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Lesson Info

General Camera Q&A

We're gonna open it up to all camera specific questions. And I will mention that if you want your questions asked on air by Kenna you gotta stay really on topic. Because if it is off topic we're just simply gonna say there's a slide for that. All right, John. Can we do a little like lightning round? Because we do have a bunch of questions that have come in over this entire camera section. How about that? Absolutely. All right. So when you were doing the shutter speeds and going through from 2,000 to 15th of a second or 15 seconds, James and Jenny Tarpley had asked, "I may have missed this, "but are these examples based on a certain focal length?" Does that matter in those tests? That's kind of an interesting question. I was using a wide variety of focal lengths. It wasn't directly responsible. But they are onto something folks. Okay, they're onto something. Because if I was to shoot the same photo from the same place with different lenses, I might need a different shutter speed...

. And it goes back to the India shot where everyone was kind of small in the frame. If I was shooting with a big 800 millimeter lens, and somebody's scratching their head, I might see movement 'cause they're moving their hand. Whereas if I'm using a wide angle lens and they're just a little tiny 10 pixels high, I'm not gonna notice that movement. And so it has to do with the physical size of that object on screen. And that is affected by the lens that you use. And so lens choice can potentially impact what shutter speed you choose to use. All right, great thank you. So another question that a number of people asked, when you're talking about focal lens to shutter speed focus rule. Right, the handholding rule. The handholding rule. Is that the same whether you are using a full sized sensor or crop sized sensor? Do you have to calculate those adjustments? Another good question and I actually go into a little bit more detail in the focus section. And you do actually need to take that handholding rule, one over the focal length, and you need to multiply it by your sensor size. And so it gets a little bit more complicated. And I wanted to leave it a little bit more simple in this first round of class 'cause we haven't talked about sensor size yet. And most people don't know what sensor size they're using now. And so yes, you do need to do that. They're just working on a different level. We'll get to it though. Any questions? All right. Next question. When you were talking about stabilization for tripods and to turn it off, "what about", this from Allen Mack, "What about stabilization on a mono pod? "Is it the same? "Do you turn it off?" Well with a mono pod which is just the single stick, that is preventing your camera from moving up and down. Other than that, it's still moving in the other four directions. And so you should keep stabilization turned on with a mono pod, absolutely, yeah. Great, thank you. All right, how about this from I-S-O Jen. "When doing minutes long exposures, "like say five minutes, "at what point should you worry about noise, "especially thermal noise?" And somebody had asked about overheating as well. Right, so any photo over 30 seconds is probably a time to start being concerned about sensors heating up and getting noise. And that's one of the reasons why I generally don't go longer than 30 seconds. I think the longest photo that I've taken is about five or six minutes. Just in some extreme situations just to see how it does. I had one person who had the same question and he emailed me a photo that he left the shutter open for 17 minutes. Okay, so that's kind of the outer limit of what people would do. And so I have never heard of anyone actually damaging their camera. So that's not really a problem. It's more or less just getting noise in the photo. And if you can shoot a 30 second exposure in under almost pure black conditions, there's not a lot of reasons that you're gonna need much longer than that. Unless you're doing star trails or something tricky with motion like that. In that case you're gonna have to shoot lots of short 30 second exposures and then add them up in a much more complicated process than we're gonna go into here. Great. All right, how about a couple more? Sure. So when you were talking about shooting raw versus shooting jpeg, Sparkle and Dreams photography asked, "Why don't you recommend shooting raw and jpeg?" I don't like shooting raw and jpeg because I end up with two files and I only need one. If you can process and work with your raw images. I shoot raw and if somebody wants a jpeg, I make a jpeg and I give it to 'em. And if somebody else says well I need a slightly different jpeg, I make what they need and give it to them. And if the first person comes back and says I need a jpeg again. I just make another jpeg and give it to them. Rather than cluttering up my files with duplicate pictures. Kind of the good and not so good version. Now a reason why I might shoot raw plus jpeg is if I had an immediate need for jpegs. So let's say I had an assignment. And I wanted raw images so that I could get the best quality possible. But the client needed a few quick jpegs for an upload to social media 'cause they needed something right away and they don't need a raw image for that. Then I might shoot raw plus jpeg for a situation like that. But you just end up with more files than you need if you're shooting raw plus jpeg in many cases. Great, okay question about the diopter, John. Adjusting the diopter, with or without your eyeglasses on? It depends on if you want to use your camera with or without glasses. And so if you plan to use your glasses most of the time... 'Cause I know there are many folks that are kind of confounded because they look through the camera and it's their distance viewing. But then when they look at the camera, they need their reading glasses on. And so it's whatever is gonna work best for you. And if you need reading glasses a lot of the time, that's gonna be tough because you need to have the camera to look at various settings and get them correct. And so, however you want to be viewing through the camera is how you would set it. All right, so that makes sense. Okay, so Cause Mob says, "You imply that white balance can only be corrected "in raw files. "Can't jpegs also be adjusted?" I would disagree with his statement that I said that you could only adjust them in raw. No, I think I said you could do it more easily or without damage to the photograph. You can change the white balance on jpeg images. But you are actually damaging the file to a small degree when you do that. And so that just gives you more latitude when you shoot raw. And so it's easier to do with raw but you can still do it with jpeg. Okay, great. Thanks for clarifying. Speaking of raw and jpeg from Robert Poe, "Is the image that is displayed on the back of the camera "a compressed image even when you're shooting in raw?" It is, and that is something to be aware of. Because when you look at the back of the camera, and you look at the image, and you look at the histogram which we'll be talking about in an upcoming section, and you're trying to judge whether that is the correct exposure, that's a jpeg. That is a jpeg version and the actual image you are gonna get is a little bit better. If you remember the viewing scenario, remember when you were viewing 95% and you're actually getting a little bit more? That's kind of the same thing but in the different idea that whatever you're getting on the back of the camera, you're getting something that's actually a little bit better. And I know I've been concerned out in the field going, this just doesn't look right and I don't know how to make it better. But when I get the actual image, it's got a little bit more working room that I'm able to get out of it. All right, maybe one more question. This one has a number of votes. When we were talking about using a remote, long exposures tripod. Question is "why is a remote or delayed shutter release "needed for super long exposures? "For example, a shot of yours in Cuba "was 20 seconds "but the shutter vibration would only likely affect "a tiny portion of that." Right, so there's a couple things going on. One is the movement. Let me grab a camera here. The movement of me touching the camera and the other is the shutter moving itself. And so if you do have a 30 second exposure, the mirror will go up in a SLR. In a mirrorless camera you might have the shutter going up. Causes a little bit of vibration very slowly. But the cable release is so that when I... You can actually see this camera, when I press it, it has a little bit of vibrations and it settles. Now on a tripod, it can still have vibrations from you touching the camera. The bigger that camera is and the smaller the tripod, just simply touching it. And we'll talk more about this. I have a great video of this in the focusing section about how critical the movements are on the camera. And so one is to lock it off on the tripod. Use the cable release, or you could use the two, five, or 10 second self timers so that you're not touching the camera when you fire it. And so those mirror vibrations and shutter vibrations are typically only gonna happen at very... Well it's kind of these in between shutter speeds. And I got a slide for this too. In and around a half second or in that range. All right. Fantastic, John. Well I think it's time that we move on to our next segment. But before that, I know you have a couple of classes to talk about. So I do have two other classes that are on cameras, if you want to know more about cameras. One is a general class on how to choose your first DSLR. Which is a totally misnamed class. Because it could be your second or your third. And it's not necessarily DSLRs. It's mirrorless in any other camera out there. And so I have a... Well, compared to this it's a short class. But for some people it's a really long class. About five hours on all the things you want to look at when you are looking at new cameras. As far as Nikon and Canon. Mirrorless versus single lens reflex. And we did this class last summer and we've just decided you know what, we're gonna let you have it for free. And so if you want a free downloadable class, it's how to choose your first DSLR with John Greengo. And you can just download that and watch and figure out what your next camera's gonna be. Beyond that, I do have a number of classes, and that number is growing all the time, of camera specific classes, where I take one camera and we dive in and learn how to work every feature on that particular camera. And so I have tried to choose all of the most popular models. And so if you have a Canon or a Nikon, I've covered virtually every model that they've come out with in the last five years. I have Fuji, Sony, Panasonic, and Olympus classes as well. And so as new cameras come out, I update my classes. And just a special word to all of you Fuji Xti users out there, I did a class for you and Fuji came out with a firmware that added a whole bunch of new features. I have an update for that class and I'm waiting for Fuji to update the latest version of their firmware so that I can have the latest update to the class. And that'll hopefully happen sometime in the near future. And so as classes, as cameras change, I try to keep up with them the best I can. There's a lot of them. And so I'm a little bit slow in some cases. But I'm trying to keep up with all the changes in these. So if you have a particular camera and you really want to dive and get to know the exact specifics of the camera, these are called fast start classes. And just type in the name of your camera into CreativeLive's search feature up here. And there's a good chance you're gonna find a class specifically dedicated to your camera. And it's gonna be about four, five, or six hours of geeky goodness about your camera. Thanks so much, John. And when you buy a camera, that is certainly the fastest way to get up to speed with it. It's kind of a no brainer because of the price points, to add on to your investment of the camera. So, awesome. All right, back over to you. All right, before we get into the serious stuff, we need a little fun break, right? All right, so I want to share with you what a photographer's life is like. And I'm gonna share it to you in chart form. So you start with a basic camera. You get your first serious camera. You'll probably get a tripod and then you'll end up with your second serious camera. And then you'll have a long life of lenses, lenses, lenses. Until the very bitter end. And what we're gonna measure over on the left hand side is how good you are at different things. Now the first thing that we're gonna look at is your knowledge level of photography. How much do you know about photography? Well I don't know of anyone that just knows everything right out of the gate. The more they shoot, the more they use manual on their camera, the more that they get to know. But you know what, new equipment comes out with new technology and new techniques, new software is constantly getting introduced, and so it's a constant battle to keep your education matched with where you're going in photography. And so, the knowledge will get better if you continue to study and work. The next thing we'll look at is the quality of your photographs. How good of photographs do you take? Well, the more you shoot, the better you get in general. And chances are once you start learning about photography it's gonna get better. But then there is a point and you've probably heard of this. They've got just enough knowledge to be dangerous. All right, you start getting to know some things but you don't really have a full handle on it. Things might get worse for a little while. But eventually, the quality of your photographs will mirror your knowledge levels. So if you want to take better photographs, become more knowledgeable in what you're trying to do. The third and final area we'll look at is how good you think you are. Now for some reason, people who are not involved in photography think they would be really good at photography because it seems very, very easy. But generally after a little bit of shooting, they're gonna end up with a fairly low self esteem about their photographs. But eventually, as their pictures get better, they'll start feeling a little bit better about things. But then they're gonna have a bad day and they're gonna have a good day and they're gonna have a bad day. And it's gonna waiver in there. And I still go out and once in a while, I'll come back and I'm like oh man I am horrible. I cannot do anything right. And so hopefully, you'll at least feel all right about what you're doing. And so those are very common feelings that a lot of photographers have.