Looks like it’s light from a lamp, 50mm prime lens quite open, maybe f2.2 or 2.8 for that shallow focus plain. High ISO (800/1600 was high in the 90s) and then in post try to make it soft through a little noise reduction and decreased contrast. That’s my best guess how to recreate.

If it’s not written in your contract it ain’t real.

Oh that’s an interesting approach, I only remember that for HDR pics. Didn’t use that technique much, maybe a little for car/structural photography.

If it works for you, then it’s not wrong. I would still advice to develop a better feeling for light metering but this seems like a great way to learn.

Cause in the end you are wasting two out of three shots if I understand right.

I was doing film for a while and it helped me a lot to develop a feeling for reading light in a scene. Like other people already mentioned, stages often have a brightly lit subject in front of a dark background.

Bring the 18-55 cause it’s probably a bigger aperture.

Don’t be shy to bring up the ISO. A noisy shot is better than a blurry one. Shutter should be at least 1/100 if no image stabilization.

Practice before in low light at home with your cats.

It’s the horizontal lines of the cladding in the background interfering with the vertical line of the base/column. When they are out of focus, the blurr will overlap and cause interference adding the dark lines of the cladding into the vases bokeh.

With the editing and added contrast (which includes lowering highlights, adjusting “clarity” or lifting the black point) it became very apparent.

No issue with the lens.

I think your teacher is very conservative and stuck in time. Be open minded, try different things and find your own style.

Listen to experienced people but don’t imitate them. A lot of the things you pointed out are a matter of situation and preferences.

Like the aperture for example: shooting f2.8 on a 200mm will give you more of the subject in focus than a 50mm at f5.6. It’s just that with the 200mm you need a lot of distance between you and the subject, which is hard in a studio. Also you don’t need to blur the background in a studio as it doesn’t contain any details.

A DSLR is usually built more robust and they exist with better specs than the mirror less counterparts. They do better in studio but when you’re moving around a lot and shoot outside, a mirror less camera can be advantageous.

Also with a mirror less camera it doesn’t really matter if you look at the screen or the viewfinder cause both signals come from the sensor. Actually, a lot of DSLR viewfinders show you less than what the actual sensor will see. (Usually about 90% viewfinder coverage)

I feel like the lesson you took was specifically for people doing full time studio photography.

Definitely a combination of lens, slow shutter speed and trying to crop a lot on a crop sensor. Definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the age of the camera. I’m still shooting on a 5DMk2 which is like 6 years older than the a5000 and those old cameras put out very sharp images. Iso 400 shouldn’t contribute much to the noise. I often have to use iso1600 and it’s not too bad.

While u/sneezeart answer is correct, I would like to add some details:

Native ISO is the natural ISO range that your sensor can handle without extra digital manipulation. So for example that would be like ISO100-6400 as a native range and the low setting (ISO50) and high setting (iso12800) would be extended ISO as they are digitally manipulated.

Base ISO is the lowest ISO in the cameras native range. Base ISO yields best image quality as it’s the sensors base sensitivity without amplification (gain) through increased voltage.

If base ISO is 100, that means at ISO 200 the signal of the sensor is amplified with twice the voltage. The more amplification, the more noise.

The dual ISO is for low light situation and produces less noise than a regular single ISO.

The ISO nowadays is the sensitivity of the sensor towards light input. With more advancements in sensor technology, higher ISO ranges become less noisy.

A lot of that avancement recently is thanks to software and noise reduction like dual base ISO.