment, so I always look a ways to achieve things without resorting to that many lights and reflectors and usually I can find people being able to achieve those results with two or even one light, simply by adjusting the angle, distance or power of the light.

I absolutely understand that more equipment offers more possibilities, but I just feel like it's sometimes unnecessarily complicated by some photographers.

4. Having a large team of assistants. Last lesson we were split us into groups and had role assigned to each of us. Two people responsible for lights, director, photographer and so on. According to our teacher and the way he teaches us, having group of assistants is necessary or at least highly advised.

As someone who only ever worked alone (excluding the models of course) and plans to work alone in foreseeable future, I am not sure what to think of that.

5. DSLR are better because they are more stable due to their heavier weight, compared to lighter mirrorless cameras. Also apparently information displayed on mirrorless cameras is lagging behind compared to DSLR, but I am not exactly sure what he was talking about.

I got my first ever photography assignement and I am super nervous.

The task is going to be taking pictures on roughly 2 hour conference of an startup for social media.

I only have general idea of how can I tackle something like that and I still have over a week to prepare.

What should I watch out for and focus on? Should I use flash? I only purchased it recently, so I only know basics of using it in TTL mode.

Gear that I have- 1x speedlight flash, 1x aps camera, 1x tripod with softbox

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