I just learned these exist! They’re very cool looking.

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.

If mildew doesn’t get them, vine borers will :(

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.

With sports, capturing the action takes front seat to composition. That said, you’re going to generally want to be up or downfield from the action so people are facing you when the action inevitably comes your way.

That’s cool! I also wasn’t trying to say whether or not it was or wasn’t you, I really just wanted more context on the photo. I’m assuming that it’s actually two skulls?

https://www.aliceferox.com/blog/2021/7/21/comfortable-to-die

Looks like it’s probably an art project, but still a neat idea.

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.

To be a good succulent parent you do need to tend toward the neglect side of things.

Potted plants in general tend to get over watered thanks to too much love and attention from their owners. Roots need the opportunity to dry out and pots do a good job of resisting that.

Many first time growers who experience dead/dying plants think it’s because they’re not doing enough, when the inverse is often the case: they’re doing too much.

Agree on jade. Older ones look great IMO.

Don’t ever expose it to young kids. They love whacking it because it makes chunks fall off :(

We made that mistake with our own kids (two human, one kitten).

Our jade is pretty big + old, and the damage happened years ago. At this point it’s probably due for a good pruning to help it have a better shape. The plant itself has some air roots that form every once in a while, but it’s happily flowering currently so it can’t be all that mad.

Electronic shutter

As an OM-1 MK1 dabbler, I find my hit rate much higher if not using one of the SH modes. Not sure if procap is available with ‘regular’ ES. But you’re right, metric tons of photos to cull. I’ll have to give digiKam a go. All I use PM for us culling. There’s a ton more it can do, but I’m def not using it to it’s fullest.

The big workflow gap for me is culling. Thankfully I have a legacy license for Photo Mechanic, but their new pricing structure is very unappealing.

I like the tri-photo format, and photo collages in general! The mix of aspect ratios is a nice change of pace.

OP said in an earlier post that they’ve had the plant for years and that it started life as the top of a grocery store pineapple. I’m somewhat tempted to give it a go just for giggles.

Week? Man. I have a large Jade and water the thing evey other month. Sometimes it goes even longer than that. It’s happily starting it’s spring bloom after coming out from under grow lights in my basement to sit in front of a north facing window. All our smaller succulents are on a monthly ish schedule, but that’s not anything we rigorously watch/pay attention to. Weekly for a succulent seems too often, but if they’re happy they’re happy.

I’m a fellow FF Sony shooter and have found myself very fond of the 35mm focal length for a walk-around lens with my kids. My 35mm is Sigma’s F1.4 DG HSM, which comes in at 775 grams and is fairly large at 77mm x 120mm. I’ve found myself grabbing my Sony FE 50mm f1.8 due to its much more compact size and weight, so I’m strongly considering a slower, but more compact 35mm to grab when I’ll be outdoors.

I don’t know if this is the case for you, but I am actively choosing my gear around gear I’ll be more likely to use - even if this comes comes with some trade-offs in terms of IQ or aperture speed. My gear blows a cellphone out of the water for my hyperactive kids, but as they say the best camera in the world is the one you’re carrying.

Something to think about.

As others have hit on already, sensor size is the thing holding you back. Bigger image circles require more glass to resolve. The most compact FF e-mount option I’m aware of is Zony 35mm f2.8

Here’s a quick size rundown. The zFc is very classic looking, so I included it. Had a n APS-C and is wearing a FF lens though. Next up is your A7c with the previously mentioned lens, followed by a fairly compact micro four thirds body and then the Nikon J5.

https://pxlmag.com/db/camera-size-comparison/2cb6d89c_adc2b2b6-feb6b053_6154c3c3-7d9a7715_4b7de3da-5b91e20c_6a9c3a33-t60

If you want compact and don’t mind wider lenses, micro four thirds bodies are probably your best option. The OM-5 is a modern gripless body.