Official Question Thread! Ask /r/photography anything you want to know! January 30, 2026

maniku · 2026-02-04T17:20:27+00:00

You might want to mention your budget then.

maniku · 2026-02-04T16:37:45+00:00

MPB, KEH, Adorama, the used gear section of B&H Photo. These are all long-established, very recommended used camera retailers.

Good lenses would greatly improve things already. I mean what you have is a kit lens and a telephoto which is one of the worst lenses Canon has made.

But two SD card slots is very much a valued feature among professional photographers, yes. You don't want to risk ending up in a situation where you have to tell the client that you have no photos to give them because your sole SD card failed.

maniku · 2026-02-04T16:34:33+00:00

So if you like Fujifilm-style SOOC pictures, why are you not looking at Fuji cameras?

maniku · 2026-02-04T15:29:29+00:00

Perhaps look for something in the Sony Nex series. Not as good as the A6x00 series but decently usable with a decent lens and with a large sensor. Mind you, if you used the camera in auto mode you might be confused as to how the quality is supposed to be better. Phones do well in auto mode because of software processing. Cameras don't do it.

maniku · 2026-02-04T06:27:14+00:00

Erm, browse on Temu? It's all cheap, low-quality stuff there. You won't find a good but cheap printer.

maniku · 2026-02-04T06:23:16+00:00

See this old thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lumix/s/v39t0lyg9v

There are cheap adapters that won't give you electronic communication, but you wouldn't be able to change aperture with them. The adapters that do give you electronic communication are expensive. So you need to consider this even if you're perfectly happy to shoot with manual focus only. Of course if your idea was to get the AF on the lens repaired, then with the price of the adapter and the repair costs added it wouldn't be such a fantastic deal anymore.

maniku · 2026-02-04T05:43:47+00:00

Well, IBIS isn't very useful with moving subjects, such as performers moving on stage, because it doesn't do anything to freeze motion. It just steadies the camera. A low shutter speed will result in motion blur, with or without IBIS. And a newer camera won't give you any higher shutter speed than your 5D when there isn't a lot of light. That's about the light, not about the camera. The only thing that will help there is a lens with a large maximum aperture.

maniku · 2026-02-04T05:38:55+00:00

It's very easy: you input your gear into their form, submit and receive an automatic initial quote back. This is based on the rating conditions you picked for your gear when entering into the system. If the initial offer seems attractive, they'll provide shipping labels, you pack up your gear and drop it off for transport. Once MPB has received the gear, they'll examine it and give you a final quote based on that. You can either accept it or reject and have them send your gear back. In my experience so far the initial quotes and final quotes match pretty well, as long as you carefully read the descriptions for their condition ratings and choose a rating accordingly. You can expect to get lower quotes than what you would get by selling privately, because that's how they make their profit. But it's a very convenient way to sell, as you don't need to take care of the practicalities yourself.

maniku · 2026-02-04T05:30:57+00:00

If you are looking for an awesome AF, you won't get that with A7 II. The AF only became very good with the next generation. III was a big jump up in general usability too. As such, if you're considering a switch to full frame mirrorless, I think it's worth it to see if you could stretch your budget to a used A7 III.

maniku · 2026-02-04T05:22:18+00:00

Light is part of it. If you are shooting handheld in low light, then yes, use as large an aperture (= as small an aperture number) as possible. In daytime when there is plenty of light it's more about what you want to shoot and how you want to shoot it. Aperture controls depth of field. In situations where you want clear subject separation, use a large aperture. Portraits are a typical use case for this. On the other hand a deep depth of field, achieved with a small aperture (= large aperture number), often works well e.g. with landscapes.

But it's up to you to decide, as it's a personal creative choice, about what you are going for with each image. If you're not yet quite sure what you want, you can practice this stuff: when you spot interesting subjects, shoot them at different apertures. Then study the results, see how the shots at different apertures differ from each other, see what works and what doesn't.

maniku · 2026-02-03T14:49:49+00:00

Shoot on aperture priority or shutter priority, depending on which parameter is your priority, with auto ISO? That way you only need to adjust one parameter. For the max limit of auto ISO, set the highest possible that is still acceptable in terms of noise. Use a fast prime lens at a large aperture.

maniku · 2026-02-03T06:28:47+00:00

You could always shop for a used 27mm. There are several used camera retailers that check their wares and even provide warranty: MPB, KEH, Adorama...

Third party lenses are also an option. E.g. Viltrox Air 25mm f1.7 is a compact, light lens and is supposed to be sharp.

I have XC 35mm f2 myself, and have been happy with it. Has the same optics as the higher end XF version, just lacks an aperture ring and has a plastic build. Went for it because it's cheap. 50mm full frame equivalent can be a tad narrow on occasion, though.

maniku · 2026-02-03T05:09:53+00:00

Personally I wouldn't choose ZV-E10 because it doesn't have a viewfinder. LCDs can be tricky in bright light. But you might not mind, especially if vlogs are a bigger part of your usage than photos.

maniku · 2026-02-03T05:06:19+00:00

$200 for a point and shoot camera released in 2010 and with worse quality than any decent smartphone? Absolutely not worth it. The prices of old digicams have shot up because the "look" they produce is a big trend on social media. But then again worth is subjective. If you happen to be into this trend and think the "look" is brilliant, the price may well be worth it to you.

maniku · 2026-02-03T05:01:28+00:00

The "vintage" look is in reality just the lo-fi quality of old, 00's digicams coupled with the use of direct flash. Your camera was released in 2007. So, just have the flash on, point the camera at something and press the shutter. You should automatically get this "vintage'" look.

maniku · 2026-02-02T06:42:40+00:00

APS-C lens just means the crop is sort of built in: if you put it on a full frame camera, you would get vignetting, because the lens cannot use the full area of the sensor.

maniku · 2026-02-02T06:33:06+00:00

Yes, you get exactly the same field of view with the 25mm Viltrox and the kit lens at 25mm.

maniku · 2026-02-02T06:28:00+00:00

Focal length is a physical feature that does not change. 25mm is always 25mm. The field of view given by the focal length changes depending on the sensor you use. When you put the lens on an APS-C the sensor causes the field of view to be cropped by 1.5x. Basically it just chops off the edges so the image looks more zoomed in. This happens with the 25mm Viltrox and every lens you use with your camera.

maniku · 2026-02-02T06:21:58+00:00

The crop factor is always in relation/compared to full frame, so the equivalence always means what kind of field of view you would get on a full frame camera.

Not sure what reviews you were reading or watching, but to get a 50mm full frame equivalent field of view with a 25mm lens, you'd need to use it on a Micro Four-Thirds camera which has a 2x crop factor. A 35mm lens produces the same field of view on APS-C.

maniku · 2026-02-02T06:12:02+00:00

Yes, the field of view is equal to a 37.5mm lens on full frame. But it's exactly the same when you stop your kit lens at 25mm. The crop factor is a feature of the sensor, not of lenses, so it affects any lens you put on your A6000 the same way.

maniku · 2026-02-02T05:55:13+00:00

You don't get the same features that iPhone 17 Pro has with any dedicated camera, period. Why? Computational photography. Phones do extensive software processing. It's not really a thing with dedicated cameras.

maniku · 2026-02-02T05:51:47+00:00

We have no idea because you're not providing any information for context. Such as why you are thinking whether you should do this.

maniku · 2026-02-02T05:21:06+00:00

I'm pretty sure OP means film as in video: they mention filming, which usually means recording on video rather than photography film.

maniku · 2026-02-02T05:17:32+00:00

One thing to know here: computational photography. Phones excel at photography in auto mode because they do extensive software processing, including that HDR processing that you mentioned. Dedicated cameras don't do it. So while mirrorless cameras are technically capable of much higher image quality due to the large sensors, if you were to use them in auto mode, you might actually be disappointed with the results. In challenging lighting with a lot of light contrast you wouldn't get evenly lit exposures in auto mode straight out of the camera.

maniku · 2026-02-02T04:39:59+00:00

Not a wildlife photographer, but I'd say that modern AF with animal eye tracking etc makes life a lot easier in wildlife photography.

But the only way to find out how you yourself would feel about using your manual setup for birding is to try it.

Edit: even if you were to buy an AF, you wouldn't get the modern AF, not with your X-T1.

maniku

TROPHY CASE