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
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
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