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Know Your Camera

Lesson 2 from: Foundations of a Working Photographer

Zack Arias

Know Your Camera

Lesson 2 from: Foundations of a Working Photographer

Zack Arias

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Lesson Info

2. Know Your Camera

Lesson Info

Know Your Camera

All right, so uh the camera was get into the camera and after the camera will do some q and a camera cannon nikon sony anyone sheets sony probably someone out there shooting son so he's actually pretty cool cameras they have something to have some features on him and I have some glass it's really nice but anyways so cannon nikon sony hassle bled mumia alright whatever whatever this camera as a working photographer is just a tool it's a hammer and screwdriver whatever it's a tool and nikon makes awesome tools cannon makes really great tools um sony makes great tools we've got this hassle bladder over here. This is one of the older h three d's uh, chase jarvis's will be giving away later but an amazing tool on a major this is a really nice hammer like don't drop this hammer ah, a beautiful tool I got my old hassle glad five hundred that's a billion years old great tool, right? But they're just tools they're just apertures and shutter speeds um do not worry about if you have kin whether y...

ou should have a nikon if you have a nikon don't worry about whether you should have a candidate like it doesn't freak and matter I know people who make gorgeous photographs with night cons I know people who make gorgeous photographs with candidates I know people who make gorgeous photographs with sony's I've seen amazing stuff come out of a pin tax if you can believe that right? Um you put that hassle bladder in the hands of a great photographer and just wait till you see the pictures that come out of that camera but you take that hassle black and you put that into a mediocre photographers hands and just it's sad just get on flicker just start looking around going oh my god really like that camera should be revoked from some people that exposition and it's fine if you shoot those pictures just don't show it to the world right if I was passable and I'd be paying and take those pictures off of flicker like don't say my camera shot that all right? So whatever you have, whatever canon, nikon, whatever all right it's just camera it's just plastic and metal so if you're shooting a rebel great if you shouldn't be three x awesome if you're shooting a five d mark two god help you with your auto focus but also it's fantastic if you're shooting seventy d a five d a twenty whatever all right, theo camera to me is the really the least important part of my kids and that kind of sounds silly but here's the deal is this day and age our camera bodies are are the most disposable item in our camera back over the life of a working photographer those camera bodies are going to be moved out of your bag at a much faster rate than anything else. I still have some of those same old flashes I've been using for years. Uh lindsay that my thirty five have to still using it whatever lindsay's I bought seven years ago eight years ago I still have those lenses, you know? And as the camera body's leave the lindsays state, the flashes state the pocket wizard state the cables and the sinks and the batteries stay all my stuff stays except the camera body. All right, now, back in the days of film you'd buy some really good camera bodies and they were made the last twenty years and you keep a camera bodies for a long time. Um, it's my personal opinion that since camera manufacturers understand that these these came our bodies air darn miers disposable and you're going to want to change him out every couple of years, I don't think the quality of build is in them like they used to be um they're just not the build quite is like a precision tool like they used to be. Um and I start having issues with my digital camera bodies after a few years because I think they just kind of starting to fall apart right? So my d one hundred sits on top of a refrigerator all right sits on top of my refrigerator it's almost kind of like my little altar to my beginning of my career there you are up on the refrigerator when I'm getting a coke you know there's my camera I started with but it's it's just collecting dust, right? But that's thirty five f two I bought for it I'm still using it. All right? So whatever camera you have that's what you've got to work with, all right? When I'm looking at a camera body um the considerations these air really the main considerations I have and pretty much the order that I think about them all right, full frame versus a crop so we're talking about dslr is right now you know, these these digital cameras built off the thirty five millimeter system of old that full frame versus crop? Um I started on crop sensors and moved to full frame and I don't think I'll ever move back to a crop sensor now one reason is I love wide angle lenses and ana why on a crop since or you lose that with I love wide angle lenses when I was on a crop since her body I put a wide angle lens on it was never wide enough never wide enough never wide enough now I know people who love telephoto lenses and they love crop sensors because that crop visually gives them a longer lynn's right so, uh, for those of you, if I'm speaking, you know, greek did not quite sure what I'm talking about if we have ah, sensor in the back of our camera, right full frame andare lin's covers edge to edge of that a full frame sensor. This was basically the size of a thirty five millimetre negative. A crop comes in here somewhere, and we're only seeing part of that sensor so everything that are normally are lindsay's would show outside of that, we're losing some of that. That viewpoint of that winds all right, so I'm a I'm a big fan of of full frame sensors to the point of if you gave me let's, say I you said I could have a brand new cannon seventy, which is crop right? Seventy his crop brand new seventy or zack or you could have used five d mark one of the first five d I would take the used five d over a brand new seventy personally for me because I want that full front. I want that full size sensor because I love white angles, all right? And that is where that matters to me. To some people they're like no, no, no, no, I'll take the crop since I'm good with that, I'd rather have the newer seventy because I'm totally until like tele photos or I shoot sports and I need my two hundred to act like a three hundred and and on and on and on does that make them wrong? No, it doesn't make me wrong, it's just different styles. So what kind? What are you shooting? What's your style? Do you love that wide angle view point crop are go full friend next thing I look at his eyes so performance all right? I also performances is crucial to me when when picking a new camera, especially shooting events, weddings or anything like that, even so much as if you're a headshot photographer and you live in seattle. And do you like to shoot everything by window light and many days? There's? Not a lot of it on cloudy days, if I'm shooting a head shot, I could be shooting at I s o eight hundred um and I need really good performance at I s o eight hundred one reason that I had to become a very proficient and very quick with knowing howto light and, um, get in situations and bring flashes in was because I started with a nikon d one hundred and it's s o performance was horrendous I couldn't shoot above I s o four hundred and even I also four hundred was nearly just unusable there was so much noise you know you'd have to have a permit from the city because there's just so much noise going on in that picture you had noise a size of golf balls it was just a horrendous camera at high I s o so when I got into low light situations I had toe light the environment or light the subject that I was shooting I had to because I couldn't when I got my d three when I got that d three and I shot that thing that I so sixty four hundred for the first time I looked at that well, there goes my workshop like you know I needed lighting any more like that sixty four hundred core just like I can't believe it it's amazing what these cameras can do so as I go forward I'm looking at I s o performance I'm looking at crop a f performance that quick question on the ice a performance how do you find out based upon the camera that you have kind of those how good it can be is that just play or just you push you you shoot a scenario on guy so one hundred two hundred four hundred eight hundred sixteen hundred thirty two hundred whatever your camera will go to you and then bring those, you know, really, like, go make eleven by fourteen prints of those pictures and lay them out in an imprint fairly large and you'll see all my camera falls apart here like this is unacceptable, you know, it's one thing when noise starts to give us that old film grain look that's kind of why I like the d three it's it's got that kind of it's more grain than noise, but you have to shoot it to see it. Now I've read all the reviews I looked at all the pixel peepers, and we call measure baiters like, well, you know, we're actually getting a third more adult charge of blue channel of chip of that if you look at this picture there's a quote, you know? Yeah, andi eso sometimes that god for people that just totally just pixel people, five million percent all their pictures, but there's, nothing like going and shooting it yourself. Making some eleven by fourteen prints lay in amman a table and just checking it out going I am acceptable with noise up to this point and anything beyond this point. I just I don't like it with my I d one hundred, it was about ice of three twenty, and anything beyond that was just unacceptable. My d seventy got me though I s o four hundred and then when I went to the d two hundred I was up to about six forty and when I went to the d three I was it like sixteen hundred you know? And so when when I upgraded cameras it helped me in that I also performance but honest to god most of the stuff I do is around the studio or his lip on location and once you bring lights out and you're lighting things and you're living and also one hundred two hundred range it's kind of an even playing field, I could shoot something in the studio with the d three and a cannon five d and show it to you side by side and like I dare you to find the difference between them but I go out and shoot available light with the d three in the five d and bring them teo and you'll see the difference because they're different in different lighting conditions what I love about the five d is available light that late afternoon available light the five does something I can see it you someone post a picture on the blogger whatever they shoot five feet I just know it I see it you know late afternoon available light five d a zavarzin the dslr world nothing pizza all right next up is our economics right now I shoot can icon I have a canon and nikon system I got that cannon for five d thank you very much laugh array I hate you um we're all you know I tried to get into video a long time ago and then had to get out of everything and the video is calling me back again so of course get a five d mark to er for video and I I I like it is a camera but I just it doesn't feel right my hands the nikon feels like home but I know people who are like when they pick up a can and like yes this is this feels right in my hands and they pick up a nikon and like this doesn't feel right and people say psycho knight counter can and pick it up put it in your hands and that will help the side just the feel of it because remember you got to know this thing you've got to pick it up off your side or out of your bag and it's just got to fit in your hand and you have to know it as to just it's like some sort of sci fi flick where it just becomes part of your hand you know it's part of your arm and you you are holding it and you're not even thinking about it and for me that's an icon when I pick it up cannons getting there and in fact I'm I'm uh I'll get into that later all right lastly last thing I care about megapixels I really don't care about megapixels I have seen gorgeous sixteen by twenty prints off a two megapixel cameras like at some point like it's just stupid how many megapixels or getting shoved into these little chips you give me ten twelve megapixels and I can do my job really I mean we can do a lot of what we're doing office six megapixels I don't need thirty billion megapixels as I look at medium format backs they have a ton of mega pixels I'm not looking for the eighty mega pixel camera I don't need that much I can afford that many hard drives it's about the quality of that ship and not the quantity of megapixel I saw a great sign not long ago says by a camera not mega pixels don't buy mega pixels by a camera right? So what I'm looking at cameras the last thing I care about two megapixels I think a seven d probably has more megapixels than untold five right most likely somewhere about that I don't hair I like I go that old five b because of the full size chip it was eight megapixels find whatever as long as it's a full friendship that's good quality that's what I care about I care about good performance that I also eight hundred and I do care about auto focus performance when I'm shooting events, weddings or events or anything like that auto focus is his key to meet um I'm not shooting as many events anymore I'm pretty much just straight up portrait work now in my life just everything I'm shooting and concentrating on his portraiture and so portraiture is I'm going to sit you down in a lighting condition that I dictate I'm not, you know, and I have control over the situation, so at this point focus isn't quiet is crucial to me all right, um so like, I complain all the time about the five d mark two and its auto focusing because it's compare that to a nikon the nikon is on the cannons like it and when I teach workshops will be twelve people shooting and nikon photographers thanks and cannon photographers at the end of the day or like, does anyone have a flashlight and someone hold this cell phone up next to their face? Can someone help me focus? Nikon, can you turn your f assist light on so my cannon can focus off of it? I mean, I just see it in the field all the time uh, funny story about that actually the fighting going to as well, so I had this headshot session first ever at my company someone like the eighth executive and a little darker than members of off camera lighting and I'm trying to, like, shoot it's like blinking and, like, put on these guys to go he's like a minute. I'm like, oh, it's coming what was returning to click? I'm sweating, it wouldn't turn in at all, but, uh, focus wasn't kicking in. Yeah, terrible. Yeah, just yes, yeah, bolt is what I know. Please stand by, please stand by and, you know, you know, you gear like I got to keep a flashlight around, you know, if if I get out to a situation where there's not a lot of light and I, even though I'm lighting it but it's not enough to focus and I know that that cannon needs a flashlight around so I can focus the thing you know, my nikon, we're so much uh s so, like, if I was a full time wedding photographer me personally there's no there's, no way. You couldn't pay me enough money to be a full time wedding photographer. Whether five d mark to I hate that camera weddings, especially at receptions. Oh, my gosh! At wedding receptions with five d mark two in my hand, I am saying so many curse words inside of my head of I hate that camera, my nikon click it just it gets can and will come along you know so but whatever you've got a five d mark two new shooting weddings have at it because you know what I know thousand photographers shooting weddings with five d mark teams they're saying a million passwords but they got shoot weddings in five the market ideo I'm not saying any cuss words no you're not saying cousins will get from you you get free don't swear those alright alright right not ok so the camera this is what I when I've got a camera in my hand I'm thinking exposure I'm thinking focus on hunting and white balance and that's it that's all I'm thinking I'm working with my exposure I'm dealing with focusing the lynn's right and whatever white balance I need to be on and that's it I'm not worried about picture styles all right I don't set up a portrait style or landscape picture style I don't go tweak uh lots of different settings inside of my camera I shoot a raw format right so I shoot raw and I deal with all that stuff later in post production if I want to increase the contrast they do post production I want a decrease contrast I do it in postproduction if I want a d saturate the picture I do it in postproduction if I want to sharpen it I do it in postproduction I don't I just have my camera set up two zero zero zero zero zero on all of those pictures styles when I view times I deviate from that is that I'm setting up a shot and I specifically see this picture as a black and white photograph and I'm like this is going to be black and white I just know I wanna love this picture black and white then I will go over to my camera I will set it to monochrome and she because I just want to preview it on the back is it black and wave is it going to look at black right it's gonna be great yeah I want to like this black and white and I'll shoot it monochrome just so I get a preview of it on the back of my camp all right, so uh sometimes I also flipped that around on the client going I'm sitting this out this is going to be black and white there's gonna be great black and why I'm going to shoot it black and white and I go click and show him the camera in this black and white now the little secret is when you're shooting raw and you pull that picture back in delight room the initial preview comes up black and white and give it a second and pop it goes back to color when you're shooting raw you have all the color information there but I'm going to go ahead and bring it back to black and white in post production and when I deliver it if I know if my brain is a photographer is saying this is a black light my vision for this picture is black and white then that is getting delivered to the client black and white and if they come back and say, well can I see it in color? I remember I turned my camera to black and white it's as though I put black and white film in the camera oh ok there are times I believe so much in this must be black and white that you can't get it in color for me I believe in it in black and white now there are other times too like you know what it works in color or black and white and then get both here's a color version here's a black and white version I prefer the black and white version and usually what happens with clients as you prefer one and they used the other but always have you given the worst picture you took just a kind of beef up the edit and that's the one they put on the cover all right, so, uh focusing all right focusing I worry about that now here's something that the reason I want to bring up focus is I see um I see it in pictures and I see photographers doing this as they're working um I set up my focus on whatever camera I'm shooting typically, in the single servo or one shot focus all right, so that means I lock my focus in and then if I need to recompose my photo or whatever I do that I do not use thie uh, the continuous focusing of my camera, especially in portrait situations, I never use it in portrait situations. Here's, why you're setting up your focus? Um and dave, I've got you sitting there, I bring my camera up to you and I'm going to focus in on you. And if I'm on continuous focusing meaning, as long as I'm holding down that shutter release it's constantly focusing on you, then that means I have to keep in a f point in my view, finder on your eyes. Now, this is what I see a lot. I see a lot of people composing photographs around their auto focus, they bring that a f point onto someone's face, they focus, they take a picture, and this is something I want to think about those a f points in your view finder were not put there by artists, they were put there by scientists, engineers, those f points are there for some engineering reason, I need an a a point here, here, here and here they're not compositional tools, auto focus points are never compositional tools like I just need my focus over here somewhere close to the edge of the frame focus and I recompose now if I'm a focus recompose guy on anaugh tow our continuous focusing setting you know as I recomposed that a f point might hit your shoulder or might hit something the background and I see a lot of people getting stuck on continuous focusing and composing their photographs around a f points and the compositions are really well balanced because and you can see it if you study photography enough you can look at someone's photographing yeah, I know exactly what your point you were using it right over their face their face should be here in the frame but it's here in the frame because in a half point was there and that's where you composed your picture do not compose your photographs around your auto focus points just don't sometimes a composition may show up on a focus point you whoa hey look at that it worked but most of the time not and I see so many people so many people composing around those eight points so as I'm working this weekend it's going to be single servo or one shot focusing um and I will move I always focus on the eyes nine times out of ten I'm focusing on the eyes I move an auto focus point somewhere up in my view finder closest to the eyes focus locket and slightly recomposed aa lot of people ask me about back button focusing, um, regret that was loud. Sorry, internets a lot of people use this back button to focus. I don't, um, not saying it's, right? Not saying it's wrong. Um, but here again and and again, this this class is kind of trying to hit a whole bunch of myths that are out there because I've had photography a well, I was told that I'm only supposed to use the back button by who? Well, so and so and so and so and so in some say they used the back button and that that's the only one they use and and I tried to use it, I don't like it don't use it for god's sake don't but someone so says the screws so and so use the front biting, you know? And I know people who love the back button like, dude, I used backweb watch this like, well, that's, great, you're doing a great job with back, but I can't do it. Why number one reason why I don't run the left eye shooter that means I'm looking through my viewfinder, the left eye and my thumb is right there probably in my eyeball so it's just really uncomfortable for me back here plus I came up in days when we didn't have a back button we had just the half press of the shutter release and that was your focus or turning your meter on or whatever and then you took your picture so it's what I've always known and for me to try to switch to go toe back button like it would just go with what you know go with what's comfortable all right um so so I'm a half a click turn on the focusing turn on the meter and recompose now what you've got to be careful of re composing you're going to see me and I'll be mumbling this in my breath um a number of times uh this weekend is I'll be saying focus recomposed focus re composed of history composed be careful, zach focus recompose so let's say you're going to see really quickly why I'm a photographer right and not an artist of the drawing type let's say I want to make this composition in my frame all right and the closest a f point I have is right there right? We have a f points here in the middle maybe here here you have a nikon there's like a billion of them um so this is the composition I want for my picture and these are my auto focus points and there's not one near their face so I pick probably in this situation this a f point I swing my camera over until it's to their eyes focus hold it down, lock it and then slightly recomposed my picture I want a very, very subtle kind of movement so that if I'm coming in here and I'm taking your picture and my point to there and turned my auto focus on there we go but that's not the composition I want the composition I want right there, right? Your sensor back here is your focus plane all right, so we have our subject big nose, kali nose hairs all right? And we have our camera sensor here and I'm focused on this odd all right, that is some distance, whatever that isthe if I then tilt this camera too much and changed the angle after I focused here that distance is longer. Suddenly my sensor is either closer to you or further from you. So if I suing this too much, I could lose the focus on your eyes. So the focus recompose is you've got to have a steady hand and if you focus okay, I'm focused and then I go, oh, actually I want this composition I have to revoke cy changed distance, so when you were going to focus recompose, you focus and it's just very subtle movements and the closer you get to the subject the more critical it is that you're very careful and swing in this camera all right now things little things like with the five deep um your auto focus point needs to find a contrast line I need some sort of very strict line of contrast or something toe lock in and focus on if you try to just focus on someone's cheek where there is no line it's just going on a hunting pack in hunting pink right? So when I'm running out of light with a five d mark to I go to the center auto focus point and I just sort of stay there and the center a half point is the most accurate and then I'm just talking about I'm thinking of focusing on the eyes and if I'm having a hard time seeing the eyes I think of where are the eyes on the plain of this photograph and I'll find like a contrast point around the side of their head where here's you know here's the side of their head and then here's the background and that line visually that I see in my view finder I'll walk in on that line and swing my composition back around sometimes I have they have something like lines on their their shirt or something and I'm trying to think what what area of their shirt sorry hitting my microphone uh what area of their shirt is the same distance is their eyes are right and I'll find that line and focus on that and swing that back up I need a very hard line to focus on especially with the five d in a low life so its center a half point I don't go off to the edges when I have plenty of light like I played a light in here right now I'd go off to the edges I go off to these focus point and I'll do all right soon as I get the low light I'm pretty much stuck its center okay, so uh auto focus is crucial white balance I don't really worry a whole lot about white balance I just set my white balance to whatever like living conditions I'm in and I'm shaving with flash I said it the flash if I'm shooting and shade I said it shape if I'm shooting out in the sun I said it son the number one crucial thing for me of setting that white balance is I just want to be able to if I take a picture and look at on the back of my camera I'm pretty viewing it pretty close so what it needs to be I don't worry about doing auto white balance um I do auto white balance every now and then when I'm in a funky lighting condition I don't know what it is you know you get into those sometimes there is a bit of a mix or it's not cloudy it's not sunny it's somewhere what color I don't ok on a white balance click and just see where it is in the neighborhood I never ever, ever going to be on auto white balance when using flash with pocket wizards all right here's why when you put a pocket wizard or some sort of trigger on your camera to fire a flash and it's a third party thing you're using so you have a cannon or night can you put a pocket wasn't on it and you put your camera and auto white balance when that camera fires has no clue that a flash is fired it doesn't know oh there's a pocket wizard on top of me I shall set to flash white belts it doesn't know that so it just tries to figure it out and you could watch your color balance just go all over the place where you're shooting with flash and it looks to blue or looks to yellow or it's just like that's not right it's not right because it doesn't know a flash is firing so go over to your camera puts the white balance button bring it to the lightning bolt singing I get that is that the lightning bolt thing? Yes yes it's the lightning bolt thing it's not flash white balance right read you mean so so I set my white balance to that. Now, at the end of the day, if I'm shooting wrong, it doesn't matter I could set thing to fluorescent shed a whole job with it, and I'd be looking back on my camera on that looks horrible, you know? And when they all pop up in light room there, that looks bad I want them to pop up with and light room close close to where they need to be. I'm going to deal with color and contrast in all of that on my own after the fact in postproduction. Um, if I have first some reason got myself into a situation where I had to shoot and then hand the card to a client like and it had to be j pegs, then that would be a situation where I'd be like, ok, I'm going to set a custom white balance I might set some, uh, contrast parameters in my picture style because I'm shooting to j peg the handing right to the client that's when that kind of stuff would matter to me, I don't ever find myself in those situations I'm never shooting two j peg toe have to hand to a client right away I'm shooting the raw and the client's going to get their pictures and five to ten business days. And it's all going to come through light room and come through my post production process so I don't worry about custom white balance and all of that we'll talk to some point this weekend more about I worry about my monitors and my calibration and things like that we'll get into that some of this weekend all right um and that's it when I pick up that camera um that's it we're going to get more into exposure here though all right? Because this is something I see lacking in a lot of people's lives you raising your hand all right um let's real quick let's just take a quick question break some questions on this we're getting indicia captures and shutter speeds and technical stuff coming up here all right, right uh, quick question about focusing so you're focusing on one person's eye you using single point what happens if you have two or three people and you want to focus on all the eyes? Uh, well, um so let's say I got a group of people I think how deeper those people go. So if you're all in the same line together from like, let's see the three you guys right here you're all about on the same line I mean, is it going to focus on the front person and I'll let focus fall off to the people in the back if I need to, we'll get into that in depth the field okay, so if there's three of you and then three deep then my depth the fielding's to grow but I focus on the person closest to it when you're looking at a photograph, you're going to go to the person closest to the camera and you're going to look at them first. I also focus on the closest I that's another kind of crucial focusing point, so david, I'm shooting a photo of you and you're kind of looking off there, but you're still looking at me I'm going to focus on this eye because that's closest to camera and that's going to be the eye the viewer connects with first because it's closest if you just take your face off that way, I just naturally I'm looking at that I anyways you focus on the back I then you've got this big front I out of focus kind of weird um question from sanski in the chat room about I like the I like the tip on the focus of the line like using a hardline what if you're shooting at a one point eight or one point two and you just want the and focus god help can you focus on the line? And no, I mean I'm here at one two when you're shooting was some beast like this lens right over here the eighty five one two we're gonna get into this in depth of field when you should he want to your depth of field your area of critical focus is so narrow you better be dead on what you're focusing on because you could here's the eye but you might catch a line back here and so the ears and focus on the eyes out and just do a flick research on unlike really fast lenses and see people shooting them at one point two and things like that and if you could look at him at a twelve hundred pixel or larger you'll see a lot of times that focus point was off because your depth to feel this so quit also so you're shooting one point two and you want just the eye to be in focus then you need to focus on the eye when I'm having to do a massive swing like oh I got it I got only use my center a half point but man I gotta swing the camera this much and I start stopping down my aperture to give me some wiggle room in that swing or if I picked up in a f point here but their faces here that's from this this line here tio here as what six inches or so I'm focusing here but I want this in focus so my depth of field better increase to the point where this is acceptably sharp so no re composing when you're at a one point two basically no one point to know when you're shooting wide open with that fast of elin's like you're either on or you're all right so sure there is no in between okay yeah and you're off in a heartbeat easily very in the closer you will see closer you get the worse it becomes alright other questions another question from um or d l o l um I really want to wait fifty years of me yeah people keep maria I really want to know why he doesn't use manual focus because isn't it focus on ly what we perceive to be sharp look it's very metaphor I perceive this to be sharp it's out of focus dude high proceeded to be sharp dude it's out of focus so why why emanuel fired on manual focus on the sl ours personally because I hate they're focusing screens on dslr they suck just putting it out there that's why I've never you never like see me sponsored by cannon or night conner anybody because I just come out yeah these cameras like suck um I have these issues with them no, but the back of the days of film way had that split prisms um and micro prisms and you could you could interchange like this hassle black here take this thing apart you could change your focusing screen all right, the way the camera works is that the an slr the light comes through the lens and then there's a mirror which camera way don't center? I don't have a tally light you can see, so we have the mirror that goes up to this this piece of ground glass this is in your slr kind of thing, right? Um and you could switch these out with the pro level came in and I think some of the high and cannons like the four d mark three years, seven sub paragraph nine I think you can switch out focusing screens on some of the cameras now, but I haven't found I haven't really looked into that the basic out of the box focusing screens like I can't stand him. Um they just don't snap the focus it just and it'll look sharp to me that looks sharp, click oh no, was it it was off? I focused on the year I thought I was focusing on the I, um there have been times where I just have to pull off, uh, manual focus, but I really don't like manual focus on dslr these days because I don't like the focusing screens, I can't trust that I don't see it's nap to focus like I did, um now, uh, I'm shooting a frankenstein camera recently where I'm putting a hassle glad lin's on a cannon body I'll probably shoot that this weekend at some point you have to manual focus at that point yeah, because there's no auto focus in the house blood lin's on again a body is pretty gorgeous if you get focused right? Any other there's a ton of focus questions folks folks want something different so saab has a question what would you recommend for people were in glasses as like yourself and any tips to avoid those green marks how do you deal with it when shooting few hours green marks yeah, I'm not sure so I'm sorry it says greece marques oh, great smart, very smart right I she was glasses uh their pain um and I just kind of deal with it I just smashed a camera into my um it is a little more comfortable to take but I'm the kind of person I have to you know, I could shoot through that and adjust my di achter on my viewfinder and look through and see correctly and then as soon as the camera comes down it's just all a blur so I gotta put, you know, he's back on and then I take them off put it back on uh sometimes I wear contacts but my eyes really can only deal with contacts for about two hours until it's just I feel like there's fingernails just scraping on my eyeballs so if I'm out on a you know six hour shoot there's no way I'm taking I'm wearing contacts um and I ain't doing no lasik is all I got you know it's all I got so I I'm not ready to take a laser beam tow my eyeballs just not and there's a quote yeah yeah not right take laser beams to my eyeballs so I shoot with glasses I press the things just smash it into my face my glasses and usually always kind of skewed and weird and usually pushed back like this um because cameras up in my face and grease marks and on and just have dirty maggot all the times how can you see how to your glass somehow managed to do it yeah thanks for a question from gwinnett tech photo so how do you focus for motion shots oh that's what that tech like yes that's what it says that's where I went school oh marco sorry bam so for action shots from moving shots that is where like the continuous focus comes in so you got a bride coming down the aisle you're down there at the front of the aisle here comes the bride she's moving on down that's not one of those like royal weddings where is going to take her ten minutes to walk down you know like step pause but moving or a kid running through the backyard you're shooting you know, candid children portraiture and the kids just going crazy running around that is when those continuous focusing um you know modes come in handy right so that is also win you have to compose around an auto focus point to me I see that as a limitation and as I'm shooting I go ok I got to compose around the a f point because I'm trying to focus on a moving target and I deal with that limitation then um for portrait situations though I am not so of course a moving target when when either you is the photographer are moving or the subject is moving or you're both moving then you need some help with that um and and you have to compose around in a f point at that point keep hitting the questions we have a question from the sheikh um how do you use multiple focus points and when do you use when you use the nine points when do you I keep it on single always and just move it where I need it okay I don't do the whole like let's figure it out like there's a mode where you can do it a little I don't know I don't know what however rhythms it's looking for I've tried it and sometimes it's like oh hey check that out and I've seen pointing shoots where it finds the face I haven't seen on a point ship when it the subject's smiles, it takes the picture like, ok, that's stupid, but anyway, um, so that when it's kind of the multiple and letting it figure it out saying, I just don't use it because I can't trust it, really? I can't trust it to find the eyes and nail it that's my job, um, I think if I had to just take my camera and just shoot it blind over a wall, for whatever reason, you know, if I get arrested in most places for that, but if I had to hold my camera up over a wall and shoot something on the other side of it, maybe I would want to use that mode, but I can't really comprehend why I would want it picking auto focus points for me. How often do you use this? The middle point and recompose? Or use a different single point? I try to avoid the middle point recomposed because it's usually a pretty big swing when I have to do that because I'm usually pushing people off the edges of my compositions s o to focus on the center and then recompose is a pretty big swing a camera? Um, I only go to that sort of method win like the f points can't focus in and I find it specifically with the five d mark to that I shoot that when you get off to the these edge a f points it has a little harder time you need good light for it really just grab it and focus correctly in lower light lower light levels these out here on the edge have a harder time locking in and locking in accurately whereas I find the center point locks and quicker and more accurately in low light levels I'm still not cursing. All right, okay, you know the reason I have a cannon five eighty x to flash the on ly reason I have it is I got it for its f assist because my nikon went in the shop I had to shoot a wedding I had to shoot everything with five days and I just knew that when I walked into that reception if it got too dark I would need the emphasis light off the five, eighty and so I kept a five eighty on there just for the emphasis like um and then eventually got one of those std two's um so yeah, I bought a stupid flash just for an emphasis like four hundred dollars emphasis but good to know for people who are in the same situation yeah, yeah, you need and emphasised like on a cannon any questions in the audience from him no. Well, I know I'm really enjoying this. I don't know a lot, all right, awesome. I'm enjoying to great making front, as seen in it as is way more questions, but we can keep going, keep going, keep going, there's. Plenty of time for questions, all right?

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

creativeLIVE-Zack01.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Ivan
 

Outstanding! There are so many gems, any photographer aspiring to venture into business will gain much from this course. There are plenty of technical how-to's with superb examples, from choosing the right lens for a given situation, to learning about reciprocals, expressed in Zack's warm and fun style. He's a joy to watch. But, this class is much more than that. Zack is extremely generous in sharing very personal experiences and insight, on how he began from early days of struggling, to current projects, how he built his portfolio, and looking ahead to the future. And, in the final discussion with his wife Meghan, they open up and share their personal struggles balancing work and family life, and their strong support of each other. We can all relate to this. This class is a great guide on what it takes to start and become a successful pro photographer, and pulls no punches. It's not easy to do, but with some creativity and an insane amount of hard work, is doable and very rewarding!

a Creativelive Student
 

Zack's always been one of my favorite photographers and when I think about why he is, it isn't even his work that comes to mind. Zack's technical knowledge and ability to pull off really stunning images is reason enough to check out this course. While he does a good job at teaching the fundamentals, he even better job at explaining why he makes the choices he does. Anyone can tell you what "rules" to follow and what you should and shouldn't do but Zack does a good job explaining why those guidelines are JUST guidelines and shouldn't be taken as law, which can be limiting. I highly recommended this for anyone who has an interest in becoming a better photographer.

a Creativelive Student
 

I haven't finished the course yet either but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I love Zacks work I think he is an amazing teacher and a very funny man. I loved one light and I'm looking forward to finishing this and starting the his studio lighting course also.

Student Work

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