We got a light metering system built in our cameras, we have the ability to choose 1/2 or 1/3 of a stop at least for shutter and aperture, and for keeping things simple we have rounded shutter speeds.
I would remember 1/16, 1/32 or 1/1024th of a second but I am an engineer and I do remember by heart the powers of 2.
Rounding to 1/15, 1/30 or 1/1000th of a second is not a big deal of an error and makes the life easier for everybody to remember.

I really cannot understand all the fuss about it...

The 35mm f/2 would allow you to shoot with a shutter speed more or less 1 stop faster at the same ISO due to the 1 stop faster aperture or would allow you to drop the ISO setting 3 or even 4 stops to achieve a non shaken photo assuming that your subject is still or you don't mind motion blur due to its IS.

Or you could shoot with the 35mm using 3 to 4 stops smaller aperture at the same ISO to achieve greater DOF or star effects etc again due to the IS.

The 40mm pancake lens would need a shutter speed of 1/40sec or faster for sharp pictures.
Considering the same scene and ISO value the 35mm would achieve a 1/80sec shutter speed (1 stop faster aperture) so it would allow for a less blurred moving object.

In other words the 35mm will give you more options to explore your creativity and there is nothing that the 40 can do better IMHO.

The only advantage of the 40mm I could think of is size and discreteness but on a FF DSLR this advantage almost disappears.

Hi rappar,
This is a native Greek writing.
February and March may not be quite like spring in Greece.
You might be lucky and have great weather conditions but it might be snowing as well
depending on the location and the altitude.
But you seem to be from Ontario so anything above 0 degrees Celcius could be like spring to you :) .

Greek islands are quite nice to visit but the period you plan to visit Greece is way off-season for most of the islands.
Good time to pay a visit would be around Greek Easter and till June (afterwards it is high season too hot and they are very crowded)
and best time is from September to October (still like summer but with much more comfortable temperature and not very crowded).

If you are going to hire a car choose something that is not excessively big and can move in not optimal road conditions.
If you plan to visit mountainous places you will have to deal with many u-turns and uphills.
Make sure that you have snow chains because on remote places the roads are not cleaned regularly if there is heavy snowfall.
Also make sure that you have a GPS with updated maps if you are not going to use built in cellphone GPS and google maps or the likes of it (road signs do not help that much).
Keep in mind that in remote places cell signal is weak or even non existent and you might not be able to connect to any cell network or use online maps.

A few recommendations:

-Athens:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon

Parthenon museum is a must. Walk around Plaka and the whereabouts.
Avoid Omonoia square especially at night.

You can visit Delphi from Athens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi

-Peloponnese:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafplio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitsana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia,_Greece
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinth_Canal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Corinth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiryns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenae
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidaurus

Around Dimitsana are many traditional vilages. Watch out for snow.
You can visit Olympia from Dimitsana but the road is full of turns (around two hours driving as far as I can remember)

Ancient Corinth and the canal are about an hour drive from Athens.
You can take the touristic boat that crosses the canal.

Naflpio is a nice town to stay and use it as your base to visit Epidaurus, Tiryns (Tirintha) and Mykines (Mycenae).
There is a castle on the town citadel and a very small island (Bourtzi) which was a prison that you can visit if you take the small boat that takes you across from Naflio's harbour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourtzi_Castle

-Central Greece:

Watch out for snow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trikala
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteora

Trikala is near Meteora and is a nice small city to stay and visit around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelion

Pilio (pelion) is a compound of traditional settlements near the city of Volos.

-Epirus:

Watch out for snow as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioannina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metsovo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodona

Metsovo is a traditional settlement with many picturesque villages around.

-Northern Greece:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthi

Thessaloniki is the second Greek greatest city.

-Crete
The biggest Greek island that is worth visiting anytime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraklion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos
Knossos is near Heraklion (Iraklio) and was the centre of Minoan civilisation.

In general if you exclude Omonoia in Athens all places are safe to move and should have nothing to fear even late at night.

Choose restaurants and taverns that the locals prefer (avoid "too-much-touristic" restaurants to get a better taste of Greek cuisine)
Hope you are not vegetarian :) .

Hi, I am talking a photography seminar lately.
The instructor is insisting on avoiding taking pictures of a stunning subject that dominates in the frame and draws attraction directly.

Otherwise it is just a snapshot that captures something interesting but there is nothing left that is not included in the picture for the viewer to imagine, think or dream about.
A beautiful or visually interesting person, a nice scenery even if this requires the right timing, light, shadows, colours etc. is just a captured moment the way everyone could see it. it just happened that someone was there and had the chance to capture this moment. With the right composition skills it has the potential to make a very nice shot.
There is a certain appeal to it but this is not art. It is a depiction which is direct and leaves nothing implied most of the times.

For me it is really hard to overcome habits and achieve this and I need a lot of practice.
Other people are much more comfortable in doing so and happens to be able to take "more artistic" shots
even if we have taken pictures of the same subject or shooting in the same place.

It has been a while since I started this thread.
Since that time I've started a photography seminar focused in the more artistic side which is very satisfying but demanding as well.

I have just ordered the 24mm pancake Canon lens.
It is 99GBP at amazon.co.uk plus shipping.
I see that I use a lot my 35mm prime but I usually find it a little bit longer than I would like it to be.
I have never heard anything negative about this lens so I guess it is a good deal and suits my needs.

With the 10-18 you better use just one filter and it should better be a slim one.
I have the 10-18 and using it with 2 stacked 67mm thin filters shows vignetting in the corners.
Polarising filters in ultra wide angles will not render a uniform sky colour result since the angle of the light varies a lot and there is nothing you can do about it.

You probably have previous versions.
In the STM versions there is no barrel rotation. I have the 10-18, 18-55 and 55-250 STM "kit" lenses.

Hi Vigneron.
I would also suggest the 55-250 IS STM (have the same camera with you).
I would not go shorter than that since it is always nice to have some extra reach (compared to 135 it is almost double).
You can get it at a very affordable price in the gray market. I got mine in a white box new (probably from a camera kit) for less than 160 euros from ebay (Swiss seller).
Official retailers sell it almost the double price.
It is sharp enough if you stop it down a little, it is light and also has IS which is a must for a tele when you shoot handheld.
Built quality for that money is more than OK.
You will also be amazed from its bokeh capabilities when you use it in its long end for closeups (minimum focus distance is around 0.9m/3 feet).

What about the 24mm 2.8. Is it the Canon pancake lens?
I would like your opinion if you own it.

No, you don't need one.
Why would you need an adapter for an EF-S lens on a T6?
You can use any EF-S or EF compatible lens on your camera.

You will not get a very wide angle if you are going to use an ultrawide FF lens because of the crop factor.
16mm would be very wide on a FF but it would be an equivalent of 26mm on a crop frame body and it is not a huge difference from the minimum 18mm of a standard kit lens.
24mm or 35mm on a crop body is more close tho the standard field of view rather than a wide angle.

For an ultrawide I would suggest the Canon EF-S 10-18mm f4.5/5.6 IS STM.
It has IS, it is light and affordable and has an equivalent field of view that a 16-29mm FF would approximately have.
It has a slow aperture but IS helps for stationary subjects in darker environment (I can even shoot at 1/2 of a second and get a sharp image).
In normal daylight the dark aperture is more than OK.

No, you will end up with less than half of the pixels (4/9) because the surface area will be decreased by the square of 2/3's either you are referring to each side or diagonal (similar triangles in geometry or Pythagorean theorem make proof of this).

I have the 35mm F2.8 IS STM macro lens from Canon (the one with the ring light on the front).
I mainly use it for closeups or macro and as a general lens handheld but I usually shoot only static objects for macro/closeup.

Its advantages:
Can use it handheld
Doubles as a standard lens
Has IS (not that it matters when you are too close)
Has built in LED lights in front so you can get away with no external flash. It works well even for a close up in the dark but it is far from bright (like a normal flash would be).
Light and compact. It is a little bigger and heavier than the 50mm F1.8

Its disadvantages:
You need to get VERY close to your subject to get 1:1 magnification (not good for insects or other living creatures than might get afraid or sting when you try to get that close).
The ring lights would be mirrored in a reflective surface and you can see them on your subject.

If you are not dedicated to real macro it could be a good choice, otherwise you should consider a longer focal length

Thanks, I just used LR classic to get the data I wanted.
I have a CC subscription but i didn't have the LR classic installed until now.
In LR CC there is not such an extended filtering of metadata.

All I can see is that I mostly take pictures in the extremities of the zoom lenses.

Pictures taken at 10, 18, 35, 50, and 250mm are almost the same number each.
At 55mm I got 30% of that and there are some taken at 70 and 100mm each less than 10% of the above.

That means that I use the primes a lot.
Half of them are wide open and the rest are up to F11.

But I guess I have to review my photos and see what I like more.

Lack of IS is a big minus for me.

Sigma seems to be OK regarding AF and OS (Tamron 17-50 F2.8 looks like it has issues with respect to AF and VC).

Is there any software tool that I can use to retrieve data from the pictures I have taken and get statistics of the focal lengths and lens I use?

I am sure both of them are very good lenses but i would stick to my 55-250 STM.
I like it and use it a lot.
It is sharp enough, it is very light and compact and it is impressively affordable.

After all 300mm to 250mm would not make much of a difference.
If I was about to get longer focal length I would go for a 150-600.

As for the sigma it just offers a F stop more regarding the lenses I have in the long end and it costs a little more than the constant F2.8.

Low light performance is what I would prefer the most.

I was reviewing my photos these days in LR and all I see is either noisy shots or shaky hands in low light with the 50mm in 100% magnification.