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Know Your Glass Q&A

Aperture is not the on ly aspect of depth of field. The aperture, of course, matters you shoot it to eight or f twenty two year depth of field is definitely going to grow or get shallower, but as you change camera to subject distance, your depth of field gets shower as you change focal length. That changes your depth of field because you start to go wide angle your depth of field increases as you start to go telephoto your depth of field decreases, all right, so you want the shallowest depth, the field you can possibly get for a particular shot. You open up the aperture to whatever aperture you can open up to. Whatever your maximum aperture is for elin's, you go to your telephoto and you get close and that is going to be the shallow a step the field you can get your twenty four millimeter lens and you're fifteen feet away from your subject. You're not gonna have very much, uh you're not going to have a very shallow depth of field, and we can see it on things like I have this old hassle...

blood here. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite cameras, and it doesn't have a physical viewfinder through the lens it has this little viewfinder that sort of gives you an idea of what the frame is. But when I'm shooting this is new to me I don't know it's just super wide angle it's a s w c hasselblad super wide camera all right, so when I'm shooting with it I either have to get a measuring tape out and say ok, I'm three feet from my subject and I have to set this to three feet all right? Or I guess to me I don't know what we can feet apart maybe so I said it to ten feet now as this awesome uh I don't know can I go to you and um here's my apertures right? I go four, five, five, six, eight, eleven and these little red mark's right here as I closed down my aperture my depth of field increases all right? Now, if I say let's say I shoot this lends at five point six and I focus on something let's do fifteen inches fifteen inches away from this lin's than anything from like fourteen and a quarter inches to sixteen inches will be in focus as I get closer. Right? So I get this lin's fifteen inches from you whatever that may be than anything from like fourteen and a quarter inches to sixteen inches will be sharp so what are we talking about? We're talking less than two inches of depth of field right? Same aperture if I focus on something ten feet away ten feet away all right, I'm in a ten foot mark my depth of field is now from six feet to infinity as I get further away with this my depth of field rapidly increases as I get closer to a subject I can just see by the barrel markings that won't mind up to feel this narrow if I set this camera two f twenty two I mean right now from uh put infinity there anything basically from two feet to infinity is in focus. I bring that aperture down. This is such a wide angle that I only get shallow depth of field if I'm inside a two feet from someone so as I get more than two feet away from somebody that depth of field just suddenly starts increasing you can I mean you could just see it by the numbers on things like a linds barrel alright, you depth of field previews super cool capable of anything so, uh, clicker um while I'm looking for my clicker here it is let's take questions about lenses focal length after all of this stuff from the internet, sir from you guys, whatever. I was just thinking like where's our questions. Any questions? Yeah, absolutely. Um mc rae would like to know um he was told not to use anything water than a fifty millimeter for portrait's do you agree? No no is that a good rule of thumb? Absolutely do agree with that? No, I don't agree with that. Um there's the you know, the rules of photography which I'm a big believer in here's our rules here's our foundations and then you bust out of those um I will regularly she portrait's people twenty four millimeter lens I'm shooting a band portrait I'm shooting the senior songwriter and that's grabbed twenty four millimeter lens now is it going to be an in their face head shot? No, I'm not going to do it in your face I'm not goingto come take a portrait of you at twenty four millimeters or sixteen millimeters unless for some reason I need you to just look like a character straight out of camp. Um but what happens is when those rules are set and you're told with authority never shoot a portrait anything less than fifty millimeter you get stuck there and you never kenbrell a cow out of things you can't bust out in some ways you shouldn't shoot a portrait of the three hundred because it compresses the face so much but here's the deal if I shoot a whole bunch portrait of three hundred and I don't show you a side by side comparison, you might not see that compression quite as much as if I showed you a sixteen millimeter shot head shot so I'm shooting a head shot of an actor and actress I won't go below fifty as a rule, but I'm shooting a band or I'm shooting something with some sort of fashion flair to it then the gates of creativity and the ability to break out of those rules open right up even so much as a family portrait if you want to not shoot your conservative safe traditional family portrait you want to like bust out of that kind of genre of family portraiture go wide with it just know what's happening um sometimes ladies will love you the shooting ladies and you have him sitting down he got their legs kind of coming out towards camera bit well, wide angle makes those legs look long made him look seven feet tall and they love you for that right? Make someone who's five foot look seven foot with a wide angle lens yeah, yeah way talked about this think a little bit but no question came up again from chris boy two thousand four so if you're shooting a group of people and they're not in the same line on the same focal plane they're staggered how do you go about determining the depth of field to have them all sharp? Um ok that's a good question uh let me go to my board here would have money race there that I move it somewhere. Okay, so when we're talking about focal plane, I don't think we really touched on that, and I think that needs to be explained. Let's look at a bird's eye view of this group shot. All right? So we have people standing here all right, way have this bird's eye view. We're looking down on a group shot all these people and here's our camera here's our linens and our camera, all right, and us right there. The sensor is right here. It's this flat area, all right? And when we focus in, we're talking about the focal plane is anything parallel to that sensor? All right, so if I focus on let's, say this person back here, my focal plane is running at a parallel line through this group, so people in front of that line and people behind that line khun go out of focus and his depth of field increases. It goes two thirds behind that line and one third in front off. All right, so you're shooting a big group of people. They're not all on the same focal. A plane is where you're focusing and you need that depth of field to increase, so typically what I might do is I might, knowing it's going to grow two thirds back and one third forward from that line I might focus, we got two little kids standing here, and then the adults start, I might focus on this area right here and that that's the field needs to grow just to include these front people and then grow into the back to include the back people, all right, and then it's simply a matter of I know, white angle, I know that at a wide angle, even at a pretty wide open aperture, I've still got a pretty decent amount of depth of field. I will shoot a test shot let's say, I've got my group, I shoot a test shot or I'm waiting for everyone toe you know you're let's say you're at the church's shooting the family formals, and about seventy percent of the people are standing there and they're waiting for uncle joe and aunt sally's disappeared and you know, where is everyone? I'm shooting test shots and I'm zooming in and I'm looking at the person in the front row in the person in the back row and are they in an acceptable amount of sharpness? I don't need to be able to shave with that picture, meaning it doesn't mean that uncle joe back here needs to be so sharp I can shave with him and the little kids in the front or so sharp I don't need him to be a blob. I need to be this acceptable amount of folks you think you think ok it's a family formal it's going to be maybe an eight by ten eleven by fourteen at the largest whatever and I find somewhere between four and five six thirty five millimeter or less and if you think of your typical kind of church set up you have the steps going up to the altar you have what I call the no man's land and then you have the pues if I'm standing in about the second row of pews in a church shooting back to the stairs between foreign five six I've got everybody that if I made an eleven by fourteen of that print you would look at and go yeah, they're shark now if I tried to pull that off with a hundred millimeter lens then I'd have tio go I'd have to keep increasing my distance away from this group or start closing down my half a charm or because at the one hundred five my depth of field isn't growing very quickly wide angle is growing quickly all right okay um contributor and would like to know our prime lenses still recommended for people starting out and would you recommend one? Okay prime lenses versus zoom lenses um for my nikon kit all I own are prime lenses for my cannon kit pretty much all I owner zoom lenses and I'll tell you why I prefer prime lenses um I prefer prime lenses for a couple of reasons. The twenty four to seventy two eight wherever that went over there, I think twenty four to seventy two eight thousand something dollar limits and on ly opens two to eight when I got the cannon five d I got it mainly for video, all right? And I needed ah, pretty quick amount of focal links that I could could get too quickly instead of building up a whole series of primes I got a twenty four to seventy and the seventy year eighty, two hundred. Um, I always forget which one? The city's this's the seventy, seventy two, two hundred. So I have twenty four to two hundred. All right, no, your lenses. Which one is the subtle twenty? As I say, not as I do now. Twenty four two, two hundred. All right, so I've got like I can quickly go twenty four, two hundred all it to eight for video that's why I got that camera to start with s o as I started building up my nikon kit, I built it up. One lends at a time and primes are usually a little faster, like I could get one eight or f two lenses prime and get them for less money I buy them used all right, my twenty four millimeter to eight um I think I paid one hundred fifty bucks for that leads to great wide angle lens it's nice and fast um love that linds my one o five f two was the most expensive lens and my nikon kit I love this I bought it used off my buddy hassle for seven hundred bucks I think um and this is like my rent pair like I just I love this lens by thirty five f two I paid one hundred bucks for it tow f two sharp it's lightweight um it's just I love this little linds and finally my fifty fifty by fifty one eight which I got used for like eighty bucks and it's a good lit you know it's not the best fifty millimeter in the world but it's a fifty it's a one eight and it's a good leads I got for eighty bucks um so I've built up my lenses um primes because they're less expensive that's usually I'm usually pretty budget conscious and I rarely have o thousand dollars go spend on elin's I don't run by the thousand dollar lin's that's ah let's sit down we have a come to jesus meeting about can I get a thousand dollar linds the two hundred dollars lens that's you know, three hundred dollars lens that one those air little easier to handle and build up my kid um twenty four to seventy two eight l I'm most likely going to sell that one I don't love that lives and it's a heavy beast now for portrait work it's it's all right but um like covering if I had to cover an event I can't stand it when I'm shooting a wedding reception and I'm shooting all the dance floor stuff I like shooting with a twenty four we're just in close shooting twenty four millimeter on the dance floor um and this is a whole lot lighter than that twenty four to seventy and I'd almost rather have like a twenty four on one side and in eighty five on another body and then I got something wide and something telephoto and I can go to either one of them um are assumes great yeah you know um I the zooms the technology has gotten a lot better what I don't like about twenty four seventy two eight on the cannon is at two it at two point eight off on the edges it's really soft um and two point eight at this distance from young it's not real sharp so if I had to shoot a portrait of the two views stating at this distance at twenty four millimeter I'd shoot it f four two five six just so it'll snapped a sharp at two eight at this distance it's becomes oatmeal um the other thing this might you know this again this is how zack keep sponsors away keep sponsors away! I on ly if I'm shooting nikon I will on ly by nikon lenses if I'm shooting cannon, I will on ly by canon lenses meaning I only by the manufacturers lenses I do not go toe aftermarket toki nas signals tamarins every time I've owned one of those you can get one of those off camera off brand name uh lenses for half the price of the cannon or nikon or whatever counterpart but at the end of the day every time I've tried to save money by buying less expensive glass, I've always regretted it. I've hated I've come to hate every single third party lin's I've ever owned and you can read all the damn reviews to me you want well searching such publication says such and such seventeen millimeters one of the sharpest and look at this test art that they photographed in it and the contrast in the chromatic aberration that that that that I hate the lands it sucks and then six months it's falling apart. No, I won't I just I won't own if I'm shooting nikon their nikon glass if I'm shooting cannon is can a glass in a story unless unless I frankenstein my camera and I put a hassle glad lens on a candidate now I have zeiss glass that three hundred auto lin's because who wants hassle black equipment anymore? Nobody is getting sold off cheap, cheap, cheap corgis lin's um yeah so that's a uh that's a forty dollars adapter I bought off ebay um just google it cannon teo you can get canada hassle bladder night kanda hassle bladder you can put your mommy a lenses on your cannon or your nikon or whatever I have to manually stop down the apertures on it things like that definitely no auto focus but it's a five d mark two there's no autofocus anyways all right so uh yeah other questions okay a question from j lock and similar from open zillah well exactly talking about till shift lenses at all especially in the context of focal plane and art culture shift lenses ever used by you I have a ninety millimeter tilt shift that I use from time to time um till ships are getting um getting popular again um so and so much so that most of my iphone photo aps have a tilt shift in it all right so we have here is a side view of our camera now and here is our sensor and here is our lin's all right in front of our limbs and our focal plane our focal planks are focal plane stays parallel to that and goes out of our camera in this parallel line from sensor tow lynn's a tilt shift allows you to take that lynn's and physically that's horrible looking but tilt it in such a way that now here is our sensor but our focal plane, khun, go like that or like that so that I can, uh, let's see if I'm taking a portrait of someone and here's my sensor and that's going to be my focal plane. So I'm taking a picture of your face and that is the focal plane and as I change my sensor and linds orientation that stays parallel, but with the till shift linds here's my sensor it stays here, but my lin's shifts my focal plane. I can shift that focal plane going at an angle through you so let's say I could get your eyes and focused but your whole front your body goes out of focus. Um, I used to use this a lot on four by five cameras on large format cameras back in those days I love till shift on a four by five so on a four by five you have your film and you have your linds board alright and bellows in between the two and your film khun go one way your linens khun go another way shine fluke yes, any haters out there on the internet? I know what's shine flew gives all right so I can move my limbs going like this, my film back going like that and the amount of creative control is unbelievable um we don't have quite that much control with tilt shift lindsay's today now here's my thing with tilt shift I'm a portrait photographer so when I pulled it till shift out it's for some sort of creative shallow depth of field something going on with my portrait and it can become a visual crutch really quick you can overdo it kind of thing it's like using a fish eye fish eyes are kind of fun and kind of cool and it's one of the especially get bored in a wedding and you've shot two hours of dancing and they're still going and you got every dance shot you could possibly think of in your head you know, fish I fish I know fish on the dance floor for ten minutes and it kind of gets you out of your creative slump, you know, fish and then you need to go put that lends away right? So I won't be shooting any till ships like it's got to be something like, you know, I'm probably going to end up selling as I'm moving the hassle glad and stuff like that my ninety till shift is probably going to be based well, I'm sure somebody out there in the audience is ready to buy it from you it's a great way and it's a great just ninety millimeter lids you know, sometimes I just shoot it as a ninety mill um yeah, but I don't use it enough I would use has a blood equipment more so if I'm not using a piece of equipment and it's just sitting around too much off it goes and to go find it's something that I should be using it more for any other questions? Another question from contributor contributor m does the time of day ever determine the lens that you use? No, no, unless it's the speed of the winds like if I got a two eight lin's or one eight wins and the light is getting too dark maybe I got to go to the one eight just simply because of whatever reason I need more light, faster shutter speed I need to open up more. Um, but time a day, you know, it's all about what's it doing with my subject what's it doing to my perspective um, what's it doing with my focal question from stacy k canseco over the telephoto lens, causing the face to become rounder. I understand that the short lends a long getting the face put differently. What a telephone telephoto lens change and oval into a circle there's a lot of different like physics that go into it. How much of an angle are you coming in at your subject? Are you shooting straight into them? Are you coming up from a higher position with a two hundred millimeter lens at an angle down? Are you shooting up at them on dh that starts to get into a lake? You know, our squared plus s nine equals pi over focal length enough like god, I don't know like what point doesn't move at what point doesn't oval become a circle or or whatever? I cannot honestly tell you that is where I have an understanding technical, and then it sort of ends to the point where I don't care. I know that when I go to a two hundred millimeter lens faces air going toe compact. By what degree? Technically, I cannot tell you that because it looks like this stuff. Good answer. I've read about it. Get on dp review and asked that question and then back up. Wait. Because there's going to be awesome. Oh, no, no, no, no. Uh, my buddy mark. He sent me a link one time because we used to be on bp review a lot back in several several years ago. And, um, and he sends me this length is because you get on these fights on this photography forums, you know, someone asks a simple, innocent question, and then it just no, no no that's not right no no no no that's not right and he sent me this leak his uh his air conditioning furnace went out in his house so he started researching which when he should get it came across an h back for him and I want to ask a simple question I have the x number of square footage I'm looking at this btu size of furnace is that large enough and there were like six pages of threads of people fighting about no, you need this size first no, you can pull it off with this size for if you run your ductwork in this configuration it'll be finally every industry everyone up alright think we're ready to move on are we ready to move on? All right, we're moving on. All right, so, uh all right, so, uh yeah, this was the last night and talked about twenty four millimeter one o five sometimes I want to pull in parts of, uh the environment that I'm sitting in a little white angle I'm not in a big space but a little white angle let me pull in other parts I don't want to see that and I don't have a lot of space to move just going into aa longer focal length simply gets this information out of the shot compresses it it all right