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
Nikon Lens Vibration Reduction
Vibration reduction v r okay, so this compensates for your hand movements, there's, a gyro in your camera that can tell when you're twisting the camera up and going side to side, and it can help out for shooting under low light conditions, or whenever you can shoot it, lower shutter speeds. So this two hundred five hundred millimeter lens let's say you're at five hundred. You should probably have one five hundredth of a second selected in order to just stop the movements of your hand. If this has three stops of stabilization, we could shoot down a sixteenth of a second. If we have four stops, we could shoot down a thirtieth of a second. So for low light situations, very helpful doesn't work out for fast action sports, because we need fast shutter speeds to stop their action. But for hand holding under low light, it can really help out. Now, what it's doing is it's using and as complicated as the lens was before at a v r unit and now you got the focusing team says, okay, we got this len...
s perfect, everything moves back and forth just right, and the v r team comes in and says, yeah, we're going to put a whole bunch of lenses right in the middle, and they're going to go up and down while you're focusing, and we want to keep everything in focus. So is you tilt the camera. There is an independent group of lenses that is keeping the image focused and in place on the sensor itself and the fact that it can do this. Wow. Auto focusing and tracking subjects is just it's phenomenal to me. So that's what's happening in the system. Now, the original v r system has three stops a stabilization so you can use your lands about three stops effectively slower in shutter speeds than you would normally be ableto hand hole. They then came out with v r two, which is an improved technology. It now helps upwards of four stops of stabilization. Okay, john, question for you. I got this eighteen to fifty five lands and it says d v r two does this have tr to technology in it because it says it on the label? No, what type of v r system is in my lens? Well, you'll have to look that up online it happens to be the art to technology but you said the car to doesn't mean it's very hard to know that we are two means it has v r and the two means that this is the second generation eighteen to fifty five g lens that they've made and so the lens will not tell you on the outside whether it's v are one or two and if you want to try to find this information, you could do two things you can spend the next two hours looking this up online or you can look at the next slide where I've done the research for you and so there are a number of lenses that have the are too some of them say v r two on them because they're second versions of that focal inc aperture lands some of them just say v r but they have the new v our technology in there this is where things get a little complicated and so most of all they're fairly current lenses have this now as we get into v r you're going to find a different levels of lenses you have different switches on your lands is the most basic is turning it on and off okay, you're going to turn it on for general handheld photography it's fine it's good for pani also now there are some and good reason to believe this believe that you should not turn on v r unless you really need it so let's say you're shooting pictures of birds in flight at a thousandth of a second, you don't need the r for that, okay? Because you have a fast shutter speed that stops your emotion, and so if you don't need it, it is instituting a whole nother layer of movement, which could affect focusing. You should turn this off if you are on a good, steady tripod, because there's essentially a feedback system where it starts looking for its own movement, even though it's not moving and can cause a blurry image. So if you're on a tripod, turn it off a newer level of vibration reduction, we'll have an on off switch, but it will have a normal and active mowed down here. Normal is your standard handheld action. The nikon cameras will detect panning and will adjust for that pan emotion active is a little bit different situation it's when you are standing on a platform that is moving, whether that's, a plane or a boat or a train car, or who knows what else a skateboard. Okay, as long as it's the movement is coming from something else because they've designed this movement for your handheld movement and the vibrations that you might feel in a car or a different type of vibration than what you would naturally generate holding a camera and so active means you're shooting from another vehicle. Another newer style is one that actually has a tripod mode on it, and this is for some of their big telephoto lenses, so we have normal once again, handheld has the panning detection. If you do put it on a tripod, you could put it on a tripod, and it still is using vibration reduction. But now it notices that it's on a tripod and the type of movement it's likely to have his possibly wind movement and so that's kind of a different type of movement that you're gonna have. And the on ly cameras that have this tripod mode are a couple of their really big telephoto lenses. We're not done yet one more the newest cameras have a new sport mode, so we have the normal, which is our standard v r but now the new sport mode, it limits the vibration to the minimum needed so in the viewfinder, it is actually easier. Well, the problem, the reasons, the problem that this is solving is that when you're a sports photographer and you got that let's say, I think it downhill skier there zoom in across and they're kind of bouncing their way down and you're trying to keep them in the frame well, the vibration reduction would have this jell o effect that it was kind of hard to keep him in frame because the camera you were fighting the camera to keep things in frame. And so what this has done is it's lightened that effect so that you can track your subjects more easily. And so, it's, really, for the high end professional sports photographer and it's, exactly on the lenses that they might buy. And so it's. Not something that most of us are going to see on our day to day lenses.
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