Lessons
Class Introduction
17:26 2Welcome to Photography
13:08 3Camera Types Overview
02:00 4Viewing Systems
28:43 5Viewing Systems Q&A
08:45 6Lens Systems
32:06 7Shutter Systems
13:17 8Shutter Speeds
10:47Choosing a Shutter Speed
31:30 10Shutter Speeds for Handholding
08:36 11Shutter Speed Pop Quiz
09:06 12Camera Settings
25:35 13General Camera Q&A
14:38 14Sensor Sizes: The Basics
15:33 15Sensor Sizes: Compared
19:10 16Pixels
20:13 17ISO
21:13 18Sensor Q&A
13:34 19Focal Length: Overview
11:09 20Focal Length: Angle of View
15:09 21Wide Angle Lenses
08:48 22Telephoto Lenses
25:23 23Angle of View Q&A
09:29 24Fish Eye Lenses
10:39 25Tilt & Shift Lenses
23:42 26Subject Zone
17:19 27Lens Speed
09:56 28Aperture Basics
08:46 29Depth of Field
21:49 30Aperture Pop Quiz
13:23 31Lens Quality
18:30 32Photo Equipment Life Cycle
03:57 33Light Meter Basics
09:25 34Histogram
15:25 35Histogram Pop Quiz and Q&A
10:58 36Dynamic Range
06:03 37Exposure Modes
15:58 38Manual Exposure
09:38 39Sunny 16 Rule
05:54 40Exposure Bracketing
10:18 41Exposure Values
27:21 42Exposure Pop Quiz
26:43 43Focus Overview
16:15 44Focusing Systems
05:15 45Autofocus Controls
11:56 46Focus Points
07:35 47Autofocusing on Subjects
20:19 48Manual Focus
07:52 49Digital Focusing Assistance
03:40 50Focus Options: DSLR and Mirrorless
04:58 51Shutter Speeds for Sharpness and DoF
05:20 52Depth of Field Pop Quiz
12:14 53Depth of Field Camera Features
04:54 54Lens Sharpness
09:58 55Camera Movement
05:20 56Handheld and Tripod Focusing
04:32 57Advanced Techniques
07:12 58Hyperfocal Distance
06:50 59Hyperfocal Quiz and Focusing Formula
04:36 60Micro adjust and AF Fine Tune
05:34 61Focus Stacking and Post Sharpening
06:00 62Focus Problem Pop Quiz
18:07 63The Gadget Bag: Camera Accessories
25:30 64The Gadget Bag: Lens Accessories
12:46 65The Gadget Bag: Neutral Density Filter
20:43 66The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters
08:55 67The Gadget Bag: Lens Adapters
05:43 68The Gadget Bag: Lens Cleaning Supplies
04:34 69The Gadget Bag: Macro Lenses and Accessories
15:57 70The Gadget Bag: Flash and Lighting
05:08 71The Gadget Bag: Tripods and Accessories
18:50 72The Gadget Bag: Custom Cases
11:20 7310 Thoughts on Being a Photographer
07:37 74Direct Sunlight
25:04 75Indirect Sunlight
18:49 76Sunrise and Sunset
18:39 77Cloud Light
14:48 78Golden Hour
09:50 79Light Pop Quiz
07:53 80Light Management
14:00 81Artificial Light
13:56 82Speedlights
16:02 83Off-Camera Flash
27:38 84Advanced Flash Techniques
09:49 85Editing Overview
08:24 86Editing Set-up
08:06 87Importing Images
16:45 88Best Use of Files and Folders
20:54 89Culling
20:56 90Develop: Fixing in Lightroom
18:13 91Develop: Treating Your Images
10:53 92Develop: Optimizing in Lightroom
14:51 93Art of Editing Q&A
06:01 94Composition Overview
06:53 95Photographic Intrusions
10:10 96Mystery and Working the Scene
16:18 97Point of View
09:11 98Better Backgrounds
16:02 99Unique Perspective
11:02 100Angle of View
15:06 101Subject Placement
41:14 102Subject Placement Q&A
05:18 103Panorama
07:39 104Multishot Techniques
13:57 105Timelapse
16:13 106Human Vision vs The Camera
20:07 107Visual Perception
08:35 108Visual Balance Test
22:56 109Visual Drama
12:25 110Elements of Design
28:57 111The Photographic Process
12:28 112Working the Shot
27:38 113The Moment
04:42 114One Hour Photo - Colby Brown
1:04:32 115One Hour Photo - John Keatley
1:03:05 116One Hour Photo - Art Wolfe
59:01 117One Hour Photo - Rocco Ancora
1:01:20 118One Hour Photo - Mike Hagen
1:01:20 119One Hour Photo - Lisa Carney
1:00:52 120One Hour Photo - Ian Shive
1:08:00 121One Hour Photo - Sandra Coan
1:10:29 122One Hour Photo - Daniel Gregory
1:06:07 123One Hour Photo - Scott Robert Lim
1:05:41Lesson Info
Advanced Flash Techniques
Alright folks, let's continue along our little path on lighting. We have one more section to go to and that is advance flash techniques. So, there is a number of very cool things you can do with the modern flashes. Let's go in and talk about that flash duration and power again. Remember as we mentioned before, when a flash fires it does so extremely quickly. And if you think about the range of shutter speeds that you have available that you can use for any given subject, the flash will fire very quickly but you can use a much longer shutter speed and do some other things with the ambien background as well. And so we are going to be using the flash to expose part of our subject, and we will be using a long shutter speed to expose another part of our subject. And so back with the running photos. This is a relatively fast shutter speed and so the background is extremely dark. And this is what usually happens when you fire the automated flash on your camera, is that it picks a shutter spee...
d that you can handhold which would be 1/30th to 1/60th of a second. Something in that range. And then it fires a flash and it doesn't care about the background. And so, if you start using a slower shutter speed you're going to see more of that background. Now on these running shots, we're going to get a little bit of streaking because we are panning the camera with the subject. So, if we want to see the background, we can start setting our exposures so that we can see a little bit of the background and then having the flash fire to fill in the foreground. And so, a lot of times this is called dragging the shutter or using a slower shutter. So, using a 1/30th of a second so we can see a little bit of that background and it's not perfectly dead black. And so a lot of times in these cases, what I'm doing is, I'm setting up to take the photo without any flash at all. And I'm trying to make it look as good as I can with flash and then I'm just adding a little bit of flash to fill in the foreground. So, any sort of subjects, like some nice little penguins in the foreground will be illuminated in that case. And so, using a longer shutter speed so that I can see that dark area of the background. And so, if you are working with a tripod or you don't mind a little bit of blur with the background area, which is often times just fine try experimenting with slower shutter speeds but still using a flash. So as we mentioned before, when you take a flash photo, it fires and then there is kinda a lot of dead time after the flash is fired. The other option is that you can do a rear curtain flash synchronization, where the flash will fire just before the second curtain is closing over the shutter. So, let's go back to our shutters, a normal flash synchronization on the left happens at the beginning of the exposure. So, the first shutter opens, flash will fire, a little bit of time will pass and then the second curtain will close. The rear curtain is going to wait until the very end before it fires its flash. So, the first curtain opens, it'll be there for a little bit and then the flash will fire and then the second curtain will close. And so the impact, will be on subjects that are moving during this exposure. So here is an example of front curtain, as the cyclist is riding through the shutter opens up, the flash fires and then the shutter closes a moment later. I'm not sure exactly the length of this shutter speed it might be a 1/15th of a second. Let's reverse that and do a rear curtain sync. So the shutter opens up, there is a little bit of a blur and then the flash fires at the very end. And so, this is a little bit more natural look. It's not natural at all. It's natural only in the sense that we have all watched cartoons and cartoons have streaks coming out of the back of them. And so in the cartoon world, this makes sense. And so, if you want to try this in fact in the real world the rear curtain sync is what does it. And so, any subject that's moving is potential for looking pretty nice. Now one of the key things if you want to set up one of these shots is you need a dark background. Notice how you can more clearly see these streaks in a dark background area then if the background is light. And so, you can get some very interesting and fun results with this synchronization. This slow sync with rear sync on top of it. Alright, another problem is potentially working under bright sunlight conditions. So let's say you want to do a portrait outside and you've decided you're going to add a little bit of flash to fill in the shadows. And, the exposure comes up to be F/11 at 1/125th of a second. And you're thinking, well I'm a portrait photographer and I would like to use a shallow depth of field so the background is a little bit more blurry. Well, your camera will likely only have a little bit of room to work with because 1/250th is usually the fastest flash synchronization that you're going to find on most cameras. So, you can go down to F/8 and the background is now a little bit blurrier. But if you said, I really want to make that background blurry and use flash, you're stuck. That's as much as you can do. But there is a solution to the problem. Actually, there is a couple solutions. But let me share with you one. Going back to our sensor and the way our shutter units work, with normal flash synchronization, the first shutter opens up completely the flash fires and then the second curtain comes down and blocks the light off. And the thing that's going on is that the entire sensor needs to be visible when that flash fires. Using a high shutter speed, we have this moving slit going across the sensor and we can't fire the flash because it only illuminates part of the sensor at that time. And so, we can't use a normal flash to fire it with a high shutter speed. But there is something that is often called a high speed flash synchronization and the way this works is as you open the first curtain, it fires a series of flashes the entire scanning process of the shutters going across the sensor. And so, if you were to think about what a normal flash looks like, this huge spike on the left and then nothing else. What a high speed sync would look like if we were to look at just that 1/1000th of a second for instance, is here is what a normal flash looks like, it's a big spike over the whole thing. A high speed sync is going to look like this, a pulsing low powered flash. It's relatively low powered flash because the flash can't recycle enough power to do a full power flash, so it's doing a whole bunch of little tiny flashes but it's doing so in an extraordinarily short period of time. So, if we have that option on our camera we can fire at shutter speeds faster than 1/250th of a second. We can go up to 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000 and all the way up to 1/8000th of a second where we are shooting at F/1.4 where we are getting this very shallow depth of field and we're adding flash onto the scene itself. Now the only other solution that we could use is potentially using a neutral density filter just to darken the scene up. But this is what you can do without any extra filters if you have the right type of flash. Two main down sides to this system is, number one, the flash is not working automatically it has to work manually, so this is something that your going to have to manually figure out to see if you have the right power. The second thing is, is because these flashes are not very powerful, you have to get the flash pretty close to your subject. And so your working distance between you and your subject reduces as you get up to this 1/8000th of a second. And so I had to get the flash probably just about six feet away from her face, just off camera in order for me to be able to get this 1/8000th of a second. So, it is possible and it's very handy and just the right tool for solving a certain type of problem. Another effect if a multi strobe effect where you are firing the flash multiple times in a single photograph. In this case, I just had someone carrying the flash, fire the flash as they were walking along and this is actually in a cave system. But this can be done in many different ways. I set up a series of flashes to photograph a runner at different stages of their running gate so that I could see what the form looks like at any given time. And so what this actually looks like as I'm setting this up is I had one master flash triggering four other flashes that were firing. And as you can see, I had to have them fairly close to the subject because it was very dark out there and they didn't have a very wide spread in this case and I needed very even light. And so another little case where I used a long shutter speed of about four seconds and fired the flash at several bursts per second and you can see this whole series of events, of him jumping over the fire. And so, there's a lot of fun and special effects that you can get into that and I just wanted to give you a little hint of what you can do with those four advanced units. So, aren't more newer flashes coming out with, you said that flash works with manual mode on high speed sync but aren't they coming out with high speed sync flashes that work in like TTL and they're starting to introduce a lot of these features? I haven't seen any systems out there and this may just be my ignorance, I haven't seen a particular system that is able to fire faster than maybe 1/300th of a second. Where the flash is still doing TTL computations on things. It might be out there that I'm just not aware of, but I'm pretty sure that once you get up to those high speed syncs it's going to be a manual calculation that you're going to have to make. Which, generally means you do a test shot to see if it works.
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Love love all John Greengo classes! Wish to have had him decades ago with this info, but no internet then!! John is the greatest photography teacher I have seen out there, and I watch a lot of Creative Live classes and folks on YouTube too. John is so detailed and there are a ton of ah ha moments for me and I know lots of others. I think I own 4 John Greengo classes so far and want to add this one and Travel Photography!! I just drop everything to watch John on Creative Live. I wish sometime soon he would teach a Lightroom class and his knowledge on photography post editing.!!! That would probably take a LOT OF TIME but I know John would explain it soooooo good, like he does all his Photography classes!! Thank you Creative Live for having such a wonderful instructor with John Greengo!! Make more classes John, for just love them and soak it up! There is soooo much to learn and sometimes just so overwhelming. Is there anyway you might do a Motivation class!!?? Like do this button for this day, and try this technique for a week, or post this subject for this week, etc. Motivation and inspiration, and playing around with what you teach, needed so much and would be so fun.!! Just saying??? Awaiting gadgets class now, while waiting for lunch break to be over. All the filters and gadgets, oh my. Thank you thank you for all you teach John, You are truly a wonderful wonderful instructor and I would highly recommend folks listening and buying your classes.
Eve
I don't think that adjectives like beautiful, fantastic or excellent can describe the course and classes with John Greengo well enough. I've just bought my first camera and I am a total amateur but I fell in love with photography while watching the classes with John. It is fun, clear, understandable, entertaining, informative and and and. He is not only a fabulous photographer but a great teacher as well. Easy to follow, clear explanations and fantastic visuals. The only disadvantage I can list here that he is sooooo good that keeps me from going out to shoot as I am just glued to the screen. :-) Don't miss it and well worth the money invested! Thank you John!
Vlad Chiriacescu
Wow! John is THE best teacher I have ever had the pleasure of learning from, and this is the most comprehensive, eloquent and fun course I have ever taken (online or off). If you're even / / interested in photography, take this course as soon as possible! You might find out that taking great photos requires much more work than you're willing to invest, or you might get so excited learning from John that you'll start taking your camera with you EVERYWHERE. At the very least, you'll learn the fundamental inner workings and techniques that WILL help you get a better photo. Worried about the cost? Well, I've taken courses that are twice as expensive that offer less than maybe a tenth of the value. You'll be much better off investing in this course than a new camera or a new lens. I cannot reccomend John and this course enough!