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: Wide Angle
All right. Now we're gonna get into the heart of white Angle territory. We're gonna talk about 20 fours and 28 millimeter lenses. This is great for setting the scene because we have our wider angle lens weaken Seymour of what's going on. This is where we really start to increase the amount of depth of field that the lens naturally has. Great for what I love to do. Travel and landscape photography. So let's take a look at what we have in this category. A couple of 20 fours and a couple of 28 we'll just go ahead and just dive right on into. So the 28 is very much like the 35 in style and in features that we just talked about. It's the only 28 on the market that I know of. That is image stabilized. So if you're gonna be doing handheld work and you don't wanna work with a tripod and you're working with static shots, things that are not moving, it's very, very good in that sort of. So the 28 member, when we talked about distortion and distortion, was pretty much not visible at 35 you would ...
have to be intensely critical to see distortion. At 35 some people prefer 28 as their limit of where they want to be. Some people will say so for some people, this is the perfect wide angle lens because it doesn't show the distortion that they find objectionable. These lenses are very small, but for 28 2.82 point eight is not that fast for 28. It is reasonably expensive lens, and it's partly because it's a brand new design. It's optically very good, and it has that image stabilization. But I think the very good quality product and it's nice and very small, which which I always appreciate. Now it's kind of interesting because they make an older 28. This is the 28 1.8, and so if you are needing those faster shutter speeds, this 1.8 gets you more than a stop faster. For those faster shutter speeds, it's optically probably not as good as the 2.8 that we were just referring to, but it does get you to that faster 1. aperture So working group photography event photography could be a very handy device. I know wedding photographer who uses this because it's small, it's lightweight, and it works really good for stopping those people on the dance floor and so forth. Now we're down to the 20 fours. As I've said many times before, One of my favorite focal links, the 24 to 8, was because of a standard lens that I had in my bag for quite some time. Nice small lands very much like the 35 2.8 in the Excuse me, the 28 2. and 35 F to image stabilized pretty nice. Wide manual Focus ring. Compact size, good optical quality, Great for travel. See, Nick's quite sharp White open. This one's pretty good. This is one of the best lenses shot wide open because that aperture of 2.8 really isn't that extreme. And once again, Canon. No hood, please give me a hug when I spend $500 in the lens. All right, let's go to the biggie here. So the 14 This is a pretty cool lands, but it's pretty big and it's pretty heavy, and it's somewhat specialized. And so this is gonna be good once again for those wedding photographers who are wanting the wide shots that need faster shutter speeds. But it's also good for Astro photography. So if you want to shoot nighttime shots and you want to shoot the stars, there is kind of a formula that you can use and we're not gonna get into it. I do more of it in my nature and landscapes. Class about shooting stars. But the challenge and shooting stars is that you generally don't just shoot stars. It's just a bunch of points of light. Okay, that's not that interesting. But if we include a little bit of landscape and the sky, then it becomes much more interesting. So what we want is we want a little bit of foreground and a bunch of stars, and if we want that, we want a wide angle lens. All right, so we need a wide angle 2024 11 whatever. Something wide angle. But we also need a lens that lets in a lot of light because stars the stars. They're not moving. The earth of stars are moving, but it's the earth that's causing the most of the problem. So is the earth moves. The stars appear to move and they caught streaks. So you need to have a shutter speed that's relatively quick. We're talking about 2030 seconds or so, and so when you're looking for a good lens for doing this, you want the white ist lens you can get. But you also want the fastest lands, and there's kind of a balance point. And this is one of the sweet spots for that type of photography. If they made a 20 millimeter 1.4, that would be better if they made a 24 1 point. Oh, that would be better. But nobody makes those lenses. And so this is a good balance for doing that. And so this is their whitest 1.4 aperture lands. Now, you do get fairly narrowed up the field with this if you are shooting relatively close up. And so micro focus adjustment is something that we're gonna be doing a demo of here later in this class, and this is where you need to get the focus point set right, because it could be so shallow it can accidentally miss focus by just a small percentage amount and you're gonna have your focus thrown off. So any time you have these faster lenses is when you need to be doing this micro focus adjustment. So stay tuned for more information on that because we're gonna be doing a nice demo in here. So when it comes to this group here, good collection of lenses, As far as what's gonna work, it really depends on what you're doing. I think that 1.4 is great, but boy, it is a big, heavy land. So you better be really knowing that you need that before you spend that sort of money pretty similar prices on all the others.
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