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 Prime Lens: Medium Telephoto
All right, let's, jump up to the medium telephoto. So I'm gonna be talking about two hundred and three hundred millimeter lenses in this category so we're talking about sports and action photography. We're going to do it some more subject isolation of with angle of view and depth of field. We could be shooting portrait's in here as well if we have the working room and so in this case we have a we have a pretty white collection. Yeah, this is a pretty interesting collection of lenses here and so there's a very distinct different choices in here. So first up is the one eighty. This is one of the lenses from nikon that they came out with originally and had a horrible design because they brought this lens out in like nineteen, eighty six and in nineteen eighty seven they replaced it with a new design, but it has stayed around, so this is one of their oldest auto focus lens is still in the system. And so this was the lens that I had. I used this one for quite a while and it's it's definitel...
y dated in design now and at the time nikon did not have an eighty two, two hundred two point eight that was of good quality, which is why photographers use this is it was a step between the eighty five and a three hundred millimeter and it was a very good quality lens, it's very good quality glass, but it does have that dated focusing system dated look in style to it, but it's, a well built lens and it's pretty sharp, so limited grouping the people that are going to be interested in that the two hundred f to this is going to be for two primary types of photography, I can imagine one would be as a very long portrait lands, and so here you're going to need to be outside, or you're going to have a really nice big studio, because two hundred millimeters puts you a long ways away, and generally, if you're shooting with two hundred it's, because you're trying to get either shallow depth of field or you're working, you want to make the background smaller, you're working with the smaller background area, and so you can get somebody lined up with just a small area of the background, but you do need to have a lot of space. This is a what I would commonly refer to as a beach lands you need a beach in order to back up. And so this is something that a sports illustrated swimsuit photographer would be using to shoot the cover shots where the subject is super sharp and there's this just really soft blue background in the back and so it's a great lens for that. The other type would be sports photography, but it's kind of an odd focal length for sports because you have to be pretty close, so I'm thinking, like volleyball, whether it's beach or indoor, you could have wrestling or boxing if you're relatively close in not a big field sports, so where subjects are fairly close in maybe fencing, you know where they're on a stage it's kind of dark, and you're not too far away, but two hundred is really not long enough for most typical team type sports events. It is a heavy lens, but it is something that is handhold herbal, and it is quite expensive where, when we start jumping up to these really big tele photos, we start jumping up into the multi thousands of u s dollars. The three hundred four has been a favorite for photographers who want to carry a long lands they wanted as long as they can and as fast as they can, but they need to be able to fit it into a normal camera bag in a normal amount of space, and the three hundred four is generally the best balance for that type of last, you're not going to get a zoom lens that gets out to three hundred and at four and keeping it in a reasonable size and so this is one of the best ways for physically keeping the land's relatively easy to fit in a normal shoulder bag or backpack these days it's well built it's quite sharp now this does not have the v r which it really should and I would like to see an upgrade and at some point I'm sure they will do an upgrade but it doesn't have the so for sports photography there's not a big issue so shooting sports you need a fast shutter speed and so would be perfect for someone who is gonna be shooting sports photography, baseball, football, soccer things like that that being nice lands for somebody doing that on the weekends now this is a very interesting lands we talked a little bit about this yesterday in the features and the technology section this is the new phase for nell technology nikon has used to reduce the size and so this is a three hundred and four just like the previous three hundred four but it's about forty percent shorter in length and it's much lighter weight so this is going to be even easier to fit in the camera bag and so this is a very small lands for a three hundred millimeter lands not sure if this is correct but I think it's the smallest three hundred millimeter lands for an slr ever made because it's got this brand new technology in it. And so for somebody who was going to do, say hiking and they wanted to take a lens to photograph wildlife or just a long lens with him, this is going to be the longest fast lands anywhere close to this size. Now it is a little bit more money than the other three hundred because of this new technology and, uh, there has been a few reported issues of some vibration. Reduction is something you might want to take a look up on the internet to see if that's still a problem. Nikon nikon has had a number of quality issues on certain products that they have not quite been as fast as they should be addressing to those problems. They I'm not going to get into the specific problems, but there's been a number of issues with their cameras where they're like now, it's not really a problem, it's just, you know, that's just the way that camera is, and then they finally come back and they go, oh, ok, there is a problem and that will fix it, and they started to get a little bit more in front of the game the problem, and address it sooner on and so on, this one it's something you might want to take a look into I would imagine that the current models are fine, and it might be some of the earlier models that were having some v r issues where wasn't working one hundred percent the other issue that you might have with a phase for now lens is if you are very fussy about your background out of focus areas, the ferndale lens because of the way it's cut might give you slightly different unusual results when pointing this into bright lights. And so I don't know, maybe if that would be a stage performance and there's lights on the stage, maybe it's a band or something, you might be getting some unusual flare issues from it. You may want to test it to see if it really impacts the way that you shoot, but I think for a general outdoor photographer, this is going to be a fantastic lands really fantastic, and I'm excited to see that they're doing this because there's very few other lenses out there of this design and there's just so much potential when we're talking about taking big lenses and making them almost half the size makes things so much easier to deal with. The three hundred to eight is a standard is a classic in my book for a long, fast lens that you can hand hold it's expensive, it is relatively heavy, but it's great for sports and action photography the next two point eight lens up it's the four hundred to eight, which is ridiculously expensive and so heavy that you're not gonna hand hold, shoot it, it's going to be a model pod and so I know for the news photographers, this was the biggest lens that they would carry around. It wouldn't be in their standard camera bag for the most part, but it would be a camera bag in the back of the car that they could easily grab and run around to get shots with absolute just top of the line quality s o, if you want a sharp lands look for a short telephoto lens, and this is where quality construction optics wise just doesn't get any higher. And so those are our collections from one, eighty up to three hundred, you're going to pay a premium for that two hundred two in the three hundred to eight. Those are the ones, the really big glass in there. And so I think the three hundred pf lands is one of the more interesting lenses in this category. It is a notable jump of a price over the standard three hundred or four, so if that smaller size is of major benefit to you, then that is something that I would probably be going for that but very distinct categories, I think on all the other ones.
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
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Fundamentals