Reply To: Practice Makes Better, Misc. Questions, Etc.

[linguine]

To your first question, I beleive you loose aperture size when you zoom in with an optical lense due to the changing of the focal length of the lense as you zoom in. I beleive larger, and more expensive, lenses will let you use a wider aperture when zoomed in because of the angles and physics required to zoom in.(If you want a more scientific explanation and noone else here can give one I can ask my brother for one thatll probably have all the science in it that you could possibly want)
As for the second question, the meter in your camera won’t always be right and sometimes you’ll get a better picture with an under or overexposure. I know my neighbor whos a better photographer than I am takes multiple shots of most things so that she can under and overexpose the shot to make sure she gets the best picture that she can.