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: Ultra-Wide
the ultra wide category. So we're going as wide as we can in a single focal length, lands 14 and 24. And I guess one of the things that's surprising about this group is that there are so few leads, is here. And to be honest with you, most of the really interesting and best options for ultra wide photography is with their zoom lenses. And so go back. Review the ultra wide zoom lenses because there was actually a lot, a lot more options. Here we have a very old old in camera, old and lens years, 20 millimeter lands and a relatively newer 14. That was which much more interesting before that, 11 to 24 came out. And so if you did need something small and very wide angle the 22.8, as I say, it's been around for a while. Small, lightweight, optically pretty good. It's not the best. And I think some of the zoom lenses might actually be better than him than this one. If you stop it down, it does show a lot of in getting what a lot of the users say about this one when you shoot it wide open. But...
to be honest with you, not many people are shooting a 20 millimeter lens wide open. Usually they're wanting to get a lot of depth of field in there. Shooting at F 8 11 and so forth. The 14 millimeter lands kind of a special case lands. This was their whitest lands for quite some time in their lineup. Maybe 30 years or so a zey went from their manual focus to their auto focus. Mount's very well built lands give all the L features that are nice to have on it. The weather ceiling, for instance, wide focusing. Ring the focusing scale. Look at this hyper focal scale on here, right below the focusing Weaken C 56 11 16 22. This is their best hyper focal scale, I think on any lens, except for maybe that one of their tilt shift lenses. But that's mainly because it's such an incredibly wide angle lens. And so I borrowed one of these lenses. I went down to the Southwest and I had us have We don't have time. I had a 17 to 40 and then I had the 14 and I did not find a lot of things to shoot with the 14 that I couldn't get with 17. And so I think there's just gonna be a few people who really want to use this lens now. This lens would work pretty well for that night photography star photography that I was just talking about because 14 millimeter lens that's really gonna reach up when you shoot a vertical and 2.8 not as fast as 1.4, but still pretty good for nighttime type work. And so this is, ah, highly specialized lands, and I think with the new 11 to 24 the 16 to 35 that are out on the market, I think a lot of people are getting zooms. And there's not that many people who are getting this great lands. It's just highly particular, and the zooms do a lot of what this does. And so that's are very small, ultra wide category. You are gonna pay a big premium for that 14. If you need to get down there Well, it is cheaper than the 11 to 24 it is in some very rare air. There are very few 14 millimeter lenses out there. So can I'm just a quick little check in, See if there's any questions about the normal or wide angle lenses that I can address. Well, John, um, thanks for asking. And this is a question that we've covered a little bit yesterday. But maybe for folks who weren't with us, or just like a summary of Is it true that prime lenses are sharper than zoom lenses? And this is from Willy Santiago from the Philippines? So just like give us that summary again. So, yes, a prime lens is almost always going to be sharper than a zoom lens. But here's the hell ity of the fact is that if you were to test him, se stopped down to F eight. Most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference. That's photographers hard to tell the difference. If I was to choose a prime and a zoom shoot, some sample images go out onto the street corner and ask people which ones were sharper. I would bet that not one person in 100 catella difference all right, this is one of those things where I think photographers just go a little nuts and pixel peeping on how how critical the sharpness is and people get obsessed by it. And they read a blogger from somebody who says This lens is not a sharp is this lens and oh, no, I'm not gonna be able to take pictures and they freak out. And it's not the case at all. I've seen people I would say is the terrible and I would never use this lands. And it's like this is a lens that the National Geographic photographers were shooting for 20 years, making covers on and somebody else. Some nerd on the Internet with a blogger has decided that they don't like that lens and they're gonna trash. And so it's a very minor issue. I I have very high standards when it comes to the mechanical workings and the use of a lance and May. This may sound bad, but I have relatively low standards when it comes to the image quality on the current lenses, there are very few next to zero lenses that I just won't use because it's not not enough to my quality, and so you can be a lens snob, which is perfectly fine, acceptable where all can do what we want, but I know for my photography that subtle little difference isn't going to show up in the way that I used my photographs. And so we all have to draw our own standards. And it's, I tell people, It's like driving down the freeway. You're driving down and you pass somebody and you're like God, what an idiot. That person is driving so slow and then somebody just zooms past That's so stupid, they're just crazy. We all are going to the perfect pace when we drive on the freeway, right? And everybody else is nuts and it's the same thing with lenses. It's like I have the right standards and everybody else who has a lower standard or higher standard is not sir crazy. And we all have to just kind of just settle in and say, This is where I'm happy This is my pace. And so, uh, yes, there is differences, but it is so small. I took, I took. Where is it I took? I took this lands here. This is $150 lands and I compared it against and I think it was like this lens right here, which is like a $2000 L lens. It's just a little 40 $150 lands. And I shot it at, like, 5.6, and I couldn't see the difference Auto. And so basically no difference at all. Now I'm actually comparing and l zoom versus a non l prime, and so there's kind of a mix of things going on there. But in general, the L lenses are much better constructed, much easier to use that much better feel to him, the focusing scales and all those other things, and they are typically a little bit better corrected. And I would say the factor that controls the quality of the lens more than anything else is how current the design of the lenses I think lenses the technology. The computer aided design has been increasing every 5 10 years by little jumps. And so if you take a lens that's 20 years old versus a brand new design, all those lens coatings go back to that Features and technology section, all that new technology they're throwing onto the lenses. I would probably take a bottom of the line brand new designed $100 lands than a professional lens from 25 years ago. Just cause the technology has changed so much, right? That's really, really important to know. Thank you. And then, as we head into moving to the next set of prime lenses, can you again explain for people just quickly the difference between a zoom lens and a telephoto lens before he hit into that? Okay, let me grab a couple examples over here. And so that's what we need. We're gonna take this one, this one. I love this. This is like going to the store and finding apples. One, this one and no, that one's got a bruise on it. And so do what you do. We'll do one more. All right, so if we can get a close up shot of these blends is here. Okay, so it's actually very simple, folks. Anything with the number over 50 is telephoto. Everything under 50 is wide angle. And so let's look at some lenses. So we have a 35. That's wide angle. Okay, It's pretty easy. 16 to 35. Well, that's all wide angle. But you know what? It's a zoom in, zooms back and forth, so we're zooming, but we're all in the wide angle category 24 to 70. Okay, well, that crosses that 50 millimeter lines. So that's a wide angle to telephoto zoom. We call that a standard zoom. Here's a 1 35 OK, that's that's just telephoto. And over here we have a 72 200. Well, that's a telephoto zoom, and so a zoom lens can be wide angle. It could be wide angle normal. It could be telephoto. And so zooming basically means there's a ring on there that you can change the focal length. And a lot of people think zooming in because you often zoom in on a subject means telephoto when in this case, Zoom doesn't mean telephoto at all, it just means that it changes shape what shape, but it changes focal length.
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!