Lessons
Class Introduction
07:11 2Canon Lens Basics
14:12 3Focal Length: Angle of View
11:31 4Focal Length: Normal Lenses
09:43 5Focal Length: Wide Angle Lenses
18:15 6Focal Length: Telephoto Lens
21:27 7Focal Length Rule of Thumb
15:36 8Field of View
10:14Aperture Basics
04:41 10Aperture: Maximum Aperture
18:44 11Aperture: Equivalent Focal Length
07:48 12Aperture: Depth of Field
06:23 13Aperture: Maximum Sharpness
08:33 14Aperture: Starburst Effect
05:18 15Aperture: Flare
06:48 16Aperture: Hyperfocal Distance
19:32 17Camera Mount System
14:57 18Canon Lens Compatibility
14:26 19Canon Lens Design
12:29 20Canon Lens Composition
04:30 21Canon Lens Shape
05:50 22Canon Lens Coating
06:53 23Canon Lens Focusing
14:10 24Lens Autofocus
08:17 25Canon Lens Image Stabilization
06:57 26Canon L Lenses
10:18 27Image Quality
09:46 28Canon Zoom Lenses: Standard
17:50 29Canon Super Zooms
05:20 30Canon Wide Zooms
09:48 31Canon Telephoto Zooms
16:09 32Prime Lens: Normal Lenses
09:19 33Prime Lens: Moderate Wide
07:01 34Prime Lens: Wide Angle
05:33 35Prime Lens: Ultra-Wide
09:23 36Prime Lens: Short Telephoto
09:03 37Prime Lens: Medium Telephoto
08:59 38Prime Lens: Super Telephoto
13:59 393rd Party Lenses Overview
06:01 403rd Party Prime Lenses
15:25 413rd Party Zoom Lenses
26:28 42Lens Accessories: Filters
33:42 43Lens Accessories: Lens Hoods
09:58 44Lens Accessories: Tripod Mount
04:51 45Lens Accessories: Extension Tubes
04:30 46Lens Accessories: Extenders
13:11 47Macro Lens: Reproduction Ratio
18:59 48Macro Lens: Technique and Choices
25:59 49Fisheye: Technique and Choices
18:49 50Tilt Shift: Techniques and Choices
27:08 51Make a Lens System Choice
05:37 52Choosing A Portrait Lens
17:21 53Choosing A Sports Lens
17:31 54Choosing A Landscape Lens
10:39 55Best Lenses for You
08:46 56Lens Maintenance
11:19 57Buying and Selling Lens
11:15 58What is John Greengo's Favorite Lens?
08:37Lesson Info
Canon Wide Zooms
So let's jump into the world of wide zooms. So lenses ranging 35 below all the way down to 11 millimeters. Let's look at the crop frame or the E. F s lenses that are available for a long time. We only had one choice, and that was the 10 to 22 it was a pretty reasonable, decent choice. But it's had some pretty good competition with some of the Toki, Nas and Sigma's and Tamron Center out there. We'll talk about later in this class. But Canon recently introduced a to 18 which is something that photographers have been asking for for a long time, which was, I have a crop trained body. Do you have an affordable wide angle lands? Because the problem with the 10 to 22 is it's relatively pricey, and they brought out this new tend 18 at a ridiculously low price. And so it's a really nice option for somebody who wants to get into photography and get into a wide angle without spending a ton of money on their crop frame camera. And so great for travel and landscape is very lightweight. It does hav...
e a plastic mount. Ah, lot of plasticky construction. And I want to just take a moment and address something that people are gonna be thinking about. Okay, John, this is a nice way to get into white angle, but it's not the best. Wide angle is investing in this a smart idea when I think I want to get something even better down the road. What is this upgrading and we'll talk about this is we continue to go through the class lenses hold their value pretty darn well, as I mentioned before, I've sold lenses for more than I bought them. For now, I'm not gonna guarantee that you get this on this or any Lance, but you could buy this lands and this lands. This lens is about 250 bucks. All right, So let's say you spent 250 bucks today on this land and you use it for the next two years, and you take care of your lands. You don't beat it up. You don't get dinged up. Scratch the lens is you take reasonable care. You're not handling it with white gloves. You don't have to do that. I've seen people who do that you don't need to do that, but just take a reasonably good care of what you own. You'll be able to turn around and sell that for probably 200 bucks you paid to 50. He sold it for 200. That's a lens rental of $25 a year. That sounds like a pretty good deal. Anytime. Access to a lens of your choice for 25 bucks a year. Now, maybe you have to sell it for 1 75 or maybe a sell it for 150 box, and it costs you $50 a year. I don't think of any lens that I buy, as this is the lens I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. When I get a lands, I think of it kind of like my house. Yeah, it's my house. But you know what? I'm not the last person that's gonna live in this house. I'm going to sell it to somebody else and they're gonna live in this house. I'm gonna buy this lens, and I'm gonna use it for a while and I'm going to turn around and I'm going to sell it to somebody else, and that's my cost of ownership. And so I keep the boxes. I keep all the packaging. I have a closet full of empty camera boxes. I honestly dio and I can turn around. I can package it up. I keep my things in relatively good shape. I don't worry about using them as sometimes they have scratches. I want to get use out of my lenses. And so maybe this isn't the end up world's greatest wide angle lens. But if it gets you into the field and gets you out there shooting what you want to shoot, then it's a good bye. The upgrade version of this better quality construction. You can see the Middle Mount down here, the focusing ring on it, a little bit better quality in the overall construction to 10 to 22. This is their best option when it comes to their GFS lenses in my mind. And so this really gets into that ultra wide territory, and it does have that slow, variable aperture, which I don't like, which a lot of these lenses have. If we compare these two options, there's that prices at 18 you know, if you just want to dabble in the world of wide angle. Give it a try for a while, you know, what a great way to spend 100 bucks. I mean, technically, you got to spend 250 to buy it. Keep it for a year. Sell it for 100 50. Get rid of it real quick on eBay, Craigslist or whatever way you normally sell your lenses. High demand. This has been selling like hotcakes, according to my friends, who on camera shops, very popular. Linds. It's been in demand for a long time. Okay, wide angle lenses for the full frame camera. Got some fun ones in here. Each of these are very good in their own right. The 17 to 40 has been around a while, has been a really nice, compact, reasonable landscape, and travel lands. It's their L series, so it's top of the line stuff. It's got their great focusing motor in there for somebody who wants to shoot landscape photography with a full frame camera, this is your best value. Lance. You can get great landscapes. I worked with this lens for many, many years. I'm not going to say it's the best lands, But it's the best value lens because it's relatively low in price. It's well under $1000. It's fairly lightweight and fairly small. It does have a little bit of, ah, reputation of being a little soft in the corners, and this is something that you're going to see on a regular basis. A lot of lenses are soft in the corner, where they're soft wide open or they have chromatic aberration. It's it's just kind of goes along with the territory. Every lens has a little bit of weakness on, and that was replaced essentially with the 16 to 35. I think eventually we'll see the 17 to 40 fade away. Who knows when it will be discontinued, but it will eventually fade away in my mind. So this was just introduced, and this is the perfect landscape Lands as well as travel ends in my mind. It has image stabilization for those times where you're not allowed to use a tripod. For travel photography, for instance, it reaches that ultra wide territory of 16 millimeter gets you up to 35 for a nice documentary work a very practical range Ah, constant aperture of F four is easy to set and work with on manual. It's incredibly. It's their sharpest wide angle lens, I think. And so it's just a really nice lines. Very well, brand new design can't recommend that high enough. And to be honest with you, it's not really that much money. If you look at the price of some of their L lenses and some of their with premium stuff, landscape photography is one of the cheapest ways and styles of photography to get into. We're gonna talk in particular at the end of this entire class on portrait sports and landscape and the most expensive to get into its sports photography, the next would be portrait photography. And the easiest is to get is to get into landscape photography the 16 to 35 2.8. Okay, the big difference here is the 2.8 aperture. This is gonna come in handy if you are needing those faster shutter speeds. You're not gonna use 2.8 to get shallower depth of field. I mean, you technically can, but there's so little shallow depth of field you can get with the 16 to 35. The reason you do that is so that you can get faster shutter speeds. So this is a very good lands for certain types of wedding photographers that want to shoot wide angle and get a fast shutter speed to stop everybody on the dance floor, for instance. And so, if you're shooting people in action, a news photographer who was shooting a large group of people that are moving around a crowd, this would be a great lance for that. And it's a standard issue piece. It's kind of part of what they call the Holy Trinity of lenses, the three zooms that have a 2.8 Apertura on it. A lot of people don't like the fact that they went up to 82 millimeter filters. The different size filters, 77 was really common, and 82 means more expensive, larger filter and and most photographers end up with a lot of 77 millimeter filters. And so 82 was not a great move. It's something that people liked, but they did that to improve image quality, but its corners air still a little mushing. So if your image quality based, you want to look at the 16 to 35 F four. If you need the shutter speeds, the 28 version and then we get to the special guy. This one is unusual. This is the new one, the 11 to 24. This is a very unusual lens. It's a very challenging lens to work with. It is for only specialized photographers that really want to go all the way. And so typically it's gonna be landscaping, architect, architectural photographers. And to be honest with you, even in these areas, it's a challenging lens to work with. And so this is the lightest rectilinear lens ever made. There are wider lenses that are fish eyes, but as far as keeping straight lines straight, it's very good now. The downsides to this is I can personally attest to is it's very expensive. It is heavy as all get out, and it is very challenging to use and find interesting subjects. It's fun to put on the camera and play with it and see what it does. But when you actually get out there to shoot photos, it is very challenging to find the right type of environment to shoot something in the 11 to 16 millimeter range. If you don't need that, 11 to 16 get the 16 to 35. It's a much better value lens than this. This is just for those extreme situations. And so as we look at the group of these wide angle lenses, the 11 to is just far and away the most expensive lens. That 17 to 40 is a very attractive price. If you are doing landscapes, architecture in handhold or little bit sharper lands the 16 to 35 F four for a little bit more money as a really good by. The people who need to get the 16 35 2.8 usually know exactly who they are, and so usually there's not too much complication here in which one you would choose to be in the best.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
user-b3a96c
I so appreciate what a good teacher John is. I wish I would have known this much about lenses when I first started out buying my lenses. It was hard finding information about lenses. I didn't want to spend money on a lens I wouldn't use. The better understanding we have about our gear the better photographers we will be. I have never seen a class like this. Invaluable...yes I bought the class! I am really impressed with the high quality photography classes available on Creative Live!
Tami Miller
Have loved the other John Greengo classes I've watched & purchased - and this is another winner! Having been a high school/college science teacher, it is refreshing to take a course with someone who not only is extremely experienced, seems to be a computer having stored so much knowledge, but is equally concerned about making the information truly understandable to different levels. And he shares the information using every tool he can: slides, video, interactive presentations, and great quizzes. I learned so much about my Canon lenses - and lenses in general with their many components. I am excited about testing each of mine to see what macro ratio they handle, and especially appreciated the tutorial on testing each for their specific quirk that affects super sharpness. This class is great whether you own Canon lenses or not. Thanks John Greengo!
Abbeylynne
This was a great class not just about the lenses that Canon offers but also how each lens works. As usual, John's slides are alway informative and entertaining. There is a phrase: John has a slide for that! I am not even a Canon user and found this class to have great information for the use of each specific lens. Great work John! Thank you Creative Live for another great class!
Student Work
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Fundamentals