All good points. And the auto modes do the same things that you manually set your camera to. On my D7000, Landscape mode will turn up the f stop, turn down the shutter speed and alter the contrast, saturation and so on. Sport mode ups the shutter speed, portrait mode tunes in on correct skin color, night landscape aims at low noise and correcting unnatural colors when you have all kinds of different light sources, sunset intensifies oranges and reds, beach-snow aims at making white snow look white instead of the all too common underexposed gray and so on.

My D800 has none of those pre set “modes”, so a more expensive camera forces you to make iso, saturation, etc adjustments manually. The “amateur” cameras make all of those adjustments for you just by twisting the knob.

Kind of makes me think that while top line cameras have the better hardware, the low and mid range cameras most definitely have the more convenient, user friendly software.

If high end models are the only camera a person has ever used, of course you say you only use manual because you are forced to. Maybe the high end shooters ought to try one of the mid range models with all of the pre set modes, 19 of them on the D7000. They might find that those pre set modes aren’t so bad after all. And that they can spend more time looking through the viewfinder and less time thumbing through the menus.

As a photographer that has also been an amateur road race driver, I use manual shift in my sports cars not automatic . LOL

I think you are assuming too much.

Working Pros dont waste their time saying shooting in manual is "the mark of the professional to which everyone should aspire and using anything other than Manual is only for know nothing tyros." LOL, LOL

We may tell you why we prefer to shoot in manual a majority of the time, but that doesn't mean you have to. Do what works for you and be happy.

And I can tell you I get all the best of my camera's special features, performance and image quality without shooting in auto modes. You may understand this when you understand your gear better with all it can do when you are in control.

There is room for all of us and how we choose to use our gear.

Cheers and best to you.

I see many articles and much discussion here about diffraction with small apertures.
If diffraction is so destructive (Easily shown in review examples) then why do modern lenses for digital cameras still have small apertures such as f11, 22, 32 etc?
Would not changing shutter speed, ISO or a ND filter be better?
Just was reading a review where this came up again and the question occurred to me as to why these small apertures exist any more.
Thank you to the experts who can explain the justification of sacrificing quality by using smaller apertures or if there is a work around , excluding software faking it.

I have 6 Nikon lens for my Nikon D5600. All are equipped with UV filters and I mainly use a Nikon 18-200 lens which calls for a 72mm filter. I would like to buy special purpose filters such as a Hoya Green Enhancer but if I buy a 72mm to fit the 18-200 it would be unusable on my other lenses whose filter diameters range from 58mm to 77mm. I am considering buying step-up and step-down rings to allow me to use the 72mm filter on the lenses. For those who have used step up/step down rings, what problems might be encountered when using such rings? Would appreciate any feedback from those wo use these rings.

Trapper1