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Always enjoyed watching all your videos Simon! I may not have wildlife where I live, but your tips still apply to what I am shooting

I know this might get lost around, but every time i watch one of your vids, i wait until the end to hear those very inspiring words of yours "I know you can do it!" Those words are enough motivation to pick up my camera and look around to practice and take more pictures So thank you so much for inspiring me to keep learning and shooting more and more pics with my camera. I personally have learned a lot from you and your tips have saved me too on some occasions when i was in mid-session. Thank you 😊

It's hard to calculate with Canon, but with other system apsc it's simply 1 stop down from full frame. F2.8 on other apsc equal to f4 on full frame. F4 on those apsc eq to f5.6 on FF. So on and so forth. The argument that apsc or mft camera has smaller, lighter lens is stupid because with full frame, you can get f4 zoom or F2.8 primes and you will get the same size, weight and result as those apsc camera + lens combo. Not to mention apsc system has really big lenses that are as big as full frame lenses. F1.2 prime on apsc anyone? That is pretty much F1.8 prime on FF. Same size, same weight, same price.

Could you make a video about usage of vintage lenses?😊

Thanks for sharing your experience

Thanks, it helped educationing me to get better photos 👍

Simon's videos are around 15 minutes. Then I need a couple of hours to practice each point he brings up.

Hey Simon I just picked up the r6 mark ii and I’m looking to buy a wide lens for milky way/ star photography. I’m looking at the ef-m 22mm f/2 stm or the rf 16mm f/2.8 stm as a cheap entry level lens, which one would you recommend or have any other suggestions? You have helped me so much through my photography journey, I love your videos and wish you the best!

Super helpful and solved my problem, thank you!

This is the 1st video of yours that I've seen after seeing you with Thomas Heaton, very impressed with your style and easy to understand presentation.

I have the luxury of having a brilliant printer available to do my work. If I did it, it wouldn't be nearly so great simply because of the variety of high quality papers he has and his deep knowledge of printing. He does museum and art gallery exhibits. The work is absolutely stunning because he truly understands color, ink and papers.

Quick question What application did you use to find your focal length at 6:54 ?

Hey Simon, love your video. I shoot dance photography (social setting) where the subjects are fast moving and in dim lit areas. Which metering would you suggest? Thanks.

Thanks for the info!

What microphone do you recommend!?

Well I just learnt more from you in a few minutes vs hours on You Tube, this is going to change my drone photography I am sure, many thanks

You now have 100,001 subscribers

CZcams ads is too long and too invasive. Will watch something else... Goodbye.

That bonus tip is something on older Olympus film camera does for it's light metering system. The OM-4 had this fancy pants spot metering system that you pointed the center of the frame at what you want properly exposed, and push a button to keep it on memory. You do this for every key part of the composition and you get this average metering made out of specific spot metering system that's kinda fun to use. Also came with buttons for dealing with all white or all black subjects as well for a quick exposure compensation, even though it had a normal exposure comp dial on the other side.

I use Ansel Adams zone system and take all my pictures in manual mode with always metering with spot metering - works like a breeze when you first get the hang of it. Because when you have the system under your skin you dont have to find a 18% grey area to set your exposure. You just set the exposure on the part of the picture that is the most significant to what you want to tell with your photo. I have used the zone system for many years now (at least 12 years) and I remember the clean feeling af happiness when I foundout how much it improves your creative process and control of the resulting picture 🙂 Try it yourself and be happy in your creativity. I havent used any auto functions since I began "my journey" into the zone system. Used it with several APs format Nikon mirror and non mirror cameras.

My first camera with a build in light meter had (semi) spot-metering and only that. It was one of the main reasons to choose that model (a Canon FTb). It was a fully manual camera and in my opinion manual exposure and spot metering is made for each other. As soon as you use to auto exposure it's so easy to put the spot in the wrong place, even if pointing at the right spot and lock the exposure certainly help. I rarely use spot metering anymore since the new metering systems handle most scenes so well, but when shooting slide film on a fully manual camera it was ideal. Most scenes have something to meter on that you want middle gray and if not metering on the hand would get me pretty close.

I'm relatively new and am just learning of EC. Until now I've shot in full manual, sometimes with auto ISO amd just made corrections to exposure with shutter speed, or ISO when not in auto. Im curious to know if EC is doing anything different to the image that changing the others doesn't regarding exposure. Does changing EC effectively do the same for exposure as say, moving from ISO 1000 to 1600? I know you may introduce a little more noise by increasing IDO, but other than that, are they both simply increasing exposure? Thanks for a great video!

depends on what you want. for sure, the 5D2 and 5d3 are better cameras than 7D in some aspects, but the 7D has a great little 60 2.8 lens that can't be used on 5D3 and prefer the setup of 7D to ether 5Ds with the exception of thumb (set) button for video on 5D2 because it's virtually possible for me to use video on 7D or 5D3 as takes 2hands just to move the stupid switch and by that time the dragonfly/ beetle is long gone. So if there were an ideal, it would be 5D3 that takes the 60 2.8 lens with the button controls of 5D2. But one thing learned about Canon is that they can not possibly make cameras with consistent settings or structure. So you are forever mucking about losing work because the buttons are in wrong place. For in lenses, yes full frame is preferable for most part with the exception of the little 60 2.8 which has absolutely no rival. It's the other factors that make significant difference although the first image comparisons between 7D and 5D2-- 5D2 was far superior, but doesn't show on normal screen or FB, but does show for professional printing. The 7D and xT also had big problems with low light, fog and noise which were more crop sensor related. Think 5D2 had older sensor than 7D but not nearly the same problems with noise or fog, low light.

Just like you said, stand farther back. Problem solved lol

wow I am doing things right without knowing this from an expert.

Brilliant content, well presented as always from Simon. However, what I have never seen discussed on any YT channel is the issue that puts me off from ML cameras - it's the massive clutter of symbols all over the image. I'm not sure how anyone can focus on the composition of a shot when it looks like my grand-daughter has emptied her sticker book all over the screen! Does anyone know if there is a camera (or an option) that will only give the info that we really need, and keep that wholely OUTSIDE the frame of the image that we're shooting?

Generally speaking a lower ISO produces a photo with less grain. That said, you have to use good common sense (which comes from experience).. Obviously a low ISO, in a dark environment with a fast shutter is going to cause major black clipping, noise and all manner of problems. Same story for a light environment, with high ISO and a slow shutter speed - not going to go well. Normally in a landscape I will set the zoom and set shutter to 2x focal number on the lens. From there, set the aperture for how much you want in focus (avoiding extreme low/high), then dial down the Iso as low as toy can for an exposed picture. Often in bright shots, I'll go a stop or 2 under and in darker shots a stop or 2 over - it all depends on how much light/dark there is. With sports and wildlife (even water), you may be further constrained depending on what you are trying to achieve, but most of the time you'll want to think of the exposure triangle shutter / aperture x ISO. *Side note: When you get a new camera, usually the iso is either auto or 400. Why 400? Because that's a sweet spot.. get more light, with less grain.

In general, I like your toturials for photography techniques, and in this one, it's on videography nutshell ready to go.i bought rode videomic ntg in order to film video of wildlife too,you said that you are using this microphone to record this toturial to your computer I what type of cable you are using in order to connect it to the computer usb c to usb c (it's for apple computers) or usb c to usb if I need to recharge or use it as a computer microphone.

Hi, I have noticed an important difference between my DSLR's and mirrorless cameras: in low light, autofocus is working great on my DSLR's, but not in my mirrorless. I found an explanation on internet: aperture is completely open for autofocus (getting maximum light) on DSLR,s, but not on mirrorless, which get much less light when using something like F/8 in low light with flash. Only when using F/1.8, F/1.4 or larger apertures you can get a fast and accurate autofocus on mirrorless. It is very unlikely to find a combination of mirrorless camera and flash which allows using the autofocus light of the flash in very low light.

So that's what exposure lock is for!

use Manual only, but it's because it gives me the easiest flexibility to change settings for the position / environment I'm in and relieves me from thinking too much. Because it's what I've been using from day 1, anything else confuses me. When you've done something to the extent that it's muscle memory or quick recall, using other modes can be alien. Everybody has own system.

I’ve never been able to fault the result of using the canon X2 (the newest one) with the 70-200 mk2 and 7D mk2. The converter does not appear to soften the image at all and is my go to setup for sports and wildlife photography. I also haven’t been able to see any softness when using the 5Ds-R with the same lens setup.

Awesome content. This is great!!

I mostly do Concert photography. I rarely go below 3200.

that last bonus tip is gold too, thank you Simon

'when the meter is at zero, that is medium grey 18%', thank you! that made a light bulb go off. great video as always

Hi Simon, thanks for the interesting video. I had an ugly situation at a sports event with partly bright windows behind the athletes. - So I thought Sportmeter on the focus point would help. This worked partially but not reliably. In the end I used manual exposure, which gave more consistent exposures.

Thank you Simon. This is probably the most important lesson I learnt in correctly exposing a subject, particularly birds - it’s OK to have the background dark or blown out if you can achieve perfect results on the subject. Took me afar too long to realise this. 🙄

Can I ask you to consider a topic that I do not see on your playlist and I think might help a number of people? Camera settings, workspace settings, and print settings for color space (i.e. ProPhoto RGB, Adobe RGB, and sRGB}. When it makes sense to use Prophoto and Adobe (a) RGB to edit photos if you are shooting in RAW vs JPG and the various issues (i.e. your monitor can't appreciate the higher color spaces). Thanks! As a side topic attached to this you could include a discussion of bit-depth (i.e. adobe's 16-bit and what it means vs when to use and what your camera's bit depth of 14 vs 12 means and when tt makes sense to use them. Again, thanks for consideration of the topic in advance.

IDK my results have been MORE consistent with spot metering over evaluative/matrix metering to be honest. In fact I find myself in spot metering mode pretty much all the time (I do shoot mostly on manual mode though so that might also be why; I suppose if I used one of the other modes -- P,S,A, then I might use something else). But so far just metering around a scene if it's a high dynamic scene, like a sunset, or if it's arather flat scene (low contrast) then I find something that's middle grey and meter from that to save a little time. My ultimate goal (and as is probably everyone's) is to protect tones with their exposures but also maximize them, although some may more interested in the creative aspect of it and to just let things fall where they are (protect highlights and let shadows/darks fall where they may, even if that's no detail). I just try to go with the best exposure with the most data in most cases and then work on it from there in post, so I have a good starting point, and I've found spot metering to work best for my workflow at least. One important thing though is people should understand how the spot meter works, how large of an area the spot meter is (you can change it on some cameras) so you can better utilize the mode (I think some people or beginners think the spot metering is done where the focus point is, and on many newer cameras it can be, but it's also usually a bit larger than the regular single-point AF point size is, and so some experimentation is helpful, and it's also a good exercise in determing the capabilities of your sensor against different high dynamic scenes, particularly when dealing with highlights (for example, I have found that I can overexpose my image by about 1/3 of a stop or 1/2 a stop according to the histogram and still actaully retain detail in highlights in the RAW file). I don't normally go by this assumption, but it's helpful in case I do make an exposure mistake or have to push the exposure a bit more to the right, I know I'm safe because I've tested this, and spot metering was very helpful in doing this.

P?

What are you on about now. Spot metering is the only manual metering mode. Your camera is not in full manual if you're not using spot metering. This is the only way you have full control over your exposure, once you're used to it, it's easy and fast. If you're a photographer that sees the picture prior to taking it, it's perfect. If you're rapidly going from one light scenario to another add in the auto setting that suits your needs. If you're happy snapper and need some help and not terribly bothered use auto. Such a meal out of something so simple. Spot metering friend or foe, it's like weird click bait. I'm not saying you don't take a nice photo but you do go on just for sake a video.

I learn something from every one of your videos, but this one was exceptionally useful! Thank you.

Each to their own, but I don't recommend disturbing the birds... no calls, no baiting. Personally, we are there to OBSERVE nature, not become part of it.

what a great instructions! amazing!

I was looking over my wife's shoulder as she turned the pages of the National Audubon Society's 2025 calendar that came in yesterday's mail. I recognized a photo and sure enough it was one of yours. Congratulations!

This is what I needed to watch! Thanks you so much Simon!! I was so lucky, my daughter gave me 4 Sony lenses with art lenses, one zoom to 210mm and the only deal was I had to buy a new camera body. I chose the right bundle and then my twins camera she gave me being a DSLR, I have found very cheap lenses! So I have four for that one also. Now I want to get the 200m to 500mm used for the Nikon and then, the next lens will be the big zoom for the Sony the 200 to 600mm used also.

Best exposure trick i know is ETTR followed by reducing exposure in Affinity Photo (or Photoshop!) and then lifting shadows

It was really frustrating to me that Canon took away the focus point linked spot metering on the R3. Even though it has been their flagship mirrorless camera for a few years now they wanted to save it for the 1D series only apparently. Same with multi-spot metering.

Nicely done Simon. You have a gift in teaching others about many photographic topics. I always enjoy your videos & the examples that you show in respect to the topic that you are explaining. (Your white kitchen counter top & black stove top are excellent examples as to how your camera will interpret a scene.)Best wishes & safe travels.😊