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
Prime Lens: Normal Lenses
Okay, So in the last section, we were talking about zoom lenses, which is where a lot of people get started in their photography because they're versatile. And if you don't know what you're going to dio a zoom lens is a great choice because it allows you a lot of options. As you become more ableto identify exactly what you're photographing, then you're gonna probably be more interested in some of the prime lenses. And so that's our next topic is getting into the prime lands, also known as a fixed lens. And basically it's a lens that does not zoom back and forth. And so, in this section, what we're gonna be doing is just kind of going through the full list of different prime lenses that Cannon has will start with the normal. We'll work our way into the white angle, and then we'll come back and work our way up through the tele photos to the super tele photos. And then at the end of this will be talking about all the aftermarket options. As I mentioned before, I don't work for can and I d...
on't care if you buy these canon lenses or not, and So there's some Sigma's and tell Kenyans and tamarins and Zeiss and a bunch of other ones that we'll talk about in there as well. And some of those I'm gonna recommend over the cannon just cause I think they're better value for certain people that have certain needs. All right, so we're gonna be starting with the normal lens, the standard lands, 50 millimeter range and so normal or standard perspective. It's kind of what I call straight photography, where you're just trying to document things as naturally as they appear to your eye. It's also worked very well for low light environments, because these lenses are the easiest lenses to build with very wide aperture, so that they let in a lot of light. So let's take a look at the collection of canon lenses, and I'll just mention here before I dive too far into this one of the challenging issues and putting this class together for him, for you is do I include discontinued lenses or not? Because there's a number of discontinued lenses, you know? What if it was discontinued 20 years ago? No, I'm not gonna talk about it. What if it's discontinued? Six months ago. Well, maybe I'll talk about it if it's still available on the market. And so in this case, the 51 8 is a lens that is currently being replaced by the new 51 8 and you can both find both of them available right now. How long will that be? I don't know. Cannon could keep this around for 10 years, or it may disappear in six months. I just don't have that sort of information. But any case, they make three different aperture levels of lens 1.81 point four and 1.2. And in and of itself, the difference between 18 and 1.2, in my opinion, is not that big a difference. But the construction, the features and everything else in these lenses is hugely different, as is the price. So let's take a look at these individually now. This is one of Canon's newest lens. It's the 50 millimeter, 1.8 STM. This is replacing the model. I was just talking about getting discontinued, and this will likely become the most popular lens ever sold. And that's simply because a lot of people are buying lenses This is cannons cheapest lens and Canon is the largest manufacturer of lenses on the market, and so they've sold Mawr auto Focus SLR lenses than anyone else. And so this is the lands that is probably going to eclipse the 51 8 which was their top selling lance. And at the price it is, I can understand why it's just about $125 right here in the United States, So small lens lightweight lens compared to the previous model, it's pretty cool. They put a metal mount on this, and they're selling it for the same price. Now, optically, it's the same as the old 51 8 But they did add this STM focusing, which is a little bit better focusing system than the old 51 8 had on it. And so this is just a great buy, and it's something that I would highly encourage. Ah, lot of photographers to have is a fast 50 and for many people, maybe you're just want to test the waters a little bit $125. It's a great way to test the waters because you could buy this lands $125 today. You could use it for the next two or three years, keep it in good shape and probably sell it for 80 to 100 bucks down the road. And that's a darn cheap rental fee, if you ask me now, optically speaking, this is not the bees knees. This is not the best lens out there. In fact, it's pretty weak when you shoot it wide open. But that's part of the character of the lens, and it actually is quite fine for most photography. And so if you want an inexpensive fast lens that can shoot shallow depth of field under low light, it's fantastic. I already have a really nice 50. I'll show you later, but I popped one of these just cause. I think it's such a nice little compact lightweight lands, and it is so lightweight you can put it in your bag and you will barely even notice it's there. It's just a few ounces. All right, so what this lens is replacing is this lands here? And so this is the old one, and this one was made out of a lot of plastic. This one really feels like it came out of a gumball machine in its design. It has a plastic mount on it, which I've never been very fund of, but it has been an affordable way for people to get in to an inexpensive fast lands. There's not a lot of reason why you would buy this lens right now, because the new 50 although optically is not improved in any way at least has a better quality mount, and I think it has a better focusing system. The only thing that this has going over the new one is that the new one has that S t. M focusing, which is fly by wire technology, which means when you turn the focusing ring, it's not a direct manual physical connection with lens moving it back and forth. And if you were to focus out to infinity and turn your camera off, you can't manually focus that you gotta turn the camera on the camera. The lens needs to have power to it. This one is a direct control, and so there might be a special situation where you need to manually have direct control of the focusing. And if you really wanted that, that's the one thing that this older model has over the new model. The 51 4 has been one of the most popular lenses because people like those F 1.4 lenses. It's been around for quite some time, and I find it so interesting that Cannon will come out with their latest high tech $ camera. And they have a 20 year old lens that they put on the front of it when they advertised the camera because they want to put on kind of the standard simple lands, and so they put this one on it. I would not be surprised to see this replaced, but then I would not be surprised to see it around for another 10 years, given how long it's been here. But it's a fairly small lightweight lands. It is a little bit weak, wide open. In my opinion, I shot this quite a bit, and it's not the best wide open. You get a little softening in the corners and a lot of vignette ing or darkening of the corners. It does have a decent manual focus ring, and if you go back to the features and technology section, you'll recall that I said that this is using one of those micro USAID motors that tends to be a little bit weaker and sometimes has focusing problems. And so the manual focusing connection could be sometimes little bit weeks. And so this is one of the more repaired lenses in Cannons lineup, but optically sharp. If you do stop it down appropriately. So one of the favorites of the serious pro photographer, this would be something that you would likely find in the bag of a wedding photographer or a portrait photographer. It's the 51.2. This is the fastest autofocus 50 available. Canon did make a 51.0 as a brag item. I think I told talked about this before. And the fact of the matter is that the 51 point who was terrible and shot wide open very, very soft. And so they decided to compromise when they came out with kind of a sequel to that lands, and they decided to bring it down to a more reasonable 1.2 aperture where they could improve the optics quite a bit. And so, if you want really shallow depth of field in a 50. This is the shallowest you're gonna get. And it's a very nice what I call lifestyle lens because it's not a perfect tight up portrait lens. So if you want to show somebody doing their lifetime stuff, whatever it is backed off just a little bit. Works very nice for that has a beautiful bouquet or out of focus area. And so that's why it's very popular with the portrait photographers. Once again, any of these lenses that are really fast and, you know, for fear of repeating myself over and over again. Anything that opens up to a fairly fast aperture is gonna be soft in the corners except when we get up to the tele photos. When we get up to some of the really nice 203 104 100 those lenses you can shoot wide open and they're not going to be very soft in the corners. They're gonna be very, very good, so that's the only exception to the rules. So here's your collection of 50 millimeter lenses. Here's your comparison in price. Yes, you can see that 51 2 is way out of the league when it comes to price on the others. I think the STM is probably the choice for most people. I think in most cases I would recommend the new STM over the 51 4 I think the difference between 18 and 14 is incredibly small and not meaningful to most people. And so I think that's the better by right now, unless you're going for it all and you want that 1.2.
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