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Photography Basics

Lesson 2 from: Canon 7D Fast Start

John Greengo

Photography Basics

Lesson 2 from: Canon 7D Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

2. Photography Basics

Lesson Info

Photography Basics

Right now is a good time to go through your battery on the charger because we're going to do for about the next ten minutes or so is just kind of step back for a moment and talk about some basics of photography and I'm guessing we got some some fairly experienced people in here but this is not a photography class but I just want to make sure everyone's up to a certain basic lab oh, and this is actually information that is all totally ripped off and stolen from another class that I teach here at creative live called fundamental fundamentals of digital photography. All right, so the cannon seventy is what we consider a digital single lens reflex camera it's a sl ours we call it and weigh an slr works is it's going to have light coming through a lens and there's gonna be lots of different lenses, wide angle lenses and telephoto lenses that we can choose from? We'll talk specifically about lenses and some of my recommendations for lenses as well. Now within the lens is an aperture and this...

is an opening and iris diaphragm opening that opens and closes and adjust the amount of light coming in through the lens and if we were to take another look at the lens it kind of looks like this device here and as we look into this lens we're going to go ahead and close the aperture down and as we change these aperture settings also known as f stops, we're changing the amount of light by double, so either we're letting in half assed much light or as we open up now, it's opening up and letting in twice a cz much light with each setting, so you're going to want to become familiar. In fact, you're going to want to memorize these f stops because good photographers know these forwards and backwards. So that's the first thing that controls the amount of light that's coming in your camera. But the funny thing is, is that it also controls the depth of field on the camera, and so here you can see a lens that is a very fast lens. We call this in photography of fast lens because it lets in lots of light. Now we're closing the lens down and we're changing the amount of light and we're getting more depth the field. As we change down, you can see those red hash marks expanding that's, the front edge and the back edge of the depth of field. So how much is in focus and so there's? Some very interesting and fun things that we can do with the aperture on the camera, so once light comes in through the aperture, then it's going to go in and it's going to hit the mirror? System and this is the reflex portion of single lens reflex, and it is going to bounce the light upward to a focusing screen where a small images projected and it's there that we get to see the image using a prism and the viewfinder that we look through on the camera. And so this is the system that you are using when you look through the camera when you actually take a picture that mere obviously needs to get up and out of the way so that the light can come on back towards the image sensor in the camera. Now the image sensor is a huge part about the quality, how fast it can shoot in a number of other things, and we'll talk more about that. But before it gets there, it needs to go through the shutter unit and the shuttering, and it actually has two parts it's gotta first curtain and a second curtain to it, and the first curtain will drop away, allowing light into the sensor, and then the second curtain will come down and block the light off just like that, and then the whole thing will reset back to its starting position. The mirror will return down and you'll get to look through the viewfinder again. Now, shutter speeds are important because they control the amount of light, and they can also freeze action, so for sports photography or wildlife photography you can use a really fast shutter speed like two thousandth of a second to stop a bird in flight five hundredth of a second would be good for stopping human action one hundred twenty fifth of a second, more of an intermediate shutter speed for more casual action, some camels walking in the desert. Then we start getting into slower shutter speeds like a thirtieth of a second, which is going to start having blurry action with subjects that are moving very quickly down at an eighth of a second. People walking are going to be bored because it's a relatively long shutter speed for that type of event and then there's a lot of fun things that you can do if you're into nature photography, waterfalls, just water moving around it slow shutter speeds could be a lot of fun. Here's a shot at thirty full seconds, shot at nighttime, just lit up by the moon and so there's a lot of different shutter speeds that you can choose in this camera for a lot of different effects. Next, let's, talk about the censor that is in the camera. So there's a lot of different sensors out on the market, and a lot of people don't. Realize this when they go to the camera store and they see all these different cameras that there's a lot of different sensors, and you kind of have to check to see what size sensors in the camera because it doesn't really say right on the front of the camera in general, the bigger the camera, the bigger the sensor in many cases, and we're not going to be concerned too much about the smaller cameras here of the larger single lens reflex cameras. Probably the first and easiest one to talk about is the full frame sensor, which is based off of thirty five millimeter film and so thirty five millimeter film just achieved a lot of dominance over the last fifty, sixty, seventy years and photography and is what a lot of photographers used. And so when they started bringing out digital cameras and they they brought out sensors exactly the same size, because then we could keep all the same lenses, and they all work in exactly the same manner that they always have. And so this is something that we call a crop factor of one point. Oh, which basically means it's exactly the same size is thirty five millimetre. Now nikon introduced a camera that had a smaller sensor in order to save money because thie sensors are very expensive. The larger they are, the more money they are. And so nikon has a sensor that's called a one point five crops sensor. They call it a dx sensor and the cannon in your camera. The seventy uses what's known as an a p s c sensor, or is a one point six cropped sensor so it's, smaller than a full frame and it's kind of strange because it has a number bigger than one yet it's, smaller than the full frame sensor. And it has to do with the resulting angle of view it's a narrower angle of you, and we'll talk a little bit about this more when we get into the lenses and so forth. And so that's just some of the basics that you should know for the rest of this class. And as they say, all of this information has come from another class that I teach called fundamentals of digital photography. And this is a class that is downloadable at creative live, and I believe it might even be on sale for a very short period of time while this class is being broadcast and so canon law ray will tell you more information about that when we get to one of the breaks if you're interested in learning more about photography because we're going to be really concentrating on this camera in particular. So, you know, I don't know if there's any questions at this point, we might just open it up real quick to get some general questions before we start getting into the details. I don't know if anyone in class has a question if you do make sure you grab the microphone, but we'll check on the internet real quick as well. Anything, anywhere. Wei have a lot of questions, john, just tryingto teo, I know your common answer to a question is there's a slide that so just one toe make sure we get to some questions that air just about what you talked about so far. So question from christine welsh, because I'm not sure if you're going to talk about this later how to best see an image in the lcd screen in bright light I do you have a slight for darn it? I specifically address that have some recommendations. The question from j underscore three forty three you're going to talk about how to take a frame. To use a photo while doing video so that came when you played your fun little taking photos in the rain yeah, we will talk about that and so for anyone who's new and it hasn't seen my classes before the the thing that we're laughing at here is that when I say there's a slide for it it's because I try to have visuals for everything I hate just talking about something without going look at this on dh so I try to have visuals for everything and I I taught a lot of classes on I've got a lot of questions and so what? Any question that keeps coming up? I'm like I got to get a visual for it because I'm a visual person and I imagine many of you are very visual if you're into photography you're very visual in let's see some visuals to accompany that so we could move on if laurie do you have a slide for the censor coming up? No, that was it that was it then I'll actually question sam cox of level in colorado is wanting it the eighteen pixel sensor in the seventy if it's the same sensor in the tea three eye and the sixty it is yes and so the cannon brought out a new eighteen mega pixel sensor for this camera and then they use that same sensor in the sixty d and the t three eye and so it might seem to the nomis that, well, it's the same camera. That because it's got kind of the same heart to it. And technically, for some types of pictures, yes, you could get exactly the same quality picture with cannons, entry level slr tea. Three I, or you could do it with the step down camera. The sixty d but there's. A lot of performance issues in this camera that are much better. It's. Just if you had three cars, that all had the same engine. But the suspension system, the tires, the aerodynamics was different on the cars. And this is a much higher performance camera than the other three.

Class Materials

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Fast Start

Ratings and Reviews

C.Welsh
 

Excellent class. Lots of great info demonstrated in a very easy to follow presentation. John is superb at slides, and little details. Thanks for a great day of learning. I love my 7D even more :)

a Creativelive Student
 

If you already shoot with a Canon that is not a 7D, a lot of it you may already know, but it will help you get to know your way around the 7D's features, such as its autofocus system which, with exception of the more recent 1D MK4/X and 5D MK3, is one of the most advanced in the Canon DSLR range - this means it can take a little while and practice to get used to. The course is probably best suited towards the beginner and possibly intermediate users - and maybe someone coming from another camera brand such as Nikon and Pentax, etc. More advanced users will find it basic, although there is some good information on how to set the camera up, and setting the more advanced custom functions. Conversely, this is not a workshop on basic photography, so a little basic photographic knowledge will help you understand the topics being discussed (but that's not to say that a beginner won't get anything out of it). At the time of writing this review, cL have bundled this course with another of John's courses, "Fundamentals of Digital Photography". So I would recommend you take advantage of this special price if you are starting out.

user-795fef
 

Very useful. Picked up some good tips even though I've had my 7D for around 12months. I feel a lot more confident in using the camera and love the back button focusing set up for when I'm composing images using a tripod. Love John Greengo's relaxed, unassuming style and his openness in sharing his knowledge and experience. GT New Zealand

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