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
Focus Stacking and Post Sharpening
Okay a few other little things here to wrap up this focusing section. Macro photography is really difficult because you get extremely shallow depth of field, as you can see here at F/2.8. Suppose I want this entire bill in focus from this angle of view. I can stop the lens down to F/22, but you can see by the edges, I still can't hold focusing across this bill because I'm kind of shooting it at an angle here. And there is no way in camera to really fix this problem. I just don't have enough depth of field. And there might be a situation out in the real world where you just don't have enough depth of field. So there is a technique called focus stacking, where you shoot multiple photos, changing the focus of each picture, and taking the resulting photos, working with them in a software program that combines them all into one photo. So in this case, I had to take, I forget how many shots, about 50 different shots, in order to get enough focus going from the front edge to the back edge of ...
this bill so that I could get sharp focus from near to far in this situation. I think it's kind of funny because even before I had the software, even before I knew the software really existed, I had a situation where I couldn't get enough depth of field for the shot that I wanted. And so I shot it at all these different focusing scenes, hoping that someday I would have software where I could fix this problem. So this is a bunch of tree branches down in California and I stopped it down to F/32 to get as much depth of field, to do the best I could at the time. But I also shot some other pictures at more prime apertures that were sharper like F/8 and F/11. And then what I did was I adjusted focus and I took another photo. I adjusted focus. And I took another photo. And I ended up with about 10 photos, each with a slightly different focus with them. And so later, when I got some focus stacking software, I was able to go in and stack them all and get one final sharp image. And if you're wondering well, does it make that much of a difference? Doesn't the F/32 look pretty good? Well, here's a comparison between F/32 versus focus stacking when it comes to sharpness. So there's our focus stacking, and there's our F/32. And I can clearly see a sharpness difference there. So if that's important to you, this is a technique that's become quite popular with landscape photographers in the last several years as a way of increasing the sharpness of the foreground to background sharpness. There's a number of tricks. The simplest is just stopping the aperture down. This would be another one. Getting that foreground and background in focus. Another trick is those tilt-shift lenses that we talked about in the lens section. So there's multiple techniques for solving problems. Here is a standard macro shot. I like the standard shot because the background is really out of focus, but I don't like it because parts of the flower are not in focus. It's a very shallow depth of field. If I want this whole little flower in focus, well then, the background really has to be in focus. I can selectively shoot a few shots and keep the flower entirely in focus, but never really focusing on the background. So it allows me to do something that I would never be able to in camera. And so in a situation like this where I'm using a telephoto lens, it's just hard to hold focus in the foreground. And so what I'll do is I will shoot at multiple different focusings, and you'll see there's a slight magnification change, the size of the subject changes ever so slightly. And now combining all of them from top to bottom, from left to right, it's going to be very sharp in focus. How many pictures you shoot depends on the subject. What typically happens is you want to back off where you're getting diffraction at F/22 and 32, to something like F/8 and F/11, and then shoot as many pictures as you need to, reaching from the foreground to the background, probably erring on the side of shooting a bit more than a bit less, so that you make sure that the focus overlaps on each one. And that was with Helicon software. Now you can also do some sharpening in Post. So once you are done with the photograph, if you shoot raw, it's probably going to need a little bit of sharpening. All raw images need a little bit of sharpening. JPEG images have sharpening done to them in camera. But you have to be careful. And in the early days of Photoshop, we saw a lot of photos where people said, "Oh, you can sharpen photos? "Excellent! "Let me do it to 150%." And it looked a little too much. And so you can see over on the right hand side, we have sharpened this image too much. I think I can zoom in once more. And if you'll notice around this leaf on the right hand side, what sharpening does is it tries to add a very contrasty edge, and so it takes this edge and it adds a black line and white line. It doesn't really add that line, but it heightens the brightness of the white and it darkens the dark of it to make it seem more distinct. It's not actually making it sharper. It's just increasing the contrast in particular areas. And when I said at the beginning of this class you have to nail focus, what I mean is you have to be about 99% on, alright? You're allowed about a 1% mess-up. Now the other thing that goes on top of this is it depends on how big your image is going to be. If you're going to throw it up on the Internet, and it's going to be a little tiny headshot, it's not super critical. It depends on the size that it's going to be viewed at by somebody viewing it. So that's the other factor. But this doesn't fix out of focus images. It generally makes a sharp image nice and sharp when viewed on a print form, and if something was just a hair out, it might help it a little bit, but once you get more than 1% off.
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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!