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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: July 29th, 2023

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  • For anyone scratching their heads (my D5300 had a built in GPS!) - most current cameras rely on a companion phone app for GPS coordinates. Some do this better than others. Here’s my experience, based on my understanding of how each system works.

    • Fujifilm is best. You can configure their cameras to retain their last GPS location for a set amount of time, so if you’re like me and turn your camera on/off a lot during an afternoon none of your photos will be without GPS coordinates - with the possible exception of the first few
    • Nikon/Sony cameras both forget their location any time they get powered off, but re-pair to my phone reliably when powered on. I’ve spent a lot more time with Sony’s app and it gives you a notification anytime the camera connection status changes, so you have a cue to know if you’re paired
    • Olympus is the worst I’ve used. The OM-1 can embed GPS coordinates in the photos it takes as you take them, but for this to work you have to open their app on your phone and toggle a “record location” setting. I might have the exact name of the toggle wrong. Prior models require you to merge the apps location recording with the photos via OM Workspace on a computer. The app also generates notifications for things like events and sales. None of the other brands do that

  • Three ideas.

    First, are you taking photos of static or dynamic subjects? In other words, can you push your shutter speed down to make up for lost light? If yes, it doesn’t really matter which sensor format you go with. As an added bonus, M43 stabilization is stupid good so you might even be able to skip the tripod.

    Second, there’s no beating a fast FF lens on a FF body but those are going to be big and expensive. Here’s a quick comparison. The Sony lens is 1.7 pounds and costs $2,000 new vs the Oly’s 0.9 pounds and $1,200 price tag. There are super fast third party E-mount options that will save some $$, but no weight (hi Sigma), and slower first and third party options that will save $$ and weight, but will also start to eat into the two stop advantage FF sensors enjoy in low light. For example, Sigma’s 50mm f/2 lens, which weighs 0.75 pounds and costs $640, will leave you with around 2/3 stop advantage in low light. It’s still an advantage, and it even costs and weighs less than the Oly, but it’s not a large advantage in terms of dynamic range.

    Finally, with a fast FF lens you’re going to be facing a fairly narrow depth of field wide open. That 50mm f/1.2 FF lens will give you a 0.11m depth of field wide open with a subject that’s 2m away. If you want the extreme background of your image sharp, everything closer than 35m will be out of focus. Conversely, that 25mm f/1.2 MFT lens will give you a 0.23m depth of field with a subject that’s 2m away and with infinity acceptably sharp you’ll have a sharp foreground subjects 17.5m and further away from the camera. Stopping down the FF lens will increase its depth of field, but will again eat into the inherent advantage a FF body has over a M43 body.


  • There aren’t many DSLR like fixed lens cameras out on the market today as that segment has basically evaporated.

    The remaining players are:

    • Fujifilm x100. There are six total iterations of this camera, the most recent of which was very recently released. It’s a bit of a cult classic, which means wait lists. It’s an APS-C camera and from a controls perspective is probably what you’re looking for
    • Rioch GR. This is another series of cameras that are pretty popular. It’s also APS-C based. The mkIII was introduced in 2019
    • Sony RX, in particular the RX1R. Unlike the other two, it uses a full frame sensor. Also unlike the other two, it’s by far the longest in the tooth

    What are you looking for that the G1X mkIII doesn’t offer? Buying a used copy might be the way to go, especially since it sounds like what you’re looking for.

    As far as currently in production options, in addition to the three above, you could also look at mirrorless. Both their bodies and lenses are more compact than their DSLR counterparts. As far as sensor size goes, Micro Four Thirds (micro four thirds) can offer the most compact glass, followed by APS-C and then FF. That said a compact FF body, with a slower (read: smaller) lens will generally be close in size to a MFT camera with a fast lens. For outdoor and sunny, there will be no image quality tradeoff and when it gets dark the FF camera with a slower lens and a MFT sensor with a faster lens will be more or less on par thanks to the FF sensor’s two stop improvement in low light. For example (scroll down if you don’t see the two cameras and lenses). This does start to fall apart at longer focal lengths though - there’s no substitute for the crop factor advantage beyond say 100mm of FF EQ focal length.

    So… What are you looking for?








  • It is all about trade-offs, but the tradeoffs have to be situational.

    Considering only shutter speed and a “static” subject, you have to consider whether or not your subject is actually static. For example, are there flexible things present (plants, etc) and is it windy? For something like a desert landscape with zero motion your shutter speed can be as low as you want it to be (note that you might need to block some light from reaching the sensor using a ND filter). For “still” people you probably don’t want to go too low because we’re constantly in motion. That said, ever rule was made to be broken. Want to photo stars? Don’t use a super long shutter speed - you’ll get star trails. What’s that, you want star trails? Bump shutter speed even more so they look intentionally vs somewhat smeared balls of light. Sports and wildlife are basically the only scenario where you need a fast shutter speed… until you want some motion blur. Granted, motion blue and sports will still probably be a fairly fast shutter speed.

    Aperture follows a similar arc - do you want shallow depth of field, do you want to see more of the foreground/background, maybe you forgot your ND filter and want a slow shutter so you have to stop down, maybe it’s really dark so you have to use a fast (wide aperture) lens wide open.

    The only thing you universally want to take one way is ISO and that way is low. Unless you want some grain. Or you’re shooting something with motion indoors and you can’t compromise any more on shutter speed or depth of field. Or your lens aperture is already wide open and you still need more light.

    When staring off you might want to try shutter or aperture priority, based on the situation, and let the camera handle the other two values. Heck, I still do this 95% of the time 15 years later.


  • First, nice photo! Even “old” gear can take great photos. Throw motion and/or low light (with a fast lens) into the mix and you’ll beat a modern smartphone.

    The quick lead into the exposure triangle is:

    • ISO is basically “gain” applied to the photons that hit the sensor. Some gain = fine. More gain = you start to run into signal to noise ratio challenges
    • shutter speed helps you freeze the action, or can also let the action blur on purpose. Examples of intentional blur include panning photos (think auto racing) and long exposures (at night or during the day with the aid of a ND filter)
    • aperture. This is the ratio of focal length to lens aperture. Keep in mind it’s 1/x, so as x grows the actual aperture is getting “stopped down” (aka closed/smaller). Wider aperture (aka small denominator) = less depth of field and more light will hit the sensor. Stopping down = more depth of field and generally more sharpness/less vignetting, but if you take this too far you’ll hit diffraction and lose sharpness

    You wind up trading values against each other in various scenarios, which is why it’s called the exposure triangle. It’s very much a “you pick two and deal with the third” situation. Which two you prioritize really comes down to what you’re trying to accomplish.

    For your barn photo’s exposures, let’s talk tradeoffs. It sounds like you know that your ISO value was too high, especially for a static subject and good light. So how to get it to go down? You could do a mix of:

    • using a slower shutter speed. Unless you have a tremor, the rule of thumb is minimum shutter speed should be more than 1/focal length. You could have easily shot this at 1/100, if not lower. That would cut ISO down to around 1600
    • open your aperture. f/14 is very closed and likely isn’t needed unless you really want to see something deep in the background/foreground. You’re also likely losing some sharpness due to diffraction

    Happy shooting! Feel free to ask follow ups.


  • Glad you found the reply helpful!

    It sounds like you have the right lens for your situation. With sports I feel like you’re always going to be compromising on focal length (too tight for close action, too wide for far action). It sounds like you’re reviewing your EXIF info, so you can certainly use past data to help inform what focal length you’re using the most.

    I would personally lean on shutter priority unless you can guarantee that you’ll never over-expose. Clipped highlights obviously aren’t recoverable. I don’t know that I trust myself enough to watch the histogram and we’ve had many games that were partly sunny - oscillating between direct and indirect sun. It would be nice to be able to say “increase shutter speed if necessary otherwise bump ISO” but that’s sadly not a real shooting mode.

    My 150-500 is a fairly slow lens, but since it’s on a FF body it’s amazing what it can see through. Chain link fences don’t completely disappear, but they’re a lot less visible than they were on my somewhat faster 70-300 on a crop body.


  • First, keep your camera in AF-C and shoot in bursts. Bursts do two things: increase the odds of getting a sharp photo and maximize the chances of capturing just-the-right moment (for example, a catch). Do not use AF-S. I suggest not attempting manual focus, but you do you if that’s what you’re into.

    3D is what Nikon called “tracking” on their DSLR bodies. It tracks your subject as it moves around somewhat decently. I’m not sure how well it works on a D7500 with lots of potential subjects, but the idea is that you put the focus box over your intended subject, engage tracking, and the camera will follow the subject around as it moves. You can learn how this works easily in your house. Put a cup on a counter, engage tracking, and pan the camera around while keeping the cup in frame. Your camera should keep a focus box over the cup. If it doesn’t, odds are you didn’t engage tracking so try again until you get a feel for it.

    I would use either 3D tracking or single point AF. For single point AF, simply keep the focus box over your subject and you can basically guarantee it will be in focus. Assuming your lens can focus fast enough, you can’t miss. This is how I shot 95% of auto racing, along with youth sports before I got a long lens for my new (to me) FF body. You really can’t miss if the focus box is over your intended subject and there’s nothing obscuring your line of sight.

    Do not use auto area, 9 point, etc because you’re going to want to control where the camera is focusing when there are lots of people on the field. Most cameras will generally go for the closest subject, but the action point could be behind them.

    The minimum required shutter speed depends on the pace of action, as well as whether or not you’re trying to introduce some blur intentionally (eg motorsports). 1/1000 is probably a good starting point. Evaluate your photos and go from there. I can’t imagine that the 1/1600 you were shooting at was the cause of soft photos, unless you have fairly pronounced hand tremors.

    What lens are you using? You’re going to want a decent amount of reach. I’m a big fan of the Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR on a crop body and used it for many years on my D5300. It is a FX lens, but the focus is fast and accurate, the VR is good, it’s pretty light for what it is, and since you’re using the center of a full frame image circle on your DX body you’re going to have zero vignetting. I shot it 100% hand held and never had any issues doing so.

    I’ve recently started taking photos at youth sports and I can tell you that you’ll want the reach if you’re at any distance from your subject. I often wound up 100-115 feet from home plate and spent quite a bit of time at the 500mm end of my 150-500 lens on my current FF body.

    Assuming your lens is sharp wide open, set your camera to S and let the camera manage ISO and aperture as needed. Don’t step down unless you have to. Unless you have a fast prime, odds are you’ll need all the light you can get.

    Finally, know the sport you’re shooting, anticipate the action, and if you can move around try to position yourself so you’ll have good line of sight on that action. Players looking in your direction is ideal, but you’ll at least want to be able to see their eyes looking at whatever they’re focusing on. Bonus points if that thing is also in frame.





  • Nice photo and good work on the edit to make the water pop. Cellphone cameras are pretty good, but I still prefer a dedicated camera for most situations.

    Most instances will prevent you from uploading “large” files. For lemmy.world, I think the cap is around 2 MB. It’s actually somewhat frustrating because my (most/all?) client apps allows you to upload photos, but the upload will fail 90% of the time. There doesn’t appear to be an API to check for this size limit and/or the client(s) aren’t using it and resizing a temp copy of the photo before upload. I often wonder if this is contributing to a somewhat low post level… I make the vast majority of my posts from my PC for this reason if they’re going to have more than one photo.




  • For fairly stationary things, especially if you don’t have to zoom, a cellphone will get you most of the way there - unless you’re going to be in a very dark environment. I say this as someone whose carried around a dedicated camera for a while, but the best camera in the world is the one you currently have with you. You can absolutely get in the habit of carrying a dedicated camera with you though.

    80-90% SOOC (can’t give much time to editing). I am ready to give time to learning and practicing manual controls though

    Most camera brands and bodies will give you solid SOOTC JPEGs, but each offers some level of twist. This is where people start taking “color science”. All the RAWs are basically the same, but the algorithms to make pleasing looking JPEGs vary by brand. Nearly all are customizable, so you can tweak one brands twists to be more or less pronounced. Based on my personal experiences I would say:

    Fuji (X-H2s) = a bit stylized, but pleasant to look at. Reliable white balance and subject meeting, after changing the default metering mode.

    Nikon (D40, D5300, Z6II) = warm and pleasing. The Z6II I owned for a little while would struggle with white balance indoors, especially with warmer interior lights. It also tended to meter the frame, not the subject, but you can customize this some. I have more than a few photos of someone underexposed in front of a sunny window

    Sony (A7 III) = probably the most true to life, but true to life can be kind of boring/flat. The most reliable auto white balance and meters for the subject out of the box.

    That’s not to say that other cameras don’t do a good job, I just don’t have personal experience with them

    Ergonomic, light.

    Here I would say:

    1. Micro four thirds. Smaller sensor = smaller glass. One of this system’s selling points is it’s size/weight, so they tend to not pull a Fuji
    2. Fuji mirrorless. All they make are crop sensor bodies, so their glass is usually optimized for that sensor size. Meanwhile over im Sony/Nikon/Canon world, they make a mix of FF and crop sensor glass. Sometimes there’s a FF lens that stands out and you wind up using it on a crop sensor body, resulting in a bigger-than-necessary lens. My D5300 nearly always has a FF 70-300 on it because the lens is really very good and when it came out there wasn’t a crop body equivalent
    3. Sony and Nikon mirrorless crop sensor bodies. You could also throw Canon in this mix. See above for reasoning
    4. Mirrorless FF. See the A7III with the somewhat pancake lens on it in the link brlow
    5. DSLR. Generally speaking the largest glass for a given focal length and aperture, but as people move to mirrorless it is getting cheap to buy this glass used…

    Here’s a rough comparison between all five using the focal length you referenced. I also snuck in Sony’s 50 FE 1.8 on a FF camera to show that each system will tend to have a compact prime or three.

    travel photos, capturing scenes like I see them with my eye

    Most cameras should do just fine here IMO. Procedural photography has made strides in smartphones, but it’s hard to beat a dedicated camera

    Low light photos

    Fast glass will make this way better. If you’re serious about low light, stop thinking about a f2.8 lens and start thinking about really fast primes. If you haven’t read about f-stops yet, the quick primer is f/4 to f/2.8 is one stop, f/2.8 to f/2 is another, f/2 to f/1.4 is yet another.

    IMO you should buy a f/2.8 lens for any gain in image quality it offers over its f/4 counterpart - not because it’s faster/lets in more light. If you want to really let in more light, a prime lens is the way to go.

    Note that fast glass = shallower depth of field if shot wide open. This is potentially one of the advantages of something like micro four thirds. I took pictures of my kids with Santa this winter and stepped down to f/5.6 to try to get all their faces fairly sharp on my 50mm and A7III (full frame). I had about 0.4 meters of “in focus” plane. On a micro four thirds body, I could have used a 25mm lens, at f/2, and wound up with a very similar looking photo. Although the FF sensor is about a stop lower noise, the micro four third photo would have probably had lower noise due to the two stop faster aperture. Not that this particular photo is noisy, but you hopefully get the point.

    Long-lasting gear. Okay with getting prime and telephoto lens later if needed.

    Most gear will last quite a while, especially if you keep it dry. If it’s going to get wet, make sure to get weather sealed. That’s going to drive up cost.

    Videography is not a priority as of now, may explore later.

    Same situation here, lol.

    So, think about what you want and go from there.