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: Short Telephoto
Okay let's jump into the short tele photos and so we're going to be using short telephoto is generally for subject isolation alright so by the angle of you were choosing just you know one particular subject potentially or a small group of them we're gonna be doing subject isolation by depth of field by how much is in focus and blurring the background and for the most part we're going to be talking about portrait photography, especially in this versatile grouping here. So here are four lenses, all of which are fantastic portrait lenses you could choose any one of these and get really, really good portrait let shots so let's make our way through these first up this would be the go to starter if you weren't sure what you were doing and you wanted a lens that was dedicated to portrait photography for the full frame user. Now you can use this if you're a crop frame user the downside is is that you need to have more space between you and your subject. If I was going to be doing seeing your p...
ortrait ce and I my gig was that I would have a senior and we go down to the park where there's trees and benches and all sorts of props for us to shoot with and there's lots of room to shoot with this would be probably one of my favorite lenses with the crop frame camera it might also be one of my favorite with the full frame camera. The difference is, is that when you're outside, you typically have thirty, forty feet to work with and so if you want to get a head to toe shot you, khun, stand fifty feet away and get it with this because the effect of focal length is around. It was around hundred forty millimeters or cell, which is getting you into a reasonable telephoto. But for the full frame user, the eighty five is kind of considered the classic photo focal length. We're going to look at a bunch of examples, and one of the things that I wanted to look at in portrait lenses is because I've heard some people get very picky it's like they have a twenty four to seventy and it's like I can't shoot portrait at seventy because it's not eighty five pretty close I mean, how much difference is there? I mean, there is a difference, and so later in the class, I'm going to show you the difference between fifty, seventy, eighty five one o five, one thirty five and what it does to the shape of the face and everyone's free to have their own opinion, but there's not that much difference between seventy and eighty five, but kind of eighty five is the heart of where different people really like things and so eighty five one eight is a lens that I've had in my bag for a very long time because it's just ah perfect small lightweight portrait lens now it does not go down to one point four which is going to be one of the next lenses we talk about and that's another question that a lot of people have should I get the one a or the one point for well, the one point four is a better portrait lens because it opens up wider you get shallower depth the field it's got better quality glass in it but do you really need it? Are people going to notice this would be a great lands to buy work with for two or three years and then maybe upgrade to to the one point four? So there's not a lot to complain about oddness nikon has made fantastic eighty five for many, many years and that is a great way to get into it for the full frame user for the person who wants to take it to the very limit of what nikon offers, they have the eighty five one point four much heavier, better built lands feels very nice in the hand but it is heavy and so if you are walking around shooting porch it's with this for hour after hour after hour, you're going to feel it quite a bit more than the one point eight very good image quality good ok on it I think I may have the one eight and the one four over here let's see and I think I want I want a hand this to some of our students and I want you to feel the difference on here and it's it's it's kind of hard because you know when you feel the weight of something you've got to think ok, what would that be like hour after hour after hour and so just take a feel for that and you can feel that there's a much if you look at the front of the lens like how much glasses in there you know that's a lot heavier on there and so what do you think about the difference? Well, I guess you don't have a microphone but I will if you want to pick up the mike and just tell tell the folks at home the difference it's very heavy on the right side and I'd like to do a lot of street and that would be hard for me to take around yeah, but it's quite a bit not a small amount thoughts on weight difference on that yeah it's very different you really got to be dedicated I mean it's ok and some people are like I'm gonna put the effort at and I really want to get everything out of it and I'm willing teo held the extra weight and so in a way, a weight value as far as you know, efficiency wise if your inefficiency that eighty five one eight is just great eighty five one four still better lens but you know what? Sometimes you just gotta say, okay, that's fine there's there's a better lands, but this is the this is the right trade off for me remember, I have done this with so many things I've done it with cameras and tripods and lenses. I buy the cheapest thing that I can because that's the only thing I can afford and I save up a bunch of money and I find out the best thing and I go all the way I can and then I just finally, you know, this is just too much and there's, you know, this is where I'm comfortable at it's like finding the right size car I don't need to have the biggest, fastest car, but I don't want the cheapest worst car in the world. I just need something that fits my needs and that's the matter you figuring out what's important to you in that correct balance point? All right, there's a couple of unusual lenses and we're not gonna spend a ton of time on um they're they're very unusual lenses there, d c lenses d focus control lenses and I've owned one of these I had the one thirty five that have a one o five to these were designed specially for portrait photographers who really want to create a slightly different look, and when I say slightly, I mean to really emphasize slightly it's very, very subtly defer to start with it's a sharp one o five laps. All right, so there's nothing you need to worry about. Soft focus lands or anything like that. It's. Just a standard. Very good one o five portrait lens, which is a very popular lake. Nikon usedto haven't I wish they would do it again. They usedto have ah one oh five, one point eight lands nobody's doing that right now, and I think they should, because that would make a really nice portrait left, but they made it up to and they put on a d focus control that tweaks the out of focus highlights. All right, so you possibly have seen a shallow depth of field shot of a person with christmas lights in the background that are all these kind of bubbles of lights and it's going to change the shape of those lights? And this is once again one of those things that you could hand your photo to one hundred clients on the street and no one's going to notice a difference but it's going to the other photographers, allow that's kind of a special look to it little different look to it, and so it has a very little impact when you shoot it at to because you can d focus the foreground or you congee focus the background, which is why there's a separate ring up here for eff and rear, front and rear? Do you want do that special fixed to the front or the back? And then, depending on whether you're shooting it to two, eight, four, five, six, you would dial it inappropriately, and when you shoot it to to get that really shallow depth of field, it has you don't have you can't do very much with it. You can do maura's, you stop it down, but then you're getting more depth of field, and so I own the one thirty five with jump to this one, and I played around with the d focus current troll, and I just didn't shoot enough portrait that it made any difference to me. I bought it because it was a one thirty five f to hide like the one thirty five two is a nice lands for sports, photography and other things. And these lenses are part of a little bit older style they have a different look to him they have that crinkled look I thought it was really cool at the time but now it looks kind of dated because they don't have many lenses that air like this the one thirty five is a fairly chunky heavy lens it's a very well built lands it's a beautiful lens I imagine what we'll see these upgraded because they've been around since this one since nineteen ninety but if you are a portrait photographer and you want to create an image that looks subtly different than what everybody else is doing the one or five or the one thirty five might be a way of getting that done so this is our collection as I say I would be more than happy to shoot a portrait with any one of these lenses there's just subtle differences with the focal length with the aperture and the weight of the lens and for anyone who was shooting on a day to day hour after hour after hour basis or doing travel photography than that one point eight and that lightweight nous there's an incredible value there because of that it's just so much lighter and if you look at the cost of it too it's just so much less money than all the others it's just a very good value and so it's definitely a sweet spot in the nikon system
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