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Manual Focus

Lesson 48 from: Fundamentals of Photography 2016

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

48. Manual Focus

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

17:26
2

Welcome to Photography

13:08
3

Camera Types Overview

02:00
4

Viewing Systems

28:43
5

Viewing Systems Q&A

08:45
6

Lens Systems

32:06
7

Shutter Systems

13:17
8

Shutter Speeds

10:47
9

Choosing a Shutter Speed

31:30
10

Shutter Speeds for Handholding

08:36
11

Shutter Speed Pop Quiz

09:06
12

Camera Settings

25:35
13

General Camera Q&A

14:38
14

Sensor Sizes: The Basics

15:33
15

Sensor Sizes: Compared

19:10
16

Pixels

20:13
17

ISO

21:13
18

Sensor Q&A

13:34
19

Focal Length: Overview

11:09
20

Focal Length: Angle of View

15:09
21

Wide Angle Lenses

08:48
22

Telephoto Lenses

25:23
23

Angle of View Q&A

09:29
24

Fish Eye Lenses

10:39
25

Tilt & Shift Lenses

23:42
26

Subject Zone

17:19
27

Lens Speed

09:56
28

Aperture Basics

08:46
29

Depth of Field

21:49
30

Aperture Pop Quiz

13:23
31

Lens Quality

18:30
32

Photo Equipment Life Cycle

03:57
33

Light Meter Basics

09:25
34

Histogram

15:25
35

Histogram Pop Quiz and Q&A

10:58
36

Dynamic Range

06:03
37

Exposure Modes

15:58
38

Manual Exposure

09:38
39

Sunny 16 Rule

05:54
40

Exposure Bracketing

10:18
41

Exposure Values

27:21
42

Exposure Pop Quiz

26:43
43

Focus Overview

16:15
44

Focusing Systems

05:15
45

Autofocus Controls

11:56
46

Focus Points

07:35
47

Autofocusing on Subjects

20:19
48

Manual Focus

07:52
49

Digital Focusing Assistance

03:40
50

Focus Options: DSLR and Mirrorless

04:58
51

Shutter Speeds for Sharpness and DoF

05:20
52

Depth of Field Pop Quiz

12:14
53

Depth of Field Camera Features

04:54
54

Lens Sharpness

09:58
55

Camera Movement

05:20
56

Handheld and Tripod Focusing

04:32
57

Advanced Techniques

07:12
58

Hyperfocal Distance

06:50
59

Hyperfocal Quiz and Focusing Formula

04:36
60

Micro adjust and AF Fine Tune

05:34
61

Focus Stacking and Post Sharpening

06:00
62

Focus Problem Pop Quiz

18:07
63

The Gadget Bag: Camera Accessories

25:30
64

The Gadget Bag: Lens Accessories

12:46
65

The Gadget Bag: Neutral Density Filter

20:43
66

The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters

08:55
67

The Gadget Bag: Lens Adapters

05:43
68

The Gadget Bag: Lens Cleaning Supplies

04:34
69

The Gadget Bag: Macro Lenses and Accessories

15:57
70

The Gadget Bag: Flash and Lighting

05:08
71

The Gadget Bag: Tripods and Accessories

18:50
72

The Gadget Bag: Custom Cases

11:20
73

10 Thoughts on Being a Photographer

07:37
74

Direct Sunlight

25:04
75

Indirect Sunlight

18:49
76

Sunrise and Sunset

18:39
77

Cloud Light

14:48
78

Golden Hour

09:50
79

Light Pop Quiz

07:53
80

Light Management

14:00
81

Artificial Light

13:56
82

Speedlights

16:02
83

Off-Camera Flash

27:38
84

Advanced Flash Techniques

09:49
85

Editing Overview

08:24
86

Editing Set-up

08:06
87

Importing Images

16:45
88

Best Use of Files and Folders

20:54
89

Culling

20:56
90

Develop: Fixing in Lightroom

18:13
91

Develop: Treating Your Images

10:53
92

Develop: Optimizing in Lightroom

14:51
93

Art of Editing Q&A

06:01
94

Composition Overview

06:53
95

Photographic Intrusions

10:10
96

Mystery and Working the Scene

16:18
97

Point of View

09:11
98

Better Backgrounds

16:02
99

Unique Perspective

11:02
100

Angle of View

15:06
101

Subject Placement

41:14
102

Subject Placement Q&A

05:18
103

Panorama

07:39
104

Multishot Techniques

13:57
105

Timelapse

16:13
106

Human Vision vs The Camera

20:07
107

Visual Perception

08:35
108

Visual Balance Test

22:56
109

Visual Drama

12:25
110

Elements of Design

28:57
111

The Photographic Process

12:28
112

Working the Shot

27:38
113

The Moment

04:42
114

One Hour Photo - Colby Brown

1:04:32
115

One Hour Photo - John Keatley

1:03:05
116

One Hour Photo - Art Wolfe

59:01
117

One Hour Photo - Rocco Ancora

1:01:20
118

One Hour Photo - Mike Hagen

1:01:20
119

One Hour Photo - Lisa Carney

1:00:52
120

One Hour Photo - Ian Shive

1:08:00
121

One Hour Photo - Sandra Coan

1:10:29
122

One Hour Photo - Daniel Gregory

1:06:07
123

One Hour Photo - Scott Robert Lim

1:05:41

Lesson Info

Manual Focus

Manually focusing, so manually focusing is an important skill to learn how to use cause there are times and places where it is the best system for focusing. Now a lot of the kit lenses, the inexpensive lenses, have terrible, terrible focusing systems on them because they know that those people generally don't like to manually focus very often. And so there's a very narrow ring. It's plastic, it doesn't feel very good in the fingers and there is no information about where it's focused at, infinity or close up. A better focusing ring would look like this, a nice, big, wide, rubber focusing ring. And a distance scale so we can see where we're focused at. That's nice to have. An even nicer one is on these Leica lenses that have a really nice depth of field scale so that we can see with what aperture, how much depth of field are we gonna get? And this is really rare because it's just harder to do this with auto focus lenses because of the way that they work and so this is something you'll o...

nly see, at least very clearly on, is on a manual focus lens. And the manual focus lenses have a really smooth feel to it. A lot of the older Nixon manual focus lenses were really nice. The Leica manual focus is really nice. A number of the other manufacturers made some very nice ones as well. And it's a nice feeling to have and we've lost a little bit of that with the auto focusing. So for those of you with SLR's this is kind of important. There's a little bit of mirrorless information in this slide here but for the SLR users, if you want to manually focus, you need to have a really good eye, and view of what's going on in your subject. And so the viewfinder of your camera is really, really important in the SLR. And so the viewfinders size and quality is affected by a number of different issues. The first off is that is larger with larger sized sensors. And so if you have a full framed sensor and we talked about this in the sensor section about the viewfinder size. If you have a full frame sensor you're going to have a larger viewfinder which is gonna make the image larger and more easy to see for focusing. There are two different types of finders. There's pentaprisms and pentamirrors. A pentaprism basically is a heavy piece of glass. It's a solid piece of glass that's cut. And it's very bright and it's very sharp. If you were to disassemble an inexpensive SLR, I've done this a few times it's kind of fun, lots of screws, you take it apart it has what's called a pentamirror. Which is just a plastic housing with some mirrored sides on it so it's bouncing the light around. It's achieving the same effect by bouncing the light around so you can see it, but it's not as high a quality and they're typically smaller in size. And so that will be listed in the technical specifications of your SLR camera. How bright of lens you have on your camera has to do with how much light is getting into your viewfinder, so the brighter lens you have is gonna be easier to see. So if you have a 1.4 lens, that's going to be easier to manually focus than an F5.6 lens. A high viewfinder magnification. We talked about this with mirrorless cameras but we have the same thing with SLRs as well. And remember you have to kind of take these numbers and see how they compare with a full frame camera. So something like the, let's see let's go with the 5DSR, has a .71 that's one of the largest. The Sony is actually a mirrorless camera but that's in relationship to a full frame and compared to all these others. And so the deceptive ones in here are the D because that is a cropped frame sensor. And the Canon 7D II that's a one time magnification but remember that's a smaller sensor in there. And so one of the things that is really good to do and you know it's nice to be able to go into a camera store and hold up two viewfinders one after the other and see which one has the bigger screen in them. And which one's easier to see. It's not the first reason we buy a camera, but that's gonna have significant implications if you do a lot of manual focusing, how big and clear is that system. The other thing you want to look at potentially especially if you wear glasses is the eye point, the distance that your eye needs to be from the viewfinder. And this varies from camera to camera. And the bigger that viewpoint is the easier it is to use with eyeglasses. I remember back in the days where they had underwater cameras that had really big eye points because people were wearing goggles. And you'd have to wear goggles and you need much more distance in order to see through it. And so once again the higher end cameras typically have a bigger, higher eye point which usually means they need more contraption and a bigger size camera to let that get bigger. So for manual focusing the most accurate way to do it with an SLR camera, is in live view. And so if your camera has live view like most of the cameras do for the last five years, you want to put your camera in live view and this is typically gonna work best on a tripod because you'll actually be able to hold the camera steady. And so once you have your camera in live view you'll be able to magnify to see a small portion of the image. Now live view is a nice option for getting a unique point of view, especially for those of you that have a tilting screen on the back of your camera. You want to get it down low, get it up high, that's kind of nice. But in general has very poor auto focus performance. This is for the SLR users. For mirrorless folks, working with the back of the camera or the viewfinder, equal quality in focusing. And so as I said, I usually do this when I'm on a tripod, because it's hard to hold the camera steady and see what's going on as it's moving around. And so we're gonna use image zoom to focus. And so the way that this works is we put our camera into live view there's gonna be a LV button or a little monitor button on the back of the camera and then you're gonna punch in using the magnify button and it's gonna magnify a portion of your image. You go over to the focusing system and you will need to manually focus. Now before you do that, you should probably turn off the auto focus system in your camera because if you manually focus and then press down on the shutter release it's just going to re-auto focus your camera and it might do so differently than you want it. Now if you have your camera in back button focusing you don't need to worry about this. You can just manually focus and press down on the shutter release, which is one of the reasons that I use back button focusing is I can go in, manually focus whenever I want to. So let's manually focus, get our subject nice and sharp, and then we can zoom back to see the whole subject and we are guaranteed that it is 100% perfect focus. So here's a video of me doing this. I'm gonna adjust the focus, just to the best of my eye's ability on the screen right now. I'm gonna then zoom in, five times, ten times. Now I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna refocus so that I am perfect in focus. Get it adjusted right, and then go back to full. And now I'm ready to shoot. And I know that my camera is 100% accurately focused. That is the most accurate way of focusing. Takes a little bit more time, but it's very, very accurate. Now the mirrorless cameras have more options. They will have the same magnification option. So what you can do is there's gonna be a focus assist button or some other button that is dedicated or that you can customize that will allow you to zoom in at various magnifications. They often have a couple different magnifications so that you can get in really tight. And as you can see as I'm manually focusing looking at the back of the camera, seeing where it's sharpest, and then jump back and now I know I'm perfectly focused.

Class Materials

Free Download

Fundamentals of Photography Outline

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Learning Project Videos
Learning Projects PDF
Slides for The Camera Lessons 1-13
Slides for The Sensor Lessons 14-18
Slides for The Lens Lessons 19-31
Slides for The Exposure Lessons 32-42
Slides for Focus Lessons 43-62
Slides for The Gadget Bag Lessons 63-72
Slides for Light Lesson 73-84
Slides for the Art of Edit Lessons 85-93
Slides for Composition Lesson 94-105
Slides for Photographic Vision Lessons 106-113

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!

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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!

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