If you're shooting, say, a snow scene, or a bird in flight that is backlit, or white clouds (with no landscape), your camera will automatically underexpose, because it's seeing lots of bright white, which it assumes is neutral gray. Adding a stop or two will give you a better exposure (it will push what the camera thought was gray up the scale to white--which is where you want it to be).

Shoot in color, and convert to b&w. I actually start processing the color image, doing things like getting the sky right, burning and dodging to even out tones. If you study your color image, you'll get a better sense of what you can do with filters (i.e., how blue is that sky, which will tell you in advance how much you want to darken it, with a b&w preset that has, say, a yellow filter, or an orange filter).

Then, look at the various b&w choices in Lightroom. Pick one you like, and continue processing.

I worked for years with traditional b&w film, using both 35mm, and, when I wasn't traveling, a 4 x 5. The goal was large b&w photographs. In short, I'm accustomed to darkroom work.

Post-processing is the modern equivalent of darkroom work. Yes, there's a learning curve, but it's not impossible. I consider taking the picture to be only the starting point. You're not done until you've processed it.

Having said that, I'd add that post-processing digital is much, much faster than the old technology. With 4x5 films, I had to spend a session in the darkroom developing the film, another session making contact prints, another session in the wet lab making prints--with burning and dodging, it took as much as 3 hours to get a finished print--and yet another session washing and drying.

With digital, even if you have to do a lot of work on Adobe Lightroom (and Photoshop), you can get a decent finished print in an hour. Actually, most prints don't even take that long. It sometimes takes me longer to get the computer started, and Adobe loaded, than it does making the first print.

I can't give you a comparison, but I can add a little bit of practical information, as the owner of a Nikon D850. I generally make prints, as large as 16 x 20 (well, full frame, it's more like 14 x 21, actually). I've found that I can easily shoot at an ISO of 3200 without noticing any significant noise. I have to go to ISO 6400 before I detect noise, and even then, it's barely noticeable, and I can generally control it with a noise-reduction program.

That's not the comparison you want, but it is practical information about one of the cameras you're considering.

Payboo is a credit card that B&H offers. If you go on their site, you'll see a link that allows you to secure a card for yourself. Then, you place your order on that card, the site computes the cost of your purchase, including tax, but the credit card bill you get will not include the tax. Basically, B&H is paying the tax for you.

When I first learned of this, I was surprised. What business would willingly pay your tax for you?

Well, since that makes the product cheaper for you than it would be on any other site, or even locally, this could induce you to buy from B&H all the time.

Since the eye keeps moving, it's hard to say what its "field of vision" actually is, simply because the field keeps changing. What you're looking for, I think, is a definition of a "normal" lens, and, as you say, 50mm has long been considered "normal." However, in my experience, different photographers have different ideas of what looks normal. Ansel Adams seemed to prefer lenses in the supposedly normal range, or even slightly longer, although for a 4 x 5, the "normal" lens is considered to be 165mm, which is roughly the size of the diagonal (for 35mm, the actual diagonal would be 43mm).

To me, 35mm looks normal for a 35mm camera, and that's what I use for the majority of my work. However, that's only me.

The trick here is that you can't see the invert command if you click on the mask. You have to open up the subfjolder under the mask, which will show up below it, and then click on that to access the invert command.

The trick here is that you can't see the invert command if you click on the mask. You have to click on the mask, open up the subfolder underneath it, and then click on that to see the invert command.

I also have an EPSON 3880. From time to time, I get an error message that tells me to call the service center. Each time, I unplug the printer, both the power cable and the cable that runs to the computer, count to five, and plug it back in again. Works every time. The printer just needs to be reset.

It depends on what kind of photography you're doing. If it's wildlife photography, or action photography, then there's no time to set the ISO: auto-ISO, then, is a gift. You can set a fast shutter speed (it takes at least 1/1500 sec. for birds, for instance), set an aperture (maybe f/11, to make sure you've got enough in focus), and the ISO takes care of itself. With today's cameras, you can go pretty high without getting objectionable noise. I can go to ISO 3200 without seeing much noise, even on 16 x 20 blowups. I can even go to ISO 6400; now I can see the noise, but it's not exactly objectionable. And there ways of reducing it.

For landscape photography, however, it's probably better to set a low ISO just to get the best resolution, and the least noise. Here, you don't need a fast shutter speed, and with vibration control, you can even use a slow shutter speed and get sharp images. I generally shoot running water at 1/15, with small apertures (I sometimes have to set the ISO low). With vibration control, I can get the trees and leaves sharp, but the water looks as if it's moving. A fast shutter speed makes water look like patches of congealed glue.

Don't forget that many people take pictures that they then e-mail to friends, or put up on their web pages, and however nice they look, pictures on your monitor really don't have a very high resolution. For e-mails and monitors, a good I-phone will take decent pictures. If you want to make prints, especially large prints, then you'll see the difference a camera makes immediately.

While a tripod is great for stability, it really hampers you when you have to keep moving, which is what you'll do if you're following the action. Although you're using a fast shutter speed, which ordinarily means you don't need image stabilization, I'd turn it on anyway--it actually stabilizes you as you're trying to hold the lens on target! I'd also suggest a higher shutter speed, say, 1/2000 of a second, and a smaller aperture, f/8 or even f/11 to give you a margin for focusing error. You have virtually no depth of field with a telephoto lens, so you're going to get a blurred background whatever you do. This means your automatic ISO will go high, but the digital technology can take it. I can safely go up to ISO 3200 with my Nikon D850 and scarcely notice noise.

For those of us who used to use film and had to estimate exposure on the fly, there are a couple of quick and dirty rules. First, many of us used an ASA that was half of what was recommended, so Tri-X rated at ASA 400 would be used at ISO 200. Then, 1/125 at f/16 for direct sunlight. 1/60 at f/11 (plus 2 stops) for cloudy bright. 1/60 at f/8 for open shade. 1/60 at f/5.6 for closed shade. After that, you wing it.

I'd generally walk around with my camera set at 1/60 at f/11, from which it was easy to open it up one or two stops, or close it down, as necessary. And I always erred in the direction of overexposure, because if the detail falls beneath the threshold, you've lost it forever, and you get a blank black.

Digital doesn't really have a threshold, and it has wider latitude.

I'd leave the longer (and heavier) lens at home, as long as you're not focusing on wildlife. Besides, if you were focusing on wildlife, you'd really need something longer than 200mm, most likely a 500mm lens.

In general, a shutter speed of 1/800 should prevent camera movement, but not necessarily when you're getting up close. From the double edge of the flower pedals on the upper left, I'm guessing this is camera shake.