Lessons
DAY 1
1Nikon Lens Class Introduction
06:30 2Nikon Lens Basics
14:05 3Focal Length: Angle of View
11:44 4Focal Length: Normal Lenses
06:41 5Focal Length: Wide Angle Lenses
16:09 6Focal Length: Telephoto Lens
16:22 7Focal Length Rule of Thumb
15:59Field of View
10:06 9Aperture Basics
15:35 10Equivalent Aperture
07:17 11Depth of Field
12:58 12Maximum Sharpness
09:50 13Starburst
06:48 14Hyper Focal Distance
18:42 15Nikon Mount Systems
26:41 16Nikon Cine Lenses
07:06 17Nikon Lens Design
20:56 18Focusing and Autofocus with Nikon Lenses
14:15 19Nikon Lens Vibration Reduction
06:28 20Image Quality
04:44 21Aperture Control and General Info
09:40 22Nikon Standard Zoom Lenses
21:56 23Nikon Super Zoom Lenses
06:07 24Nikon Wide Angle Lenses
08:28 25Nikon Telephoto Zoom Lenses
16:48 263rd Party Zooms Overview
06:06 273rd Party Zooms: Sigma
16:02 283rd Party Zooms: Tamron
07:31 293rd Party Zooms: Tokina
03:50DAY 2
30Nikon Prime Lens: Normal
13:50 31Nikon Prime Lens: Wide Angle
14:17 32Nikon Prime Lens: Ultra-Wide
09:29 33Nikon Prime Lens: Short Telephoto
09:14 34Nikon Prime Lens: Medium Telephoto
08:19 35Nikon Prime Lens: Super Telephoto
17:24 363rd Party Primes: Sigma
07:19 373rd Party Primes: Zeiss
03:25 383rd Party Primes: Samyang
05:34 39Lens Accessories: Filters
30:44 40Lens Accessories: Lens Hood
13:40 41Lens Accessories: Tripod Mount
04:41 42Lens Accessories: Extension Tubes
04:23 43Lens Accessories: Teleconverters
12:42 44Macro Photography
19:11 45Nikon Micro Lens Selection
18:29 46Fisheye Lenses
17:59 47Tilt Shift Photography Overview
22:40 48Tilt Shift Lenses
06:00 49Building a Nikon System
05:16 50Making a Choice: Nikon Portrait Lenses
17:43 51Making a Choice: Nikon Sport Lenses
18:47 52Making a Choice: Nikon Landscape Lenses
14:54 53Nikon Lens Systems
11:18 54Lens Maintenance
10:54 55Buying and Selling Lenses
17:36 56Final Q&A
12:08 57What's in the Frame
03:29Lesson Info
Field of View
Everyone, I'm john gringo, better photographer for twenty five years. One of things I love most about photography is cameras that can change lenses because when you change the lands, you change the camera and there's lots of different lenses, and each lands has its own unique characteristics, trades its own little quirks, its own personality, and so you use them for different types of purposes, and I like teaching about photography and showing what they do, but a lot of times it's in the classroom and I wanted to come out into the real world and showcase what these lenses dio and the implications of using them in different types of ways. All right, folks, let me introduce you to our cast of characters here I have carefully selected nine lenses to represent the entire range that are available on the market today. There are many one's in between, but I think these air, good representative models of the different things that you could do in photography, we're going to start with the norma...
l lands. We're going to explore the world of wide angle. We're going to go into the world of telephoto and kind of the plan for what we're gonna do is we're gonna have a camera mounted right at home plate, and we're going to take these lenses monitor on the camera. Pointed into the outfield and really lay out what you can see with lenses and some of the characteristics and features of each of these lenses as we go through the range all right let's start with the fifty millimeter lands let's take it over to home plate. Okay let's take a look at what we see with a fifty millimeter leads all right? I'm gonna start recording on my camera so you can see exactly from my camera's position as well as other camera positions the distance I am for myself for my camera here you can see I'm a fairly normal distance and the fifty really mimics the way we see with our own eyes the size relationship of the subject versus the background versus other subjects in there and so good fifty millimeter is a good, simple basic standard lands now before we go too far into this one thing I need to remind everyone is that we are filming this in hd format which is this really wide format when we shoot pictures with their camera we have a little bit more so squarish format and so when we take still photos it's going to be a little bit bigger in the frame and are wide angle is going to be the same, but what we're doing is from side to side so that is going to be the same so be aware that there's a different frame sizes with different types of cameras all right it's time to show you what we can actually see with these lenses we got the fifty millimeter lands on here I've got my two got helpers out here and I need to get them exactly on the frame so we got john over here john let's have you come in a little bit a step okay right about there stop that's good. All right let's roll him out take him out this is gonna work I hope this works look at this so this is what you see with the fifty millimeter lands look at this you can see the angle of you exactly what the fifty millimeter lands wait so there we go here's your fifty millimeter lands you know exactly what it sees you can actually mimic what a fifty millimeter land sees like if you just put your hands in that column movie hands bend your elbows a little bit kind of point around that's exactly what you see with the fifty millimeter lands sweet nice job guys. All right, now we have the twenty four millimeter lens on here. This is straight in the middle of wide angle it's one of my personal favorite focal lakes eleven for landscape travel photography and one thing you need to know about these wide angle lenses when you start getting pretty wide you start getting a little distortion let me show you what distortion is all right, so let's take a look in the camera you'll notice this ball looks pretty round in the middle of the frame but when I move off to the side it's gonna look a little odd long or if I come over here and I hold it up high in the corner it doesn't look necessarily quite as round so that's some of the distortion we have this stretching effect that we get with wide angles so let's get our paper rollers in here and let's roll out the twenty four's ok, well, that's role so there you go. Now you can clearly see fifty, thirty five, twenty four how much do you see? They're just different steps along the scale. One of the aspects that we're just going to touch on in this little demonstration of lenses is the aperture of the winds. Now this lands is a twenty four f one point four lens, which is a very wide opening it lets in a lot of life something serious photographers really like to do is have shallow depth of field, so they like getting a lens with one point for shooting it at one point for having their subject and focus in their background out of focus and with this lands the white angles kind of everything is in focus, so I got jen out here I'm gonna take a photo of her and I'm gonna have the camera set on f one point for so let's uh, jen all right, there we go and so we'll do a couple of shots all right? Now I'm gonna change the aperture down to f ate all right this kind of middle of the aperture range I'm gonna shoot some more photos here here we go john it's good and you can see our lines going off to the edge, right? Whether it's twenty four now there's not that much difference if we compare these shots that one point four versus the faa there's not that much difference in depth of field because this is a wide angle lens and wide angle lenses tend to keep everything in focus and so if you get a wide angle lens the reason to get one with a really fast aperture it allows you to use a very fast shutter speeds so this is a great lands for shooting action close up this is something that a wedding photographer with love think of ah wedding ceremony or the reception in the dance in a dark hall this would be a great lands for something like that. All right, we've moved up to the hundred millimeter lands and one of the things that's different about this particular lands is that it has a tripod mount and this gives us a better center of gravity and so I'm gonna put it in on our tripod right here and it's a little bit better balance now and you're going to see this on more of the medium to higher in telephoto lenses now we have jen out here we're gonna get a portrait shot and one of the things about the hundred millimeter lands and when I say hundred I'm also talking about the eighty five the one oh five one thirty five everything in that neighborhood if you will this is a really great place for shooting portrait so jen let's go ahead and get support it's of you make sure we're up in ruling here get the right aperture and let's get your focus set let me grab my loop so I can make sure this is in focus and there we go pulling genin to focus there you can see how she's in focus and the background is out of focus and this is why we like a lot of our portrait now another thing about this particular lands is that this is a macro lens and there's a number of macro lenses, which means it's really good close up capability sometimes they're called micro lenses and so jan come on up really close we're going to go in for the extreme close up and we're gonna move this lands up to close up and watch how close we can get up in fact there is jen's I and so this lens khun get up super close look how close she is to the front of the camera just ridiculously close so if you want to shoot flowers or something like that thanks yet you could do that with a macro lens now these do come in different focal lengths but one of the most popular is one hundred millimeter so that's some of the great things about this land so I think it's time for us to roll out the paper so let's get the rollers out and let's get this hundred millimeter marked out on the field here we go now we're getting some real color in here getting to be a narrower angle of you that's what tele photos are they're narrower than ours standard angle of view that's job guys looks good all right it's time for another portrait shot of jan here with one hundred millimeter this is one of my favorite areas to shoot portrait's with very nice focal ing not that far I can talk to jan. I could give her some direction to fight wanted to move a little bit forward a little bit further away, not in her bubble space but I have this nice soft out of focus background and I'm shooting at two point eight and there's a lot of portrait lenses that go down to two and half one point for that really throw the background out of focus but even a two point eight it's still looking really nice. All right, we're finally up to the big eight hundred here now this yes, it is as heavy as it looks, there's a lot of very high quality glass in here and this is not a lens you want a handhold and I know there's a few people out there is really berlin like yeah, I shoot with this hand held all the time and yeah, you could you could rip off a few shots like that, but you really want to have this on a mon a pod really good, steady tripod because this thing is heavy and it's gonna wear your arms out in no time flat so mona pods were really good if you need to be moving around very mobile but a tripod is a great way to work now the type of people that by an eight hundred millimeter lands are obviously serious photographers. Usually they're into either two things. I think bird photography kind of in that whole wildlife genre and surfing photography where you're shooting from the shoreline and you got people way out there because this thing is a very narrow angle of view and so how narrow is it? Well, let's get those rolls out and let's show you how narrow this is this is for shooting people in the outfield, we're way too close with the pitcher on the mound or second base, so let's, get those roles. Come on out and let's, get this going, okay, okay, let's, roll. Go ahead, walk on the paper, you're fine. Here we go, way back. All right, we got eight hundred on here, and we've got jen position all the way out on second base for her tight portrait. And so when I'm shooting this portrait, its head and shoulders, but she is all the way out on second base. And so this would be too long lens for somebody on second base. I would need them to be way in the outfield.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
cliff538
Outstanding class! This is a must own. You will refer back to this class many times during your photog career. John has put a ton of work into this class and it shows. Being able to download the slides and other Nikon glass info is wonderful. Even if you're not a Nikon shooter you will still gleam tons of information from this class, John covers in great detail the strength and weaknesses of each lens and when you might consider using it. I was expecting a good class, but this turned into an epic class. I watched multiple videos several times. The only bad thing I can say is I "had" to order a few more lenses! Thank you John Greengo for making a truly amazing class.
Anna Fennell
Wow! What a course! Very in depth, lots of valuable information. John instructs with great knowledge and integrity. I have taken other online courses, NOT from Creative Live (my bad!) and was left feeling like a monkey who had learned tricks without understanding or knowledge. Now I feel I have the confidence to move forward on my photographic journey securely knowing how lenses function, what to look for and what price range I can expect. Bravo John! I'd love to see a 2020 update video as an addendum.
Fusako Hara
Finally I have some sense of what lens do, know what I have, what I would like to have, what lens to use, and how I can get images that I see. Best part of this session is it was made so clear, simple, logical, and practical. I am glad that I purchased this product. Now, I am going to look for more from John Greengo so I can take better understanding and take better images. Thank You.
Student Work
Related Classes
Fundamentals