The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters
Lesson 66 from: Fundamentals of Photography 2016John Greengo
The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters
Lesson 66 from: Fundamentals of Photography 2016John Greengo
Lesson Info
66. The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters
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
The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters
Alright, we're going to take a moment, folks. Can I get a little personal for you, for just a moment here? (laughing) This class, I will use this as a class. This class is a labor of love of mine. It is something I love getting up in the morning, and going to my office, coming up with new ideas, and working on them. But it takes up a ridiculous amount of time. There are 2924 slides in this class. And I know, because I do all the slides myself, on average it takes about two hours per slide to make the class. You can do the math. This slide right here is one slide and is a perfect representation of what two hours of John Greengo work time looks like. Now when you watch this over the next ten seconds, you're going to say to yourself, "Eh, looks okay". (laughing) But, it will be the smoothest, best example of what a lens hood does that you have ever seen. You can Google, you can YouTube, but when you pay a premium price for this class, you get premium production. Are you guys ready for 10 ...
seconds of visual learning and perfection? Yeah, woohoo! This is the moment, that when I figured this out, it was one of those little personal victories that we have. I gave myself a hi-five. (laughing) So here we go. So we have your camera on your left, and you will notice the light reflection from my studio lights on the left, on the right, and a reflection from down below. And this is striking the front of the lens, and this is causing lens flare in the lens. It's causing a loss of contrast. So we'll take that exact same set up, but this time we're going to add a hood, and we're going to take that hood and put it on the front of the lens. Watch the front of the lens. You see how it captures the shadow over the front of the lens? Isn't that wonderful? Alright, so that's what a lens hood is doing, and it's going to enable you to get the sharpest possible images. Here's a case for the sun. It's just outside of the frame. We can see a lens flare up here in the top of the tree. And if you look at the overall picture, it is what many photographers would call "muddy". It just doesn't have a lot of contrast. It just doesn't look real sharp. So let's go ahead and add a hood to this, and you can see that we've gotten rid of those lens flares. And let's go ahead and bring it back split screen so you can see exactly what it looks like with the lens hood and without the lens hood. Now, this is going to have a potentially big impact any time you have a bright light just out of range. So if any of you have walked outside on a bright, sunny day, and held your hand over your head like a baseball cap, you know exactly what a lens hood or lens shade is doing. You're blocking that light from hitting the front of your eyes. It can make a huge difference. So that's what the lens hoods are doing on your camera. Inside, they typically don't have as much impact, because the light's kind of bouncing around everywhere, and you don't have a strong light coming from the side. A strong light coming from the side, causing a flare problem in there. When we block the light, it's nice and clean. Somebody is bound to ask the question, "Why are they shaped so funny?". Well they're shaped kind of funny so that they fit the square format. That's how we get round to fit the square format of our cameras. Alright. So they're custom designed for each lens, so it's very difficult to share lens hoods from one lens to the other. They're typically very specifically designed for particular focal length, or for a zoom range. If you have a camera with a built in flash, there is another concern to be aware of. If you add a hood to a lens with built in flash, there is a good chance that you are going to be blocking that flash from hitting a subject that you are shooting. So taking the lens hood off is advised if you are using a built in flash. If you are using an add-on flash, it's probably high enough not to cause a problem. Lens hood are something that work to give you the best image quality. They also work as a nice little bumper, in case you're walking around, and your camera just swings wide as it's on a strap and it hits something. It's also really nice in rain or slight mist, from keeping rain from hitting the front element. But you know every once in a while, it's nice to have some flair. I mean that's why they call it flair. Some people like having a little bit of flair. It's not that flair is always bad, but you should have control. You're in control as to whether you have it, or whether you don't have it. Moving on to teleconverters. Teleconverters are used for increasing the magnification of a lens. In this case, we have a 300 millimeter lens. What we can do is we can add on a 1.4 teleconverter, and that makes it a more powerful lens. We can add on a 2x converter, and it doubles the focal length of the lens. So let's do a little converter comparison here. We'll go up to Kerry Park again in Seattle, and this is an 85 millimeter shot as you can see. We're going to use a full frame camera. We're going to use a crop frame camera, and do examples of both. With our straight 300 millimeter lens, here is what we would get with each of those camera systems because they have the different sensors. Let's go ahead and show those examples. We have a 300 mm, and a 480 mm equivalent lens. It's still just a 300 on a crop-frame camera. But this is the equivalent focal length of that lens. When we add a 1.4 converter, it's going to get us a little bit closer. When we add on a 2x, it's going to get it a little bit closer again. So if you are shooting telephoto, this is where that crop frame sensor really shows that you get an advantage. You get a real boost if you are shooting telephoto work. Which one of these is going to give you the best image quality? That was, I thought, an interesting questions. Here are the arguments: the 300 mm should give you great image quality, because you're not adding any elements to the equation. Maybe it's going to be better on a full frame camera because maybe it's getting a better signal than the crop frame camera. Maybe because it has more pixels. Now the argument where it should be better down here is that we're trying to magnify the image less. We're already getting so close, we don't need to blow it up. If you are trying to get into a nice, close region of something that's very far away, I found that shooting with the 300 mm lens gave me the worst results in comparison to using the teleconverter. If you need to get close to something, 300 gave me the sixth best of these options. It was a virtual tie between using a crop frame sensor, or using a 1.4 converter. And what it very much followed was the effective focal length that I got. Whatever the effective focal length was, the longer it was, the better it did, if I was really trying to get in there. One option, potentially, is to say, "Well I'll just crop in on a 300 mm lens". And it's going to save you a lot of money. You don't have to add an extra teleconverter; just crop it and blow it up. And you can get some okay quality just cropping it and blowing it up. But if you know you really want to fill the frame with something, a 1.4 and then a 2x. Now the 1.4 is going to be higher quality than the 2x converter, because it's adding less elements to the equation. Very handy in some sports and wildlife situations. There is a cost to this - not only in money, size, and weight. It is the light loss. You are going to lose one stop of light with he 1. converter, and two stops of light with he 2x converter. These are very handy though if you want to carry a more powerful telephoto lens, but you want to carry just a small attachment. One of the questions we always get is, "Can I use this on my 50 mm lens" or "Can I use this on my 28 - 200 mm lens?". These are really designed primarily for being shot with fixed focal length telephoto lenses. 300s, 400s, 500, 600. Those are the cream of the crop right there. You could use these on the 70-200 2.8, that would be okay. But I wouldn't want to use these on anything less than 100 mm in focal length. Although you could technically do it and get away with it, they're not really designed for that purpose. So I wouldn't use them. I would try to avoid them on all zoom lenses. The only zoom lenses that I might draw an exception to, would be a really good quality 70-200 lens.
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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!