Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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Total photography noob, lens explainer is greatly appreciated! Figuring out the right focal length always makes such a world of difference.
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THX for watching. Hope it helped you for your next project 
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Great episode, but…
One thing you didn’t mention with the lenses was the light. Zooms tend to have a higher F-stop than a prime and therefore have more depth of field, but require a higher ISO or longer shutter speed.
Also, no mention of macro lenses. I was looking for a good macro lens for my Sony Alpha, but they were just too expensive, for a decent quality lens. In the end, I thought what the heck, and went with a set of Walimex macro rings. These combined with my 50mm prime or the 110mm zoom make for some stunning “half macro” and full macro shots. For somebody wondering whether they will like macro photography, it can be a great, cheap way to try it out.
Edit: Those are free hand shots in the garden on a mildly windy day. I do a lot of nature photography and, because of wind and movements of the insects etc. I use a fairly open f-stop and high shutter speed and series mode on the camera to capture a series of up to 10 shots. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.
With the insects mating, I didn’t actually realise what I had, until I was back on the computer and was viewing the results - bright sunshine meant I couldn’t see much on the screen and I had just seen 1 insect as I was lining up the shot…
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Mentioning macro photography, you reminded me of a hack I did once. I was digitizing my CDs and I wanted to input “album art” for those that I couldn’t find on Google. I built a little two level platform of left over pieces of wood that is about 10 inches tall. I could set my cellphone (then the Samsung Galaxy S3) on the top with the lens overhanging and put the CD insert on the level below. This allowed the auto focus to work, and made the image fairly square and true. The only problem was lighting, so I could only do it during the daytime on sunny days.
My lesson learned was that indoor “macro” needs lots of light, and something to soften direct light.
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Ahhhh. I didn’t even think to mention macro 
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Good point. I use extension tubes if need be. Never purchased or rented a dedicated macro lens.
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Focusing on macro is so tough. Especially with a shallow depth of field. I struggle with this big-time
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