The Beginner Photography Podcast

Photo Q&A: How to Avoid Wasting Money on Camera Gear

• Raymond Hatfield

Share episode

#593 In this month’s Q&A episode of the Beginner Photography Podcast, we answer questions that span both technical and philosophical aspects of photography. The conversation centers around real-world challenges for beginners – such as gear selection, repair decisions, getting comfortable with taking photos of strangers, and figuring out what to do with all the photos taken. A key theme in the episode is demystifying the necessity (or lack thereof) of expensive equipment, highlighting practical approaches, and encouraging photographers to focus on skills and intent over gear.

The learning objectives are to help new photographers make confident choices regarding camera bodies and lenses, to understand essential photography concepts like crop sensor vs. full frame, and to gain practical strategies for the creative and ethical dilemmas commonly faced in daily shooting. Core takeaways include: moment and storytelling trump equipment price; knowing your camera, settings, and practicing in diverse scenarios is more beneficial than chasing the latest technology; and sharing or preserving your work can be deeply personal and doesn’t have to be showy.

Key Topics Covered:

  1. Camera Repairs and Gear Upgrades:
    Raymond shares a story about repairing his beloved Fuji X Pro 2 instead of upgrading, emphasizing that quality gear is often worth repairing due to build and longevity. Takeaway: Invest wisely, but don’t be afraid to repair rather than replace, and understand when repair makes more sense than a new purchase.
  2. The Myth of Expensive Lenses:
    The episode debunks the belief that only expensive lenses yield “real photos.” Through examples (e.g. the Canon “nifty fifty” 50mm f/1.8 lens), Raymond demonstrates that compelling images depend more on the moment and technique than gear price. Application tip: Beginners are encouraged to experiment with affordable lenses and to rent gear for specific needs rather than buying high-end lenses.
  3. Navigating Event/Street Photography & Sharing Work:
    Questions address how to confidently shoot portraits, events, wildlife, and street photography, including approaching strangers and capturing candid moments. Practical tips are given for ethical approaches and communicating with subjects. The final segment tackles what to do with a backlog of photos, suggesting print, books, or personal projects as meaningful options beyond social media posting.

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Hey everybody. Raymond here from the Beginner Photography Podcast and welcome to this month's Q and A episode. This is your chance to get all of your burning photography questions answered. I know that sometimes you're out shooting, sometimes you're, you know, reading something online or you're watching a YouTube video and a question pops up and there's no good easy place to get an answer. One that may be coming from experience, right? And you could of course ask Chad G. But who knows if that is actually correct or if that is based on real world experience. And anyway, this is your place to do just that. So if you have a question, you can always shoot me an email@bounnerphotographypodcastmail.com and who knows, maybe you will hear your answer here on the podcast. And as always, the Beginner Photography Podcast is brought to you by cloudspot. If you're delivering photos via Google Drive or just sending people a link, you're doing it wrong. Seriously, it is not professional and it opens you up to have your photos stolen. Essentially, with cloudspot, you can create beautiful galleries that you can send to clients in seconds and also offer protections like watermarking or password protecting your galleries so that you don't find yourself in a situation where people are just stealing your photos. You can also sell digital downloads and set up a print store in minutes so that with every gallery you send, you can earn more. Who doesn't want that? You can grab your free Forever account today over@deliverphotos.com and only upgrade when and if you're ready. I want to give you all a quick update because a few weeks ago I had shared that my X Pro 2, one of my favorite cameras of all time, had died while I was out on a shoot. And the question came up of, well, if it's dead, does that mean that it's time to upgrade? Should I look into getting it repaired? And I want to share a little bit about that experience real quick. And that is, I tried to go through Fuji to get the camera repaired, but everything that I had been reading online said that, I mean, it is a 10 year old camera and they weren't really supporting the repairs for an older camera. There was a lot of people saying that they would send in their cameras for relatively minor, minor things and they were being told that they needed to upgrade to a new camera and I really didn't like that idea. So I had found somebody in one of the forums that I found on Reddit who had talked about an experience that he had had when he Tried to get one of his cameras fixed, another Fuji camera. And he had went through a similar situation and ended up deciding to go through a guy, I guess, like, there's this guy who has a business where he just repairs cameras, I think mostly Fuji son, mostly mirrorless cameras. And I thought, what do I have to lose? So I reached out to him, explained the problem, and then he gave me a quote of about $400. And I had thought to myself, man, $400. What could I do with $400? What camera could I buy for $400? And the answer is not many. And especially not a camera of the caliber that the X Pro 2 is. I mean, it is built like a tank and it fits. So. And there's a price that I will gladly pay for a camera that I just get right. It just makes sense. Everything about it I truly love. So since there was no other camera that I could get of comparable quality for$400, and I've had the camera for 10 years, I thought, yeah, it's. It's. I should just repair this thing. So that's what I did. I shipped in the camera to him. He kept sending me updates as far as what was going on with the camera. I want to give you what exactly had went wrong with it. He said, hey, Raymond, your Fuji X Pro 2 is repaired. And past quality control. The shutter charge unit, which is what charges the shutter, had been shorted, so there was some sort of electrical short, causing both the electrical system and the shutter actuation motor to fail, both of which I replaced in addition to repairing the power system on the main board. And then he sent me this long list of things that were replaced and cleaned as well. And the total, I'm happy to say, only came out to $350. So it was cheaper than I expected. And this camera came back, y'. All. I'm telling you. It felt like I was opening a brand new camera. I mean, it was clean, there was no dust. And it just felt knowing that it's in fantastic working condition. So super excited about that. Very, very happy. And now I can get back out to, you know, keep shooting. So the point of that is that there are still options to get cameras fixed and repaired. And honestly, like, if you have a, you know, like a$600 camera, more entry level cameras are kind of. I hate to say this, but like, designed to. Not designed to break, but designed to not be the most repairable thing in the world because they have to be made with cost in mind. And therefore there's a lot of concessions. There's more glue than screws. There's cheaper quality parts. So when it comes time to the labor of actually ripping apart a camera, finding the problem and then fixing it, oftentimes it's as much, if not just a bit less than the camera itself. However, buying higher quality gear, yes, it is more expensive, but when it comes time to repair it, it's much easier and it's much more cost effective because, well, they're made to be. So am I suggesting that you should go out and buy a brand new super expensive camera? No, I'm not. But when the time comes and you say, you know what, it is time for me to upgrade, there's things about this camera that are holding me back from achieving the images that I want to capture or create. It may not be a bad idea to spend a little bit more on a higher quality camera in case something does go wrong. Right? Like, don't be scared to spend money on the tools that will help you to achieve the end result. I'm not saying spending all the money and that money shouldn't be, you know, as consideration at all, but sometimes spending more makes the process of creating images a lot better. Don't expect better image quality that may come, but don't expect that. Expect a better experience when shooting. All right, how about we go ahead and get on into these questions? All right, my first question here comes from Peggy. Peggy says, I keep seeing people online saying that if you want to take, quote, real photos, then you need these crazy expensive lenses that are like $2,000 plus my camera only costs $600. We're just talking about this. How do people even afford them? And are they actually necessary to become a better photographer? All right, yeah, Peggy, great, great, great, great question. So first of all, are they necessary to become a better photographer? Better term. Right. But I would say no. No, they're not. I've said this plenty of times on the podcast before. Moment matters most, right? You can take a fantastic photo of a great moment with a cell phone and the photo will speak to so many more people and resonate with them more than a photo that was a boring moment or not interesting, but it was taken with very expensive gear. So therefore, no, you don't need these super expensive lense, you know, become a better photographer. And I remember when I had first decided to, well, when I was still in film school, it was hard to shoot a lot of video because the cameras that I was planning on using in my career would be cinema cameras that at the time were film and Therefore, it just wasn't as easy to create video as it is today, right? And my job was going to be working with cameras, not necessarily owning a camera. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So what I did was I bought a Canon Rebel XT because I know that a lot of the technicals still transfer over aperture, shutter speed, ISO, these are all considerations to your exposure. And therefore I knew that if I could adjust those things, literally in my everyday life, I could practice being better at creating images and seeing light. So the camera came with a 18 to 55 stock zoom lens, right? Known as not the best. It's mostly made out of plastic. And I remember thinking, I do want better quality images than just a lens that's made out of plastic. So that's when I looked into what are my other options and everybody was suggesting the 50 mil. I knew that I liked the 50 mil when dealing with video, specifically in cinema. So I thought, okay, I'll look into the 50. And what I found was three options. There was a 50 millimeter lens that was $99. Okay, it was 50mm f 1.8. And then there was a 50mm 1.4 that was $400. And that seemed crazy because it's like, wait, it's only a third of a stop. It only allows in a third of a stop more light and it four times the price. But then it got even crazier because then there was a 50 millimeter 1.2 that was 2 grand. And I thought, wow, that's another just 1/3 stop of light and now it's $2,000. That is bananas to me. However, when you look at the three, right? Good, better, best, it's not necessarily just do you want the best image quality? What you also have to consider is things like what are you using this for? Are you a profess? Because if I'm a professional, I'm going to be willing to spend more, as I was just saying, on my camera gear because I know that it's going to be of a better build quality. So who knows where I'm going to be taking this camera. Could be crazy conditions. And I need to know that it's going to stand up wherever I take it. But then also there is things like image quality. When you have a $100 plastic 50 millimeter 1.8 lens, you aren't going to get the best image quality. Specifically in high contrast scenes, there's a lot of what's called chromatic aberration. However, with glass, which is what the full construction is going to be Made out of in a $2,000 lens, the image quality is going to be much better. Now, is it going to be so much better that somebody just quickly scrolling on Instagram is going to notice? No, it's not. The $100.50 millimeter 1.8 and the$2,000.50 millimeter 1.2 will look identical to 99.9999% of people, honestly probably including myself, who are just scrolling on Instagram quickly looking at photos. But if you're a professional and you have a very specific use case, then yes, that lens makes sense. But do you need it to take great photos? No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. In fact, some of my favorite photos that I've ever taken have been on the $100.50 millimeter 1.8 nifty 50 canon lens because it's fantastic. And if you know how to see light right, and you shoot in the right situations, which you only know what are the quote, right situations by shooting a lot and finding out, oh, that doesn't work and oh, that does work, then you can get incredible results. At the time, I had friends who were actors and I took their headshots and they loved them and they booked work right, with the photos that they used in their headshots. I'm not saying that the headshots were the reason why they got the work, but somebody looked at those photos and didn't think to themselves, wow, what was this? Just a hundred dollar lens. No thank you. And then threw it out, right? Like they still were able to get work with a, with a very cheap kit. So if you're new in your journey and you don't know if you should spend $2,000 on a lens, the answer is no, you shouldn't. Because you, you clearly don't have a need or understanding as to why that lens is $2,000. And that's fine. That may come in the future, but it's not here today. So, you know, spend the hundred dollars on a lens, that's fine. And another thing to consider is also renting, right? You don't have to spend $2,000 on the lens to realize, oh, this is actually, you know, it gets me 99% of the way there as my 50mm 1.8 lens, I had done that before. I had bought gear and realized, oh, this is too much for me. I spent way too much on this and I don't really need this. I could have spent my money in way better places. So specifically, the. One of the things that I did for weddings is for the 70 to 200. Right. Using a 70 to 200 millimeter lens is great for weddings because it's a consistent aperture. It's. It's sharp, it's fast. However, like $2,300. Now, I only used the 70 to 200 during the ceremony, right? Because that's the only time where I was relatively far away from the couple. The rest of the day, I'm very close. I'm using either my 35 or my 85 millimeter lens. So did I spend $2,500 buying that lens? No, I didn't. I just rented the lens because that was the only time that I needed it. And if I was outdoors where there was plenty of light, I knew that I could rent a. A lower version. Right. Canon also made a 70 to 200 f4 lens. So it's one stop slower. It lets in one stop less light. But if you're outdoors, that's still plenty of light. And I was able to capture fantastic photos, and it cost me way less. So look into renting versus buying, because, again, you can save a ton of money by doing that. And then you'll realize, oh, my photos aren't that much better. They're not$2,000 better. And maybe I can save some money on just buying the cheaper gear. So, Peggy, I hope that that helped you. I hope that doesn't force you to buy something extremely new or, I'm sorry, extremely expensive, and that it encourages you to, you know, use what you got and just make the best of it. All right, next question that we got here is from Chelsea. Chelsea says, hey, Raymond. I've been listening to the podcast for over a year while I get my toes wet in the world of paid photography. Congratulations. Gear list is a canon EOS Rebel T7, a 50mm 1.8 lens, the stock 18 to 55, and the EF75-300mm lens. Most of my work is portraiture, maternity, and family and some events. Here's my dilemma. I want to get better at event photography, specifically concerts and sports and wildlife, because that's where my passion lies. But I also want to get into weddings and do better portraits because that's what the vast majority will pay for and what my family and friends want done. I end up spending countless hours in lightroom to get the best pictures, which makes me think one of two things. I need a better camera or a better lens. Although I know I haven't nailed my settings yet either. I'm getting a lust for a mirrorless camera, and I have the budget for it. But I'm not convinced that I should get one. Are there any specific lenses for my rebel T7 that you would suggest to narrow in on what I want out of my photos or should. Nailed my settings yet? Either. All right, I'm going to focus in on that last part right there. Or should I bite the bullet and show up to shoots with one crop sensor camera and one full frame camera? All right, that's a mindset thing and that's definitely something that I went through as well. But here's the thing. If you're worried about people's perception of the camera that you show up with, they don't care. They don't care. I would show up to weddings in the beginning with my. What I owned at the time was a Canon 40D, which was a crop sensor camera. And then I would rent, as I was just mentioning before, a Canon 5D. It was a Mark 2 at first, and then I loved it so much I bought it. So it was the. So I showed up with a crop sensor and a full frame camera and nobody ever once said anything about, hey, why are you using that camera over this camera? I can't believe you brought a crop sensor camera to here. And a full frame camera. You know, like, what are you doing? Nobody ever said anything. So first of all, don't worry about any of that. Don't just remove that from your mind. The second thing that I want to tackle here is you're shooting a very wide range of things, right? You're shooting portraits, you're shooting concerts. Okay? So portraits are fine with just about any camera because the, the, the lens is the most important part because you want the correct aperture. You're shooting concerts. That's very difficult because it's very low light and extremely changing bright light with lots of action. Okay, that's difficult. Sports, very fast moving subjects that are far away. And wildlife, also subjects that are far away. But weddings and portraits, those things are up close. So here's kind of my thought. Do you need a better camera or do you need a better lens? The answer is yes. Okay. It sounds to me like you're pretty consistently shooting a wide range of things and therefore you're, you're recognizing the problem that you're having and it might be time for you to upgrade your camera and lens. But, but, but with that, I also say that you mentioned that, although I know I haven't nailed my settings just yet either. So are you ready for a new camera? The answer is no. You will be ready for a new camera once you Fully understand your settings. I promise you get the full value that you can out of the camera that you have right now before upgrading. Because with shooting so many different things, that tells me that you are probably still very new in your journey. As you said, just over a year. Okay. You're still trying to figure out what it is that you want to focus on. And if you want to focus on things like concerts, sports, things where people are far away, then getting something like a crop sensor camera is probably going to be a better option for you. But if you decide to shoot weddings and, you know, close up portraits, then maybe a full frame camera is going to be better for you. But you don't know that yet. You don't know. So I would say dive deeper into the things that you like to shoot, figure out exactly where you want to move forward in your business as a photographer, and then you'll be able to make the right decision for what camera is going to be right for you. But again, even the most expensive camera is going to do nothing for you if you haven't nailed your settings. And I can tell that you haven't nailed your settings because you talk about the countless hours that you spend in Lightroom. Here's how I view photography, right? My job as a photographer is to get it as right as possible in camera. And what that means is that I want the look, I want the light, I want the color all to be right in camera. So that when I bring it into Lightroom, Lightroom's job is to put my visual signature on the images, not to fix major problems. Can it do that if I find myself in. In that situation? Sure. Right. You're not going to be perfect all the time, but I can try my best. And that speeds up editing a thousand fold. But that requires you to understand what it is that you're doing with your camera to be able to capture photos correctly in camera so that when you get them into Lightroom, they're 99% of the way done. So do you need to upgrade your camera? Yes. Is it today? No. No, it is not. Keep working on your settings. Shoot as much as humanly possible. Work on things like your focus point. Work on things like your camera settings, right? The more photos that you get in focus, the more photos that can be, you know, quote unquote, right in camera when you get them into Lightroom, the better you will be. And then that more practice that you get will tell you exactly where you are struggling with your camera and what will will answer what camera you need to upgrade to when that time comes. So save the money right now. Save the money and focus on getting it right in camera. All right, next question here comes from Lee. Lee says, hello, Raymond, my question for you is, how do you shoot street photography of people without being obvious or rude? You mentioned shooting photos of people eating corn for your upcoming project. How do you do it without causing confrontation? All right, Lee, first and foremost, I don't consider myself a street photographer. I'm not somebody who photographs a lot of people on the streets. But yes, I did share that. I went to the state fair, and I've been working on this project of people eating corn. Hoosiers eating corn. Okay, there's a few ways to go about this, right? What is the fear? We have to figure out what is the fear. The fear is being confronted. Confronted how? Where? We have this fear that people are going to confront us and be like, why are you taking my photo? What are you going to do with that photo? So how do you answer that question? You answer that question by showing them some of your other work. You answer that question by having a good attitude about it. Because if they confront you, which, by the way, I've never once been confronted. In fact, most of the time, when people see me with the camera, like, they lock eyes, they'll, like, pose for me real quick. Right? Okay, so, but if they confront you, you have to come at this with a good attitude. You have to be like, you know, let's say I was taking a photo of somebody eating corn. They go to take a big old bite. They see me taking a photo of them, and they're like, hey, what? What's up? What? What's the deal? And I'm like, hey, man, you know, talk about the corn. Be like, dude, love corn. You look like you were just going to town on that thing. Love the excitement for the corn. And then say, I'm working on this project of people eating corn at the state fair, and you are perfect for it. And then you can show them some examples as well, right? If you have Lightroom mobile on your phone, show them, hey, look, here are some of the photos that I got. I love it. Love people eating corn. Like, that's it. You have this great look. Love it, man. Can I send you this photo? If they say, no, I don't want you taking photos of me eating corn. All right, man, no problem. Have a great day. And then you just walk away. If they ask you to delete the photo, just delete the photo. You know, it's no big deal. But again, nine times out of 10, people look at me, and then they'll pose, they'll smile, they'll, like, really pretend like they're taking, like, a giant bite of corn or something like that. And then you look up and you give them, like, this thumbs up, like, yeah, awesome. And then, you know, thanks. And then you can just keep on moving on, and that's. That's it. Now, on the street, it may be a little bit different because state fair has this atmosphere of. It's exciting, it's fun. People are more relaxed. If you're on the street again, have a reason for why you're taking the photo. Don't just take photos aimlessly. Have a reason for why you're taking the photo. And if you're really worried about people being in your photos, then shoot in a way that obscures them somehow. Right. Oftentimes, street photographers might find, let's say, some really strong, interesting light, and they want a photo of somebody walking through that light. But you can do so where either the shutter speed is slow enough to where they blur through the frame, but you can still get their motion, or you do so in a way that maybe there's more contrast or the exposure is lower so that their face is obscured and they're more of just an object in the frame, if that makes sense. So there's plenty of ways to go around it. But I think at the end of the day, if you have good intentions, people will be, you know, more accepting of you taking their photo. If you come at it with a level of excitement, they're gonna. They're not gonna be as on guard, right? If they come up to you and you're like, oh, crap, they're gonna confront me. Oh, what am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? And you seem very skittish, and off. They're gonna think that you're doing something wrong. So just don't do that. Be open about it. If they look at you and be like, hey, thanks. You know, great shot right there. Love that light. You walked right through it. Perfect. Thank you so much. And then just keep walking. Like, it doesn't have to be this huge, long thing. You don't have to sit down at a table. You don't have to have this debate of whether it's legal or anything like that. Just say, love the light, man. You look great. Awesome. Thank you. Love your shirt. You're looking awesome today. Thank you so much. Own it, right? Own it. That's it. All right, next question we got here is from Kathy. Kathy asks hey, Raymond, I've learned so much from you and your guest. I love the podcast. Thank you, Kathy. As I continue to learn, I do have a few questions. These may sound silly, but I have a crop sensor camera, a Sony A6000, and the viewfinder is on the left side of the camera When I want to take a photo in portrait mode, vertically. Where should this be? Should it be at the top of the camera or the bottom of the camera? Doesn't matter. If so, why? All right, this is a two part question, but I'm going to answer that one first. My Fuji X Pro 2, right, the viewfinder is also on the left side of the camera. And as part of your next question, I also wear glasses. So I can tell you that when I look through the camera, I put my, my right eye up to the lens or up to the viewfinder because what I like to do is leave my left eye open so that I can still see the world around me and take photos so that I can see, you know, if something is just out of frame, I can kind of see somebody about to enter the frame and line up my composition so that when they do, or the timing is perfect, I snap the photo and I get it. Now, when I take a photo in portrait orientation, what I typically do is I have the viewfinder at the top of the camera. Now, is this the quote unquote right way to do it? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Whatever is more comfortable for you. But I find that when the viewfinder is on the bottom of the camera, my whole arm has to come up so that I can hold the top of the camera kind of like above my head because now it's hanging down so that the viewfinder is at my eye level. But if I have it the other way, right, to where the viewfinder is at the top of the camera, then it feels smaller, right? I am not taking up as much space in the world, and I can be smaller in, in the world around me that's taking photos. I don't have to be so out there. So. But the answer is whatever feels better to you is the right answer. Maybe at weddings when I need to assert like some sort of, hey, I'm in charge here. Then like, I will hold the camera up and take up as much space in the room as possible to say, hey, everybody, pay attention to me. But if I'm out just shooting on my own, I'm gonna do it the other way around because it just, it just feels better. Okay, Second part of the question I also wear glasses and I'm struggling sometimes with focus. I recently took a photo of two peacocks behind a fence. Using my 35 millimeter 1.8 lens. I bumped up the aperture. However, half the photos the fence was sharp and the other half, the birds were in focus. I did not realize this until I uploaded them to view. Any tips or tricks? The blurred bird does look kind of cool, but it was not what I was attempting. Do I need to change a setting? A few things could be going on here. One, I don't know how out of focus the birds were and your fence was in focus. Sometimes with a narrower aperture, let's say F, you know, 5.6 or F8. Then the difference between the fence in focus and the peacock being out of focus may not be enough for you to see in the viewfinder. It may look like it's all in focus. However, if you're shooting it at 1.8 and the lenses or the fence is right in front of you and the peacock is at a distance, you should be able to see that, oh, it's the fence that's in focus and not the peacock. Just through the viewfinder. Like you should be able to see that through the viewfinder. So that tells me, as you said, you kind of bumped up the aperture and it was just hard to tell which one was which. Yes. In that case, there is a setting that you should change and it is your focus point and how large your focus point point is. So on my Fuji camera, I don't know necessarily about Sony, but I can adjust the size of my focus point. If I know that I'm shooting through a fence, I'm going to choose the smallest focus point possible and then select it exactly where I want it to be so that there is no confusion, so that the camera doesn't think, oh, anything within this frame or anything within this autofocus square. Maybe it's the fence, maybe it's the peacock is okay to be in focus. I want to tell it exactly where to put focus. And the other thing is, there's also this manual override option for Fuji so that I can lock in focus with autofocus, which I do 99% of the time. But if focus is critical, the second that I start moving my focus ring, the viewfinder zooms in to focus the focus. The autofocus square, the area that I'm focusing in on and will show me a much like a 100% crop so that I know for sure that area is exactly in the focus that I need. It to be. Now, I would assume that those are settings in your Sony camera, because those are very important settings, right? Like it's. It can be common to find yourself in a situation similar to that where you're shooting through something. And I love to do that because I think that it gives me a much more interesting composition when I'm shooting through something. And I don't want the camera to focus on the thing in the foreground, So I use that option all the time. So I would highly suggest that you look into making that work for your Sony camera. But as far as glasses go, you know, another thing that you can do is they make a different eye cup for the X Pro 2. They make different eye cups for most cameras. So I would look into that as well. And it just gives you a little bit more space so that you're not like squishing your entire eye up to the camera. And then just make sure that the diopter, which is on my Fuji camera, it's right here if you're watching on YouTube. But it adjusts the. Essentially it's the focus of the viewfinder. So you can. Can change it if you're very nearsighted or if you're very farsighted, you can adjust it to make sure that it works for you, and then you can adjust it for your glasses as well. So those are the three things that I would check. I would make sure that my focus point was appropriately sized. I would make sure that I have the setting turned on to where when I change my focus ring on my lens, it zooms in to that point, and I can get a. An accurate read on. On what is in focus. And then two, make sure that. Or three, rather, you make sure that you check that there's a new eye cup for your camera, specifically for glasses, and that your diopter is adjusted correctly. So there you go, Kathy. I hope that that helped. All right, next question. Here comes from Connor. Connor says, I know I should be shooting in manual, but when it comes to try, my photos often come out too dark or too bright. How do I know what setting to adjust first? Shutter aperture or ISO? All right, Connor, great question. And I have the perfect answer for you. It is. Well, it depends. As with everything in photography, the answer is it depends. Right. It's hard for me to be in your exact situation because I don't know exactly what it is that you shoot. But there are some general guidelines for what setting to change and to change first. But first of all, if you are struggling with camera settings like you're not alone. So I built a free downloadable guide. So, Connor, if you haven't downloaded it already, I highly suggest that you check it out. Because I break down exactly what I'm going to answer for you here. And then you can print it out, put it in your bag, which you can download this guide@perfectcamerasettings.com I'm going to show you my camera settings for 10 different types of photography. Like my actual photos with the actual settings. And then I'll break down exactly what settings to change in those situations if the photo isn't working out for you perfectly. But to give you a brief overview, the way that I build a photo in when shooting in manual is that I set my ISO first, followed by my aperture and then my shutter speed ISO, because I can clearly look around and see how much available light there is. And then I just kind of guesstimate, okay, this is probably ISO 400, right? There's a good amount of light here and then aperture, because I know the type of photo that I want to take and approximately how much depth of field that I want. So I'll select my aperture. Okay, I gotta take aperture of f 2.8. And then I just adjust my shutter speed to what would be a proper exposure. And that's it. So now let's say that you're taking a portrait and the photo is too dark, right? So what can you adjust? You can adjust your ISO, your aperture, or your shutter speed, but when it comes to portraits, your aperture is extremely important. Because typically for a portrait, you want something like the eyes in focus, but you want the background out of focus, so you don't want to adjust your aperture. So for portraits, what I look for, what setting to change first, is first my ISO. If the photo is too dark, then is my ISO too low? Can I go up on my ISO without introducing a lot of digital noise? If I'm at, you know, an ISO of 400 and I'm shooting a portrait, I probably want to keep it exactly where it is, because if you bump it up too high, then you could be introducing some digital noise. So I'll keep that at 400. I'm not going to change my aperture, so that leaves my shutter speed. All right, well, that means that I if my photo is too dark, I just simply have to open up or slow down my shutter speed. So instead of 1 500th of a second, maybe I'll go down to 1 250th of a second, I'll take the photo and then I'LL try again. Or you could be shooting a landscape, right? So what setting do you change when your landscape photo isn't working? Let's say that your landscape photo is too bright. All right? So the first thing that I would do in a landscape photo is bring down my ISO if I can. If my ISO is 400, I'm going to bring it down to 200 or 100 if my. Or if my photo is too bright. Because if it's too bright, there's no reason why my sensor has to be more sensitive than what it needs to be, right? If I bring my ISO down to say 100 and the photo is still too bright, then I'm bringing down my shutter speed once again. Because with a landscape photo, you want a narrow aperture, something like F11, F16, to ensure that most of the scene is in focus. You don't want an out of focus landscape. That sucks. Now what if you're shooting kids playing? Kids are moving around pretty quick, right? This could be kids, it could be sports, you know, whatever it is. Because kids are pretty quick. You want to adjust either your ISO or your aperture, right? Because if, if you have a fast moving subject, changing your shutter speed is not ideal because you need it high enough to be able to freeze the action. So first again, if it's too bright, I'm going to bring down my ISO. Once I bring down my ISO as low as appropriate, then I'm going to adjust my aperture. And I'm going to do that until I get the right balance of how bright or how dark I want the image to be. But I'm not going to touch the shutter speed because I need to be able to freeze them in action. Now, if you change both your ISO and your aperture and the photo is still too bright or too dark, then I would consider changing my shutter speed because that's the only other option that you have. And then just be careful that you don't go too low of a shutter speed that you're going to introduce motion blur. Again, if you're new to photography, if you're new to shooting in manual, that can seem very overwhelming. So again, download my free Downloadable guide@perfectcamerasettings.com and then you'll be able to print it out, take it with you while you're actually shooting. All right, next question. Next question. Here comes from Andrew. Andrew says, hey, Raymond, can you explain the difference between crop sensor and full frame? Which do you prefer and why? All right, Andrew, very common question. So you're not alone in wondering what is the deal with these two. It's two very common terms that you'll hear in photography spaces when learning about photography. And it's also one of the things that you know, say beginner to intermediate photographers like to brag about the most. Because once you understand it and you think, oh, I'm going to get a full frame camera, it's easy to brag about, right? It's easy to blame all of your problems on a crop sensor camera. So I'm going to explain the difference to you this way. Imagine that you're standing in a living room, right? And you, you have a giant window in front of you and it's overlooking this beautiful scene, right? It's a nice big beautiful window, picturesque. You get this fantastic view of what's outside. Let's say it's the beach, right? Maybe it's a beach house, it's a house on a cliff or something. And you just get this fantastic view. Now let's say for a moment that that would be the full frame view of what it is that you see outside. Now imagine standing in that exact same spot looking at the exact same view, but now the window is half as big, it's half the size. You're still looking at the exact same thing and there's still just as much going on outside, right? The beach didn't change size, it's just your view of the outside world. It's cropped in. Now does that sound bad? Of course it sounds bad. The term crop implies that it's less than full, right? And therefore it just seems like, oh, I don't want crop sensor anything. But you asked what do I prefer and why? What I prefer is whatever I got. Honestly, I went from shooting weddings on a full frame canon 5D mark II, canon 5D mark III. And then I switched to a crop sensor series of Fuji cameras. But I did it for a very specific reason. One, I felt that the sensor technology had gotten good enough to when shooting weddings I would still be able to capture the same quality of images. And two, the smaller sensor allowed for smaller cameras which allowed for me to be more inconspicuous at a wedding, right? I could blend in more and be able to get less camera aware photos of people so that they feel more authentic because that's what I wanted in photography. So. So I prefer crop sensor cameras because of the portability of the camera at a wedding and how it allowed me to be less conspicuous. And in the past 10 years that I've been shooting crop sensor cameras, they've only gotten Much, much better. Sorry, let me back up. When I say much better, you might be asking how, how are they better? Okay. There's two other considerations to factor in here when we're talking about crop and full frame cameras. Let's say that you have a full frame camera that is 24 megapixels and you have a crop sensor camera that is also 24 megapixels. These, these cameras produce images that are the exact same size. However, a crop sensor camera has to fit all 24 million pixels on an area that's half as large as a full frame sensor. Now what does that mean? That means that in low light conditions, it doesn't typically hold up in the same way that a full frame camera does because you can fit more, the same amount of pixels in a larger area. It can gather. A full frame sensor can gather light better. It doesn't appear as NOISY@ higher ISOs. So when I say that over the past 10 years of shooting crop sensor cameras that they've been getting better, the technology has been getting better, that's what I mean. The, the low light performance is phenomenal these days, the autofocus performance phenomenal. So there are really two different reasons because they, they both have their advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of a full frame camera is that again, it's typically better in low light situations. It's typically better for things like portraits or landscapes where you need either a larger field of view or you need to get closer to your subject. Because again, you could. Let's imagine the window example in that beautiful living room. The view that you get from that full frame, large picturesque window, you can still get with the smaller window. If you get closer to your, to the window, right? You can get the same perspective, but you have to change your position. With a full frame camera, you can get closer to your subject because it allows in more of the, of the image sensor. So you can get in closer, you can focus closer. And when you focus closer, that also affects your depth of field. So therefore with portraits where you want the background to be very out of focus, if you get closer to your subject, you, you, you focus in closer, the background gets thrown more out of focus. That doesn't mean that you cannot get phenomenal portraits with a crop sensor camera. The reason why I chose Fuji over any other mirrorless system was because their selection of images, or I'm sorry, their selection of lenses was phenomenal. Like they really spent a lot of time on their lenses and their lens offerings. So they also had A, an 85 millimeter equivalent f1.2 lens. And that was extremely important to me because I didn't want a smaller sensor and slower lenses. I wanted the same speed lenses, the same very large wide apertures, same to get the same fantastic image quality as I was used to with a full frame camera. So those are the advantages of a full frame camera. Now if you are shooting something like birds or wildlife or sports, a crop sensor camera is more advantageous to that because of that crop in factor. So imagine if you are. No, let's go back to that beach example, right? You're in this beautiful house and you have this large picturesque window and you see that out there is this boat right out in the middle of the ocean and it seems to just be swallowed up by the entire ocean because you have such, this, this wide large view. However, if you take the window that is half the size now that boat stands out more. It seems like it's a larger focus in the frame because it takes up more of the overall area that, that you can see through the window. So it's the same with birds, it's the same with sports, the same with wildlife. When you're far away from something, a crop sensor is more advantageous because it crops in the image essentially so that it appears that you can get much closer and fill the frame. And that may not seem like a lot, but I'm telling you like when you're photographing a bird from far away with a full frame camera and it takes up like 1 to 2% of the image, it doesn't really stand out. But when you use a crop sensor camera and now it takes up, you know, 10% of the image, it is much more compelling and you're not losing any resolution because both in this example, both the crop same crop sensor and the full frame camera have the same amount of megapixels. So Andrew, I hope that that answered your question. There's pros and cons to both. What it really comes down to is just your shooting style and well, I guess what it is that you're shooting as well. So there you go again, Andrew. I hope that answered your question. If you got any more questions, feel free to let me know and I'd be more than happy to help. Alright, last question of the day and it comes from Daniel. Daniel says, hey Raymond, my question is what do I do with all the photos I've taken and edited? I have so many great shots that I love but nobody ever sees them. Are they forever going to be lost on my SSD drive or a camera roll thanks for your help. Yeah, Daniel, great, great, great question. Because I think it makes us look at the larger picture of photography, no pun intended, of like, what is the point? What is the point of taking photos if the point of photography for you is just to. Okay, let me, let me backtrack. As a wedding photographer, the point of photography for me was to capture somebody's wedding day in a way that they would be able to go back and relive for years to come, right? So the point of me going out and shooting was in service to other people. There was going to be an audience for my images, my personal work. I don't really share a lot of. Nobody's printing it out, nobody's buying it. It's for me. So why do I shoot? Right? I shoot for my children in the future, for them to see their life growing up. But today you don't really get that payoff. So I have to find another reason for me to shoot. And for me, it is the experience of going out and shooting and capturing something that I am proud of. So for me, sharing photos, while it's important to a degree, isn't the payoff for me if I post a photo on Instagram and it gets like 0 likes or 2 likes? I'm not going to give up photography because I'm not doing it for the likes. I'm not doing it for other people's opinions on the shots. I'm doing it for myself and what I gain by going out and shooting and what my children will gain in the future as well. That said, there's a lot of things that you can do with your images. I think the easiest one is just. Just to share them on social media, right? Share them on Facebook, share them on Instagram. But again, think about what is the reason why you're sharing these images. If you're just trying to share a photo because it's a photo, you might not get a lot of attention on your images. And you gotta be okay with that. If you're sharing photos because they tell a story that you can tell, then they might get more engagement and they might. You might have a. A more interesting take on your work, right? Because now it's more than just the sum of its parts. An image is more than just the light that you captured, but there's a story behind it. And people love a good story if it is story. Maybe you want to also consider creating like a photo book. You can create a photo book. Maybe you have a small project that you're working on, maybe something local. Specifically to your town. You know, put something together, print up like 15 or 20 copies and maybe go to a coffee shop and see if local, locally owned coffee shop, see if they'll sell them in their coffee shop. Another easy way to share your photos is just to print them out and put them around your house. Get, get into the habit of, of sharing photos yourself, meaning the photos that you take, that you like, that you're proud of, print them out and hang them around your house, come over. Or if people see your images, they will see that not only do you take it seriously, but it's a whole lot easier to have people, you know, look through your photos if they're just hanging on the wall rather than having somebody sit down with you and go through your social feed because it doesn't feel the same. There's more weight when something is tangible and it's, it's physical and it's hanging on the wall and you can take a moment or two to look at it because we're used to just kind of, I mean, scrolling on Instagram right on, on, on social. So therefore you don't look at images in the same way. So if you want to be the kind of person who shares photos, be the person who shares photos. But think about like, what is the reason? Where do you get value? Who could you help with your photos? And not just, I want to share my photos so that people like them and therefore like me. You know what I mean? Because there's a big difference and a lot of people approach social media in that way. I'm going to share my photos so that people like them so that in turn it feels like they like me. But if you share your photos with people to help them or to help the people in your photos or for something specific, people will be more gravitated towards that. So there you go again, Daniel. I really hope that helped you to figure out what to do with all of your photos. Oh but yeah, overall, like, yeah, they should still live on your, on your computer drive or your camera roll for sure. But yeah, maybe try to get them out there into the world and just see what the world thinks. Alright, that is it for today again. Remember, if you have a burning photography question, you can send it over to me@bounnerphotographypodcastmail.com and who knows, you might just hear it on the show. And if you are struggling with your camera settings and need just a little bit of help in knowing where to get started and what to change and when, then grab my free download of Picture Perfect Camera settings over@perfectcamerasettings.com that's all that I got for you today. Until next time. Remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon. Thank you for listening to the Beginner Photography podcast. Keep shooting and we'll see you next week.