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
Lens Sharpness
Let's go to the next section on lens sharpness. So sometimes people are wondering about lenses and this is a good question that somebody who is brand new to photography, think how confused they would be. Nikon makes an 18 to 55, and they make a 17 to 55. Doesn't that seem a little redundant, having two lenses that are so very, very close? Now anyone who uses Nikon will be quickly able to identify that one of these lenses is a lot more expensive, a lot higher quality, and has a lot different characteristics than the other, but for just the focal length, these do about the same thing. I'm not gonna tell you which one's higher quality, but I'm gonna let you guess, okay? It has something to do with the size, but that's because it's letting in more light and it's a lot better constructed. So, for Nikon and Canon one of the tell-tale signs of their higher end lenses with Nikon are their 'N' lenses that have their nano coating. They also put some gold stripes, although it's not meaning anythi...
ng in exact particular, but they tend to put that on some of their higher end lenses. Canon, of course, has their L Series, which they deem their professional series, which are typically built a little bit stronger, tougher, often with weather resistance, often with exotic glass, good manual focus rings and a host of other features that professionals appreciate and they have that red stripe on it. So, jumping back real quickly to the aperture section when we were talking what's the best aperture to shoot at. So when you were judging your photographs looking at the aperture data as to, what aperture did I shoot that photograph at? And the ones in the middle are going to have the sharpest focus, and so the middle of the range for whatever lens that you happen to have. Which is why kinda as a default I would be shooting at f/8 on most of my lenses, and that's kind of the default position, and then if I need shallower depth of field, or more depth of field I will do that without hesitation, but I know I will only go as far as I need to so I only stray from the middle as far as I need to aesthetically in the photograph. There is a way of testing lens sharpness, with something called the MTF Chart, and what this does is grades the sharpness in a variety of ways, in a variety of locations on the sensor. This is a MTF Chart for a lens that is really, really good. Here is a MTF Chart for a lens that is not so good, and you'll have to look at exactly who's making the chart, as to what each of the lines mean, but in general, the zero line along the bottom axis is indicating the middle of the frame. Over on the right, you can see it goes to 20, and it's about 24 millimeters to the edge in the corner of a full framed sensor, and this is telling you the sharpness over in the corner. And if you recall earlier I mentioned that lenses are sharpest in the middle, and this is proof of it, because this is the middle, this is the corner of the frame out here. This is about the vertical and horizontal side out here somewhere. Now, these each of these lines is designating a different type of sharpness. Everything above .6 is considered to be reasonably sharp. Everything above .8 is considered to be very sharp. So you can see in the example on the left, everything from the middle to the corner is very sharp. On the right one, it's sharp in the middle, but but by the time you get to the corners it's going to be soft. Now we have different types of lines, dotted and dashed, and different colored lines and you're going to have to check the actual charts that you look at because each company does their own colors and codings for it. But one of the ways they'll test it is shooting their lens wide open at 2.8 for instance. They might also test it at its peak sharpness of f/8. They might test it with different lines of resolution, how tight is that resolution? And then they might check with the direction of the lines, maybe the sensor is able to pick up more data, lines going one direction versus lines not doing the other direction. I look at all of this and I just kind of forget about it, and I just look at the general flow of lines on the chart to kind of get a feel. The closer it is to the top of the chart, the better it is. And so a bunch of MTF charts for a bunch of lenses that are out on the market right now. And so, if you have a desire to have a perfect lens, this will show you that you are not going to get a perfect lens. Some of the lenses are very nice, that one in the upper top left, the Cannon 500 f/4, that's going to be one of the best lenses that you can get. Now a little bit of word of warning on these MTF charts is that most of the ones that you will ever see are not based in reality. They're based in theory on this optical formula, with this compound, in this setup, this is the results they will get. And so this is not actual testing from the lens. And so the lens that you buy might be a little bit better, might be a little worse. And then we also have sample variation, where you might have the same lens as your friend, but you're getting different quality results from it, because there are slightly different tolerances. Ones just fit the tolerance a little bit better, or yours might have fallen out of tolerance a little bit. So there's a number of things that can affect the sharpness of a lens. One of the places to go if you want to check to see how good a lens, is DXO Mark. They do testing of different lenses. And if you're ever curious about what are the best lenses out there, let me share with you, and there's a few different ways of calculating this so there is some argument to be made here. But with Canon, here is a list of their top five lenses. And look at those lenses and see if you see something common about those lenses. There's no zooms in those choices right there. Let me show you three of the worst rated Canon lenses. One of the things you'll notice there is: A. They're all zooms and there are zooms that have a fairly big range to them as well. Let's take a look at Nikon. What are their five best ranked lenses? And I say there are a number of ways that you can rank them because you can test different cameras and so forth. And this is one of several different ways of calibrating and rating them. And the three worst of the Cannon lenses are once again fairly large zoom lenses. So if you remember my optical hierarchy from the previous class, it very much follows in this and that's where I get that optical hierarchy. You're going to typically get the sharpest lenses in a short to medium telephoto lens. That's just easiest optical place to make a lens, because once you start making wide angles, you start having to deal with distortion, which is very difficult. So it's impressive to see that they have a 24 in there. Fairly impressive to see the 35 is in one way's Canon's technically best lens, and that is certainly not their most expensive lens. Let's take a look at some of the other manufacturers. So with Sony, they have, well they are kind of working with a number of different systems here. And on this one, some of the lenses will work with some systems and some will not. Let's see, let's double check on that, or wait, did I, nope, I'm sorry. I pulled all the lenses for just their full frame mirrorless because that seems to be the system they are using the most now. And so, they don't have many to chose from, but once again, they are all prime lenses on their best. And on their worst lenses, they are all zoom lenses with a fairly large zoom range, and a fairly slow aperture as well. And some of the Micro 4/3 lenses, looking at both Panasonic and Olympus. Once again, prime lenses, fairly fast apertures. The lowest quality lenses, zooms with variable apertures. Now what does this really mean? Well it's kind of fun to look at data, see this ones here, this one's there. Does that mean you shouldn't buy one of these lenses? Does this mean one of these lenses won't fit your needs and your quality standards? Well you're going to have to really test it and see. Because to be honest with you, I own a lens that's on the bottom of the list. It fits my other needs and I'm fine with it. And there just really isn't a faster, better option that does exactly what that lens does. But if you're kind of wondering why do I always get better results with this lens than this lens? One of those things you can go and check out. Alright, let's take a look at some overall lenses, kind of with all different camera systems. Here is overall the sharpest lens you can buy, not going into the medium format, is the Carl Zeiss 55 millimeter Otus lens. This is a $5,000 normal 50 millimeter lens. And it's huge, and it's heavy, and it's something that probably nobody wants to do travel photography with because it is a gigantic, it's like a shot put on the front of your camera. It's so heavy, but it is incredibly sharp. And that is a balance that we all have to make as to how big a piece of equipment we want to put on our cameras. And that has been one of the trends of the last few years, is we have higher quality cameras, with higher quality sensors, and those who are very picky, those pixel people out there are having to get some very large pieces of equipment that are very expense to really maximize that 50 megapixel sensor in some cases. And then once again on the low end big zooms, slow apertures. Olympus makes a body cap which is almost like a joke lens but it's kind of fun. But that's in there and so thinking about lens sharpness. Some things to think about there.
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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!