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Starburst

Lesson 13 from: Nikon Lenses: The Complete Guide

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

13. Starburst

Lessons

Class Trailer

DAY 1

1

Nikon Lens Class Introduction

06:30
2

Nikon Lens Basics

14:05
3

Focal Length: Angle of View

11:44
4

Focal Length: Normal Lenses

06:41
5

Focal Length: Wide Angle Lenses

16:09
6

Focal Length: Telephoto Lens

16:22
7

Focal Length Rule of Thumb

15:59
8

Field of View

10:06
9

Aperture Basics

15:35
10

Equivalent Aperture

07:17
11

Depth of Field

12:58
12

Maximum Sharpness

09:50
13

Starburst

06:48
14

Hyper Focal Distance

18:42
15

Nikon Mount Systems

26:41
16

Nikon Cine Lenses

07:06
17

Nikon Lens Design

20:56
18

Focusing and Autofocus with Nikon Lenses

14:15
19

Nikon Lens Vibration Reduction

06:28
20

Image Quality

04:44
21

Aperture Control and General Info

09:40
22

Nikon Standard Zoom Lenses

21:56
23

Nikon Super Zoom Lenses

06:07
24

Nikon Wide Angle Lenses

08:28
25

Nikon Telephoto Zoom Lenses

16:48
26

3rd Party Zooms Overview

06:06
27

3rd Party Zooms: Sigma

16:02
28

3rd Party Zooms: Tamron

07:31
29

3rd Party Zooms: Tokina

03:50

DAY 2

30

Nikon Prime Lens: Normal

13:50
31

Nikon Prime Lens: Wide Angle

14:17
32

Nikon Prime Lens: Ultra-Wide

09:29
33

Nikon Prime Lens: Short Telephoto

09:14
34

Nikon Prime Lens: Medium Telephoto

08:19
35

Nikon Prime Lens: Super Telephoto

17:24
36

3rd Party Primes: Sigma

07:19
37

3rd Party Primes: Zeiss

03:25
38

3rd Party Primes: Samyang

05:34
39

Lens Accessories: Filters

30:44
40

Lens Accessories: Lens Hood

13:40
41

Lens Accessories: Tripod Mount

04:41
42

Lens Accessories: Extension Tubes

04:23
43

Lens Accessories: Teleconverters

12:42
44

Macro Photography

19:11
45

Nikon Micro Lens Selection

18:29
46

Fisheye Lenses

17:59
47

Tilt Shift Photography Overview

22:40
48

Tilt Shift Lenses

06:00
49

Building a Nikon System

05:16
50

Making a Choice: Nikon Portrait Lenses

17:43
51

Making a Choice: Nikon Sport Lenses

18:47
52

Making a Choice: Nikon Landscape Lenses

14:54
53

Nikon Lens Systems

11:18
54

Lens Maintenance

10:54
55

Buying and Selling Lenses

17:36
56

Final Q&A

12:08
57

What's in the Frame

03:29

Lesson Info

Starburst

All right so let's talk about this starburst effect cause I always tending questions about would you do that thing with the sun there I did to get that well there's a couple of things going on that you need to know about in order to create the starburst effects which are actually very very easy to do and so here is just a couple of examples you know these lights down here having that starburst don't just adds a little okay sparkle to your image a little bit and so it's very nice but one of things you want to pay attention to in your photographs and others has noticed the number of star points because depending on which lends you use you're going to get a different number of star points okay? And this isn't something that you have a lot of direct immediate control over but it is something of interest in if you want to know how it's created it's created by the aperture blades in your camera and it depends on the number of blades that are in your camera and what's happening as light hits ...

these sections where they meet up it's concentrated which causes this starburst pattern and so yeah wherever those are is where we're going to get our little starburst now the way lenses work things get bounced around and reversed and so what happens is it also sends light off in the exact opposite direction of where these meat so if you have an odd number of blades five blades in this case, you are actually going to end up with a ten point star if you have an even number of blades well, what's in the opposite direction of where those blades are more blades that are meeting, and so it becomes a six bladed star that stays six. And so in this case, it actually becomes a little bit more intense because you're kind of like to raise doubling up on each other, so these tend to be a little bit cleaner from what I've seen, and if we have seven, well, we're simply going to double that, and we always end up with an even number of star points on our stars that we get so you could look at the number and you can yes, either that's the number of blades it has, where you have to cut it in half and knowing that most times we're going to see more than five blades, they're going to be usually six blades, too nine blades on a lance and so that's the results and how I ended up with three different star patterns because I used three different lenses in pretty quick order here, and so getting these star points is something that you can get from any bright light source, the sun street labs, any other break light source but there's a few other tricks to making it happen one of them is where you set your aperture if your aperture is all the way open on my lens, it's an f force is wide open and get those aperture blades are not closing in and they're not causing that little constriction and you're not going to get much impact from having it set let's change our lens to five point six okay, now we're starting to see a little bit of that starburst effect as we stop our lens down each setting, we're going to get mohr and mohr of that starburst pattern. Typically you're gonna want to go down to eleven or beyond in order to get a pretty nice looking starburst close it down sixteen and now it's really becoming very clear and then we'll stop it down just a ce faras we can at f twenty two there we go now one of the things that you will also see here on one of my points I'll bring up is in order to see a starburst starburst comes from something that is bright and in order to see something bright, you can't have it in front of something else that is bright, you need something that is dark around it and so putting the sun right in this little corner of this opening here we can now see the rays with the exception of the ones going into with the area that it's light and so you need dark areas, little tiny openings that this star pattern can come from, or you need a really, really bright light with a lot of just dark area around it. So if you want to get the starburst, you need to stop down typically to f eleven f twenty two depends a little bit on the lens, and you need to obscure the sun or whatever the bright object is with something else solid in front of it, and so putting the sun behind a tree or a wall or a building is what you're going to need to dio and so getting dark objects around it. You just need that light poking out through a little tiny hole so that you can see where those starbursts are coming from, and it also helps to use a wide angle lens. The starburst is closely related to the topic of flair, and we'll talk a little bit about flare additionally, when we talk about lens hood's in the accessory section. But one of the things to notice about lens flare is that lens flare is actually showing you a ghost image of the aperture opening in your lens, and so you could actually see and if I was running forensic for the police department. And they said, well, this criminal took this photograph, and we believe he used this camera. I could determine whether that was true or not by looking at the number of aperture blades on this out of focus flair, and I could see if it was this lands or that lands are at least tell how many's aperture blades in that lens, because that would be something that would be fairly hard to fake if you had the original images so we can come over to this image over here on the right, and I'm gonna count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, one, two, three, four, seven. So it has seven aperture blades that it's using in that particular one. And so your standard aperture system is going to look like this. And one of the things that you will read about in the description of your lenses potentially might be a rounded aperture. All right? And what that means is that they've taken this device and they give a little bent to it, and it actually makes it a little bit more difficult to make it round at all the different openings because they've got to get these movements in there just right. And so you could have a rounded aperture, which is preferable to a standard one for most out of focus areas intends to make it a little bit more smooth and it's out of focus area. There are some lenses that have an actual round aperture. That is like a perfect circle in there. And that would be ideal, but it's, very hard to make a rounded aperture that can close down two different aperture settings and be round at all the different apertures eddie's. But when you read the descriptions and I know when you go look at the nikon lens description, some of them will say, a nine bladed, rounded aperture. Okay, now you know what it means, and it will help out in out of focus areas and in flare situations.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

NikonĀ® Lenses Part 1
NikonĀ® Lenses Part 2
NikonĀ® Lenses Part 3
NikonĀ® Lenses Part 4
Field of View
NikonĀ® Lenses Part 5
NikonĀ® Lenses Part 6
NikonĀ® Lenses Part 7
NikonĀ® Lenses Part 8
NikonĀ® Lens Data

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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