ShelterCove, please don't get upset by the rudeness of some here. Lots of times it is just a bad attempt at whit. God knows I've been guilty of some ill guided whit myself.

All you have to do is throw some back......Just like when we were kids. if some one throws a shot at you,....throw one back.....Sorry to say, it is like a right of passage.
After that, don't take the jerks personally.... You will find out in time who are the cool ones to listen to and who not to. If you have a serious question send some one a PM, I'd be glad to hear from you anytime(can't say I'll have the answer, but I can point you in the right direction).
There are some really smart photographers here, on this site(not that I one of them!) Regards, Don

What are you shooting with? What are your preferences?

I take offense to that

Hang in there, it is people like you that this site needs.

Uh oh, have we had another shouting match I missed out on while I was at work? Yes we sometimes get rude and ugly around here and at times we get into some pretty big shouting matches that cause members to leave. What can I say but we are humans. We can interpret things differently, especially since everything is typed and we can't see each other. It's no fun stepping into the middle of the arguments so I try to stay out of them if I can see they are coming. That's about all we can do. Most people make up when they get mad at each other, but if not things calm back down eventually and go back to normal. Stick around because we are probably going through one of those upset phases and it will pass and you will find there are a lot of great members around here who have a lot to offer.

Some people just cannot help it, its in their blood. But they get known pretty fast on here, and their comments get ignored for the most part.
Hang in there, for the most part its a great group of people looking for help and willing to give it too.
Oh, and welcome.

F-Stops...

I'll just dive in with this one!

If f-stops are a little confusing to you, you’re normal. Most photographers have difficulty with this and modern cameras make it more difficult.

This may not be an exciting subject, but is important to your success.

(The concept)
The idea is that if you open the aperture one f-stop, it allows twice as much light through. Likewise, if you close the aperture one f-stop it allows half as much light through. F-stops are designed to work with shutter speeds, which also use the same half or double concept.

(Optional scientific explanation)
In case you’re interested, the f-number system is not arbitrary. The f-number is the focal length divided by the diameter of the pupil (aperture). For example, a 100mm lens with a f-stop of f-4 will have a pupil (aperture) diameter of 25mm. A 135mm lens with a setting of f-4 will
have a pupil diameter of about 33.8. Both of these examples will produce the same luminance on the focal plane.
F-number = focal length / pupil diameter.

(How it works)
There are full stops and fractional stops. Here’s the range of Full Stops you’re likely to see:
1.0 ~ 1.4 ~ 2.0 ~ 2.8 ~ 4.0
5.6 ~ 8.0 ~ 11 ~ 16 ~ 22
32 ~ 45 ~ 64

These full-stops are standard and common to all lenses. Some lenses have a smaller range, but the numbers are always the same. The reason this is important is that they each allow either half or double the amount of light as the next full f-stop. For example, f-8 allows twice as much light as f-11, but only half as much as f-5.6.

The reason this is good to know is that they correspond to shutter speeds which are also half or double the next shutter speed. For example 1/125 second is half as long as 1/500 second, and 1/60 second is twice as long as 1/125 second. When you use studio lights or flashes, everything is divisible by 2 so you can do the math in your head quickly while you’re working. I know, you’re probably thinking “yeah right”.

(Why it’s confusing)
One thing that makes f-stops confusing is that almost all camera manufacturers show fractional stops. In other words, f-4 and one third is shown as f-4.5 instead of f-4 1/3. There’s no indication which are full stops and which are fractional stops. Confusing!

Fractional stops are of little use in learning lighting. You need to know which ones are full stops. Why? Just about everything you need to know about lighting is based on full stops.

Learning your f-stops is by far the least fun part of photography, but it will open the door to a whole new world once you do.

Now, wasn’t that Simple!

How about this one? Of course by the time I got around to this part of the stairwell the light had moved quite a bit and the bottom floor is now in shadow. That last one you worked on didn't "speak" to me as much so I didn't do as much "fine tuning" on it as the first one. But I appreciate your efforts with it.

I'm sure that there are infinite angles to be had here and just as many ways to
fine tune the results to any particular eye's tastes. If I ever go back there I will undoubtedly make more of this stairwell and maybe go down some other hallways to see what treasures lie in wait there. The hotel, by the way, is the JW Marriott Hill Country Resort in San Antonio TX. It is, as is typical of JWs, very beautiful and offers those who appreciate things like this endless opportunities for discovery (see second pic, "Weird Tables", of a ceiling lighting treatment just flopped upside down).