Thanks for the replies. I took a group picture of my high school class from about 25 feet a few years ago and was disappointed that I couldn't read the name tags. The lens was a Nikon 40mm f2.8 prime, which I thought would do the job. While my artistic eye needs some improvement, I do enjoy sharp as possible photos and that's the reason for looking at some version of the 24-70 lens.

I have a Nikon D7200 with a Tamron 18-400 zoom that I use all the time. I think it's very sharp but keep hearing that it's just a good "walk-around" lens. I'm considering a Tamron, Nikon, or Sigma 24-70 as a "sharper" lens, and yes, I know they're built for FX format cameras.

The question is, will I get a significantly sharper result with one of these lenses? In other words, will I be able to see a difference in a 16x20 print between the 18-400 and one of the 24-70 lenses?

Thanks

I wrote earlier that I thought low light photography was a function of aperture, shutter speed and ISO, not pixel size. If I measure ambient light with a light meter, whatever measurement I get works for any camera/lens combination regardless of sensor size or pixel count. I recognize that some of you have much more camera expertise than I, so I must be missing something. And, by the way, I'm not talking about noise, just pixel sensitivity.

I thought low light performance was a function of aperture, shutter speed and ISO, not pixel size. Can someone explain in 25 words or less why pixel size figures into the equation? Also, why would a FF camera offer more light gathering capabilities than a crop sensor camera?

I have bounced the light from a desk lamp off a sheet of typing paper and through a pane of glass on which the slides are mounted. The pane of glass was situated at a 45 degree angle. Finally, I used a DSLR with a macro lens to take a digital photo of each slide. Obviously, the pane of glass has to be propped up by some means. I used books or some other heavy objects to keep it in place.

This worked well for me and I was able to convert dozens of slides in a short time. You may want better quality, but I felt my copies were more than adequate.

Thanks for the help. I should have enough information now to free up space on my SSD and utilize more of the cloud...

gtilford, that sounds like a good solution. I'll give it a try. Thanks...

I also use an external drive for backup but wanted to get more familiar with cloud storage.

When I move (upload) pictures to One Drive, they also take up room on my relatively small SSD internal drive. Is this the way all cloud storage devices work or is it just with One Drive. It seems to me that the limiting factor is the 256 Gb of my internal device and not the 1 Tb of my One Drive storage. Am I missing something?

My post had nothing to do with film cameras or film photography. I was just interested in how people define “manual”. As I said, I thought it meant setting the camera to “M” then estimating the exposure.

The intent of my original question was to get a definition of “manual”. I thought it meant setting a camera on M and guessing the proper aperature, shutter speed and ISO.

John, if you use your light meter at all, is the exposure really “manual”?

I got my first 35mm camera in 1960 and every shot was manually exposed, except for the ASA (now ISO). After a while, I bought and used a light meter and my pictures became a lot better and much more interesting.

Lately I've seen quite a few questions regarding manual shooting and wonder why one would ever want to shoot entirely in manual mode, except in some very rare circumstances? At best, manual mode is a guess about the proper exposure settings, although some photographers can probably do a passable job. Certainly, I can see setting two variables manually and letting the camera set the remaining variable automatically, but totally manual exposure, I don't see.

What am I missing? Does "manual" mean setting two variables manually or does it mean setting all variables manually? Are manually exposed shots better in some way? Is it just a guessing game and the one who gets the closest to a great exposure wins the game? Help...

Printer question - how can I eliminate or at least minimize the drying or clogging of inkjet cartridges? The problem is that I don't use my printer often but it would be nice to get the maximum usage without replacing the cartridges too often. Any ideas?

Thanks...

Mizzee guessed correctly about the PIA factor but giving up 2 stops is too much. Thanks to all...