LordKOTL

In spite of this being a quasi-zombie thread... f/8 is my starting point.  If the shooting conditions make f/8 viable I tend to stay there. However, I have no qualms whatsoever about shooting f/5.6 ...

Basically, this is how I do it--as well as setting the 2nd card (in my case, both are SD) to be the backup rather than overflow. I have 64GB for my main, and 32GB as my backup.  I'm considering ...

Good point and thanks for correcting me, I should have qualified that there is a lower limit on the shutter speed.  My bad.  I should have also qualified that "the moon is not going anywhere" ...

Image lightness seems okay. I personally would have tried to shoot at ISO 100 and either tripodded the camera o r increased the aperture a stop (if the lens was still sharp at f/5.6). If I read ...

Full disclosure that I don't own this unit and I do understand that it's only a 10W/S shot through a frosted plastic diffuser...so the usual "take this with a lump of rock salt" applies. I know ...

I want to quote, thumbs up and emphasize these two parts of your post. For many beginners I think it's important to understand that indeed "exposure" is not "image brightness" for the very reasons ...

My only real complaint I have is on the ballhead--when you "set" it, and try to tighten it drifts a bit and takes a bit of a learning curve. You can always replace it with a better ballhead. That ...

In short:  in most cases you don't have to send it back. I think for something very rare you would, but if it's a fairly common lens they just ask that you ship back the box and the shopping ...

Full disclosure:  I've never bought anything from LensAuthority.  I have, however rented from LensRentals and everything they shipped has come incredibly well packaged--and the lenses worked well ...

Bounce flash can solve a lot.  Just keep in mind that when bouncing the flash, you have to keep in mind the color of the surface you're bouncing off of; if the walls are (hypothetically) light ...

While michaeldawson and larrywilson hit the major nail on the head, I believe another factor is how printing works. Read up on it here: http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/what-print-resolution-work ...

Good point which I didn't bring up (printing)--however, you seem to look at it like I do--pixel count over crop factor. I figure it like this:  My camera outputs approx 6000x4000, which makes a ...

Simplest answer:  I don't.  The primary focus of cropping for me is to get the best framing if I couldn't get it right while shooting it for whatever reason (i.e. couldn't get close to the bison ...

Extra battery and extra memory (i.e. SD card).  Probably the most important and the most "Duh!", but when it comes to taking pictures, they're probably the most important things aside from the ...

I use the Nikon Micro 105VR.  I like the lens in general for my uses.  It works good as a headshot-portrait lens.  It works good as a mild telephoto.  I like the bokeh on it. Focusing is slow but I ...

Thanks...but I don't consider myself accomplished in the least. I'm just a rank amateur hobbyist who probably knows just enough about photography to be dangerous to himself and those around him. I' ...

1st off, nice shot :).  In a world of HDR photos I love seeing silhouettes. I'm similar.  I only like shooting with one "floating variable" set--be it aperture, shutter, ISO, or flash power ...

Thanks for the specifics!  I was a bit hazy on the details and wanted to be a bit more general with my point which you appear to corroborate:  boosting the ISO for a low exposure should (at least ...

I may be wrong here, but I think the biggest misunderstanding beginners have is that high ISO causes noise, rather than a low exposure. Because of that, I think if beginners looked at a higher ISO ...