The Gadget Bag: Macro Lenses and Accessories
Lesson 69 from: Fundamentals of Photography 2016John Greengo

The Gadget Bag: Macro Lenses and Accessories
Lesson 69 from: Fundamentals of Photography 2016John Greengo
Lesson Info
69. The Gadget Bag: Macro Lenses and Accessories
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
05:52 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: Macro Lenses and Accessories
All right, well, let's take a little section that maybe didn't quite fit into the lens section, that's on macro lenses. And so, if you're interested in details and small works using a close-up lens, this is your section. So, let's talk about these macro lenses. So, Nikon and Canon, just as an example, make some very nice 100-millimeter-ish lenses that are designed mostly for portrait or general purpose works, and they also have another set of lenses also in that same focal length range that are specifically designed for close-up work. Now, each have their own words, Micro and Macro, which they're both gonna do the same thing, but they love doing things with different names. And these lenses are designed and optimized for focusing up close. And to understand focusing close, one of the things, the principles that you need to understand is reproduction ratio and the main standard goal of reproduction ratio in many types of photography is to try to achieve one-to-one reproduction ratio. An...
d this is where the object size and the image size are exactly the same size. Now, this was easier back in the days of film because you actually got to look at the film, and it's very hard to look at the sensor right now. So, if you remember, 33-millimeter film had 24 by 36 has the size of the image area. If you were to photograph an object, and both a quarter and a euro are about the same size, and you were gonna photograph those with a one-to-one reproduction ratio, they would be exactly the same size when you looked at the film, when you looked at the negatives, or you looked at the slide, and you compare them exactly with the coin. And so, it basically means, it's gonna be exactly the same size in the real world as it is on the film. Now, in the world of digital, we don't get to look at the image sensor in our camera, recording the light quite the way we did with negatives and slide film, but the same principle applies. The objects are the same size on the sensor, and that's gonna be indicating the size of that subject once we get it enlarged and look at it on our computers and so forth. What about crop frame sensors? Well, that is just a crop frame sensor, it's cropping in and it's doing the same thing it does in any other type of aspect of using lenses, is you are getting a cropped version of that. So, if you are into macro photography, there is a slight benefit to having a crop frame camera because you're getting in a little bit closer, and you are getting the pixels that you have on that frame a little bit more tightly in on that particular subject. And so, the subject will be exactly the same size on any of those sensors, if you could get in there and see it as it's being resolved in there. So, next to that, we have half life size, one-to-two reproduction ratio, and this is pretty easy. This is where the subject is half the size it was in real life, as it is showing up on the sensor. And so, this is where a crop frame sensor, it's almost gonna look like it's full size on here, it's just because it's a crop frame sensor. And so, you'll find some lenses go one-to-one, some lenses go one-to-two in their reproduction ratios. It's usually how macro lenses are rated. On a macro lens, you will see the reproduction ratio, this is an extra line of information that most lenses will not have. And so, both of these lenses, while listed slightly differently, are doing a reproduction ratio of one-to-three, which is pretty close. Let's focus a little bit closer. They are both at one-to-two reproduction ratio, and let's go one-to-one. Different cameras will have different ways of reading this information. So, both of these lenses at a one-to-one reproduction ratio when the lens is turned to that position. And so, one-to-one is also known as a one times magnification. The subject is exactly the same size on the sensor as it is in the real world. If we are to go to one-to-two, it is gonna be considered a .5 magnification. It is half of life size. The picture is half the size that it is in the real world. And so this can continue to go down. For instance, a quarter, one-to-four, is 1/4 magnification or 1/4 life size. So let's look at some lenses. Usually, the worst lens, when it comes to magnification ratio is gonna be around an 85 portrait telephoto lens. Now, both the Canon and the Nikon are pretty similar here. They're gonna have a .12 magnification, and so, if you look at the scale, one-two, it's gonna be about a one-to-eight ratio. So, it's not very good when it comes to macro photography. A little bit better would be their 18-to-55, which is a .31, so that is close to 1/3 of life size. A little bit better would be their tilt-shift lens, the PC 45, which does half life size. It's a half magnification, .5 magnification. Over on the Canon side, their 24-to- is a pretty good close-up lens. It's not designed to be a close-up lens. It's a general purpose lens that actually has a macro setting, where it kind of pushes lens elements into place where you are able to get a little bit better work. And so, .7 is not a bad magnification for getting in doing close-up work. But for anyone who wants to do a lot of this work on a regular basis, you're probably gonna wanna get a one-to-one magnification or a one-to-one ratio, a one times magnification like this, and you'll see this in most of the good macro lenses from all the manufacturers out there. And so, you'll find this data in the technical tables of your lenses out there. Now, covering the popular two brands. Nikon makes two lenses, which are specifically designed for their smaller crop frame sensors, the DX sensors, the 40 and the 85. I'm gonna talk more about the different focus lengths on the next slide. But they do also have a number of different lenses for their full frame users. And, real quickly, the different focus lengths will give you a different working distance from your subject. Over on the Canon side, we have one that is designed specifically for the crop frame, and we have several others, which are designed for the full frame. The 50, which is a very old one. Now, the 65 is very unusual because it does one to five times magnification. It does not focus to infinity, it is only a close-up lens. All of the other lenses here can be used as a general purpose lens, where you focus on infinity, and you can focus on things close-up. But the one lens that is different is the 65-millimeter lens here. This is only for really, really high magnification work. So let's talk about what these different focal lengths mean. The 60-millimeter is a fairly basic macro lens or micro lens. The 105 is a little bit more intense, a little bit higher-end one, and the 200 is for the really serious macro photographer. The fact to the matter is that photographing a flat subject with all of these lenses is gonna look pretty much identical. Pretty much identical. What's different is the working distance between you and your subject. How far away can you get your camera away from the subject? And so, obviously, with the bigger telephoto lens, you're allowed to get a little bit further away and still get the same framing on it. And where this becomes important in macro photography is lighting your subject. Now, it would also be important to just separate a distance. For instance, if you like to photograph snakes or things like that, you may not wanna be real close to them. But, for the most part, it has to do with the lighting issue. If you are photographing something and you're very close-up to it and your right on top of it with your camera and so forth, you're probably gonna be casting some shadows down onto it. And so, this is a terrible place to be. You wanna be back a little bit further so that you have room for that light to come in and illuminate your subject. And so, people who are kind of dabbling in photography might get something around a 50 or a 60. People who are kind of into it, want something pretty good, will get around 100, and people who are hardcore macro nuts will go ahead and get in here, something like the 180 or the 200. And so, there's a who world to be discovered down at your feet that you may not be paying attention to. And so, it's a whole world, as I say, that you can look around you, and it's just not real interesting with a wide angel lens, but this is just a very different way of noticing what's going on and seeing that detail up close. This is one of the ways where photography is showing people something that they don't normally see with their own eyes. And any time you show something that is not normally seen by people's eyes, it generally gets to be interesting. And so, it's something that's one of those little extra tools that I often will have in the bag because it just does something different that the other lenses can't do. So, some thoughts on the macro lenses. This is gonna be the sharpest way to shoot anything small. It's not the only way, but it's the sharpest way. You can use these from infinity to close-up, and they're really easy to use because you just put them on, and they work like a normal lens. And these also work as fairly nice portrait lenses. And so, if somebody wants to shoot portraits, and they also occasionally wanna do closeups, this would be a pretty good option to be able to do both. They don't have quite the shallow depth of field, for instance, as an 85 1. because these are usually F2.8 in their maximum apertures. So, they're not quite as good at the shallow depth of field. But, optically speaking, these have always been very, very sharp lenses for the most part. They're usually very well corrected, and they have very, very good quality glass. And so, it's a relatively inexpensive way to get a really good quality piece of glass. As I say, it's not the only way to get close. Another way, and this is a perfect way for somebody who is thinking about macro photography, but is not certain that they wanna dump a lot of money into it. They wanna just play around. And the extension tubes are simply tubes. They're completely hollow tubes, they're simple for mounting the lens and moving it away from the camera body. So, here we have our camera and lens. Let's put an extension tube on there, and these come in different sizes. This is a fairly small one at 12 millimeters. We can add a larger one at 25. And because there is no glass in these things, we can add them up without any optical penalties at all. And so, you can add many more of these if you want, if you have them. And the more you put on, the closer up you'll be able to focus with any particular lens. So, with my 70-to-200, the top photo on the left is as close as I could naturally focus, and you can see the different photos that I can get by adding a 12 or a or adding the 12 plus the 25. And so, it's not as close as a macro lens, but it will enable you to focus closer with any lens that you have, which can be really valuable. It's just something that you add on to equipment that you already use. Now, I wanted to see how close would a macro lens get in this case. And a macro lens will get you noticeably closer. But if you wanna get just a little bit closer, you wanna play around. The extension tubes are a great way to invest a little bit of money because we're talking about 100 to $ to get into one or get of these. And in case you're wondering, yes, you can add the extension tubes on top of the macro lens and get even closer. So, if you wanna start out testing the waters, get yourself some extension tubes. Later on, down the road, you save up for a macro lens and use that, and then you can use both of them together if you want. And so, these extension tubes are available from many of the manufacturers. They're relatively inexpensive, small, lightweight, they're gonna be as sharp as your original lenses, which is very nice, and you're gonna be able to use them in all different lenses. I know that there are some bird photographers who are using 800-millimeter lenses, but they're photographing hummingbirds they might only be 10-12 feet always, and they need to put these on to their camera so that they can focus close enough to those hummingbirds. And so, it can be used in a variety of situations. While you can use them on all lenses, it is unlikely that they will work well on lenses less than 50 millimeters. What happens is the focusing point becomes, moves from the outside of the lens, inside the lens, and you're actually focusing on something inside the lens, which is rather difficult to take pictures with. And so, generally, it's something 50 millimeters and beyond that you would want to use. There is a bit of a warning when using this. It's not a big deal, but if you were to figure out your exposure and then add a big old extension tube, light is traveling further in to the sensor, and it's gonna change the exposure a little bit. And so, you can do your exposure readings perfectly normal with these on the camera, so long as they have the electronics that communicate with the lens on them. But you're gonna probably need to get your exposure set after you get this put on the camera. There are also close-up filters, and these are very small, they're relatively lightweight, not too much money, and you can add them onto whatever lens size filters, as long as you have the filter size that it fits to. They have traditionally been a little bit soft in the corners, so this is not a super sharp way, but it's kind of an even less expensive way to get into close-up work. So these do exist. It's not something that I have spent a lot of time with or money on just because I know the quality takes a bit of a knock, and I would rather get extension tubes, as I think those are more versatile. If you do get into macro photography, one of the problems that you'll have is they end up focusing and framing your subject. And so, in order to control the focusing and the framing, a lot of macro photographers will have these macro rail systems, which allow you to inch forward millimeter by millimeter. Whereas working with a tripod, it's very hard because sometimes, as soon as you pick it up, it move several inches as it goes back and forth. And so, this allows you to be extremely precise if you really get into that type of work, and most macro photography will require you to work from a tripod, and this is just something that you would add on top of that tripod. All right, just to clarify for folks that this might be new for, Cat asks, so, with the macro lenses, it depends on the ratio for that specific lens, correct? So, just because I have a lens with range of 80 to does not means that it is macro, just because I'm within that 105 range. It has to be a specific 105 macro lens. Well, the magnification is completely independent of the focal length of the lens. And so, it's a separate way of measuring how close you can get with the lens. And so, there are ways of testing any lens and actually have more information, an expanded version of this in the Nikon and Canon lens classes, where I go in and I show you how you can test your lenses to see what their magnification ratio is. And so, that's gonna be something in those classes. But the focal length and the magnification ratio are separate. The magnification ratio is a combination of how close can it focus and what focal length lens it gets.
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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!