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
Choosing A Landscape Lens
So with this, the characteristics that are going to be important in choosing the lens first off, going to be the angle of view. What type of photo are you trying to take? And what do you trying to cover? How much depth of field do you want? In many cases, we want lots of depth of field. The sharpness is very high on the list of importance for these photographers, because typically we want very sharp photos in our landscapes. Filter ability? How easy is it to add filters to our particular lens? There's a few lenses that are extremely wide that 11 to 24 that you can't put filters in front of. And that's gonna be very challenging to work with some situations. If you cannot put a filter in front of that lens, or is it the same size as similar lenses that you might have? Landscape photographers end up walking around a lot, carrying a lot of equipment, so size and weight is always an issue in that regard. And of course, price is always an issue, So when it comes to landscape photographs, it ...
really kind of comes down to two different arenas. There is the white angle arena, which is where we kind of think about our traditional grand landscape photographs. And then there are tele photos where we're capturing. Snippets were compressing the landscape. We're shooting small portions of it, and so you can really shoot landscapes with a wide variety of lenses. But usually not much in that middle range around 50. And so an 11 millimeter lands allows me to reach all the way up into the heavens. That I can see as many stars as possible allows me to get very close to my subject so it could become very prominent in the frame. Much more practical and easy to use is a 16 millimeter. It's still an ultra wide lens. But when you really want to show a lot of the environment around you, you want to have subjects close up better leading your eye into the distance for other subjects. Probably my favorite is the 24 much easier to work within the 16. Once again, subjects in the foreground leading our I to something in the background talked a lot about the 24 in this class. I like the 24 so 35 not quite as wide. But sometimes we don't want it quite as wide, because in a case like this, it's just gonna push everything away. I don't have anything in the foreground that's really of significance. And so, sometimes 35 is the right choice. So you have the 11 to 24 millimeter lands. You want to shoot it at 11 all the time. Take it up to 11 right? Well, it really comes down to what is the right lens, because in this subject I can get is close to this object in the foreground, as I want. But I'm very limited toe. How close to the object in the background. So how important is this object in the background? Well, it's a balance, in my opinion, in this image and in 11. It makes this too small because it's pushing back everything, and we're seeing a lot from side to side, and I think this looks better at 24. It makes this look larger in size, and so I'm choosing a wide angle lens by how big I want my subject in the background. How important is it? If I'm trying to push it away, I'll go with a wider lands. If I want to bring it a little bit closer, I could go to a 24 or maybe a 35. You can use tele photos for landscape photography, and this is where we get to pick out smaller portions of the scene in front of us. Different style of nature photography. The details. These are a lot easier to shoot because you don't need his big of area toe look really nice. Pulling out those details with the 200 millimeter lens. You're probably gonna want a 200 if you shoot landscapes. We don't need a 400 but it just gives you greater opportunity for pulling off details that are a little bit further away and smaller in the frame. So what sort of lenses do you want to choose? Well, least within the canon lineup, I think the 16 35 is the best landscape plans out there. Very practical range. You can add filters to it. It's not too big, it's not too heavy. The 11 24 is a really cool lands, but it's hard to work with, and you can't put filters on it. And to be honest, with you. You really don't need lenses whiter than 16 that often. But if you do, that's the option that's out there. The 16 to 35 is a to eight landscape Photographers don't really need to eight unless they're using this for something other than landscape photography. Generally, you're not gonna be shooting landscapes at 16 at 2. unless you're doing star photography and you're shooting night time shots. And that's where this one 16 to 35 is better than the F four is if you're doing night photography, or if you're gonna be using this for general purpose reasons, gonna be shooting people with it, for instance. And there's also the 14 if you know that you just want something very, very wide. But I think the 16 to is definitely my first choice being easy first choice. And then, of course, we have our tilt shift lenses, and so this is a very nice lands right here. If that focal length works for what you're doing, because that gives you all the tilting options that we talked about in the previous section and ways to have depth of field from right in front of you all the way into the distance without having to stop down to F in the mid level. For landscape photography wide angle, the 17 to 40 is a great value. Very good value lens. If you just need a single focal length, 20 would do a good job. Also, if you want to do nighttime photography, that faster aperture of 2.8 is nice. The 24 2.8 newer design if you don't need quite as wide angle and their new 24 to 105 If you need a general purpose lands that gets you down to 24. And that's good enough for a lot of good landscape photography and get you a good general purpose lens. These were all going to be under $1000 which is very affordable. Landscape photography in general, with a few exceptions, is generally much easier on the pocket book. You can get very nice shots with the 18 to 55 kit land cells for like 150 bucks. You're gonna be stopping this lens down generally, to get a lot of depth of field to F eight F 11 and it's gonna look as sharp as many of these other lenses. So the 15 85 gets us a little bit wider angle. And if you want to go really wide angle, getting to that ultra wide angle the 10 to 24 10 to and then there 10 18 which is their inexpensive little lands, is a great way to dabble in the ultra wide world. It's a very lightweight. It's not the heaviest built lens, which might be kind of nice if you do a lot of hiking and you want something really wide angle. But those air gonna range anywhere from $100. There's a lot of different lenses that you can make very good use up. And so I apologize if I can't answer your question on what's the best landscape lens for me? Because I don't know all the other factors, but I could give you some of the criteria to look at, and hopefully you can answer this question yourself Then. So on the telephoto side for the landscape lenses if you're pro 72 200 to 8 is well, it's just a top of the line lens, which is great. But I think the F four version, lighter weight and smaller is gonna work out Justus Well, for most of your landscape stuff because you're not shooting at 2.8 unless you're using this for a lot of other things. So if you're doing it for news and traveling and other things, that might be nice 72 300. If you want a little bit more, reach is good. And if you want the biggest reach that you can get while keeping the lens and a normal camera bag, that would be the 100 to 400. So any one of these, I think, would make really good landscape lenses. Next category Down mid level, the 72 200 f four. This is the non I s version. Rumor. That's a very good value. Less than $1000 on that, Lance, Just your general 72 300 is not gonna be too bad on on it. I normally don't recommend the 72 300 d o lens because optical quality is a little bit less than the rest of the lenses. But if somebody was doing a lot of walking and carrying year and weight was a big issue than the 72 300 would be a logical choice because it is so much smaller and so much lighter weight. And if you're willing to put it on a tripod, you can get very sharp results out of it for your beginner, basic, basic budget levels. You can choose just about any of the 72 3 hundreds on. They're gonna get you good quality as long as you use them correctly. You study them, you hold them correctly. You can get good results even with the base Exum's with the crop frame system, the 55 to 2 hundreds of these lenses air. Not much money. They're all under $300. You can do very fine point out details and getting really nice shots with them. And moving up isn't necessarily going to get you that much sharper oven image. It's going to get you a better built lands, which is nice, but it will again be heavier and more money, so it is a bit of a trade off there. So my favorite focal links for those and a variety of other types of endeavors architectural. In recent real estate, you're gonna want to be between 8 and 85. And most cases nature and landscape generally 16 to 200. And when I give you numbers, does that mean you are allowed to shoot photos outside these numbers? No. These are the numbers that you have to shoot. No, you can shoot him. Whatever you want. These air kind of recommended numbers. 24 to 200 Is that general range for almost everything. Travel event street Candid wedding. That's a great range tohave working in the studio. You don't need super wide angle. You don't need super telephoto. Something in the to 200 range is going to cover you quite well. Depending on the sports 85 all the way up to 600. Depends on how close a proximity you have to your subject. And then finally, wildlife, you're gonna need those longer lenses anywhere from 200 to 800 depending on once again. Proximity of how close you can get to your subject
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