Lessons
Class Introduction
07:11 2Canon Lens Basics
14:12 3Focal Length: Angle of View
11:31 4Focal Length: Normal Lenses
09:43 5Focal Length: Wide Angle Lenses
18:15 6Focal Length: Telephoto Lens
21:27 7Focal Length Rule of Thumb
15:36 8Field of View
10:14Aperture Basics
04:41 10Aperture: Maximum Aperture
18:44 11Aperture: Equivalent Focal Length
07:48 12Aperture: Depth of Field
06:23 13Aperture: Maximum Sharpness
08:33 14Aperture: Starburst Effect
05:18 15Aperture: Flare
06:48 16Aperture: Hyperfocal Distance
19:32 17Camera Mount System
14:57 18Canon Lens Compatibility
14:26 19Canon Lens Design
12:29 20Canon Lens Composition
04:30 21Canon Lens Shape
05:50 22Canon Lens Coating
06:53 23Canon Lens Focusing
14:10 24Lens Autofocus
08:17 25Canon Lens Image Stabilization
06:57 26Canon L Lenses
10:18 27Image Quality
09:46 28Canon Zoom Lenses: Standard
17:50 29Canon Super Zooms
05:20 30Canon Wide Zooms
09:48 31Canon Telephoto Zooms
16:09 32Prime Lens: Normal Lenses
09:19 33Prime Lens: Moderate Wide
07:01 34Prime Lens: Wide Angle
05:33 35Prime Lens: Ultra-Wide
09:23 36Prime Lens: Short Telephoto
09:03 37Prime Lens: Medium Telephoto
08:59 38Prime Lens: Super Telephoto
13:59 393rd Party Lenses Overview
06:01 403rd Party Prime Lenses
15:25 413rd Party Zoom Lenses
26:28 42Lens Accessories: Filters
33:42 43Lens Accessories: Lens Hoods
09:58 44Lens Accessories: Tripod Mount
04:51 45Lens Accessories: Extension Tubes
04:30 46Lens Accessories: Extenders
13:11 47Macro Lens: Reproduction Ratio
18:59 48Macro Lens: Technique and Choices
25:59 49Fisheye: Technique and Choices
18:49 50Tilt Shift: Techniques and Choices
27:08 51Make a Lens System Choice
05:37 52Choosing A Portrait Lens
17:21 53Choosing A Sports Lens
17:31 54Choosing A Landscape Lens
10:39 55Best Lenses for You
08:46 56Lens Maintenance
11:19 57Buying and Selling Lens
11:15 58What is John Greengo's Favorite Lens?
08:37Lesson Info
Lens Accessories: Lens Hoods
all right lens hoods. So lens hoods are these funny pieces of plastic, which sometimes air supplied or canon not supplied with your lenses. And these air designed to block light that is coming at sharp angles, hitting the front of your lands, causing all sorts of optical chaos in your lands. So you point your camera and you have an angle of view of stuff that you see. You point your camera at the sun. The sun's lights comes in your lens. It is focused on your sensor, but it also. Every time it hits a glass element, it starts bouncing around, and this causes a little bit of loss of contrast, potentially a little bit of flair, and the lenses are the attempt to correct for this as much as they possibly can. Now it's possible you could be having the sun at your back, and so you clearly don't need to worry about the sun when it is behind your lands. But between your angle of you and this area, behind the lens is another area that I like to think of as the flare zone, and this is where a bri...
ght light may cause a flare problem because what's happening is that let's say we have a bright sun pointing in hitting the front of our lands. That light's bouncing around and it's ending up exposing our sensor a little bit of light that we don't normally see in the viewfinder. And so this is gonna cause a loss of contrast or potentially a flare, that we actually see the shape of our aperture or just loss of contrast, as I say So the way to avoid this is by adding and using our lens hood. So that's gonna block off all that extraneous light. If you've ever seen racehorses that have blinders, it keeps you focused on what's important. And so this is just concentrating on what you are actually seeing in the lens, and so light in this case is coming in. It's hitting the inside of lands, all the parts inside the lands, and it's gonna be causing internal reflections. And this is simply a visor that is blocking the front of the light, hitting the lance. And so we're just getting a shadow. If you've ever walked outside on a bright, sunny day and this this actually feels right nice in here because we got some fairly bright lights up here and now that light is not hitting my eyes. But I can still see what I want to see out here. So here's an image that has a bright light source just out of frame, and we can see this flare spot. There's a big, noticeable flare spot top in center here. Let's add ah hood notice. The contrast level of this new image is much better than the previous image. Let's do a split screen so we can see what it looks like with a hood attached and with a no hood. So the hoods air gonna have, ah, big impact when you have a bright light source just outside the frame. So here we have a bright light source from one of these lights on the bridge, and it's just really causing this flare issue. We brought Block that light source. We're gonna get a nice, clean image without that as a problem, and so we're going to see some different types of lens hoods. Thes round hoods are often on telephoto lenses, and we have these scalloped or petal shaped hoods, which are designed for wider angle lenses and people like, Why are they shaped like this? They seem so strange. But when you mount him on to your camera, you'll see that they match up with the frame that you were actually shooting through the camera. In fact, our lenses right here in the studio have similar types of hoods on him because we've got bright lights up here. And so if we come up here Hi, guys. Let's see. Just turned this off right here. And so if we look at this guy so this guy has kind of a square hood specially designed and this isn't nice, because on this guy's camera here, he can't reverse his hood. These air designed for still cameras. And so this has this kind of funny shape here. And so what we can take this hood is not designed for this lens. But why does it have the funny shape? And now we can actually see this and we hold it right there. You can kind of see the shape of the frame. Now, this camera and this camera are slightly different shapes. Let me give you your hood back. Thank you very much. And so that's why we have funny shaped huts. All right now, the other problem with hoods is for people who have cameras with built and flash. That flash illuminates your subject. And now when you add a hood, it may block that built in flash. And I think this is a great example for reasons why you shouldn't use your built in flash. It's okay. We're not gonna do the whole lighting thing right now, but it's just a good reason why you shouldn't use that. All right now is flair the worst thing in the world? Well, having a little bit of flares kind of good to have once in a while, and so it's okay to have flair in certain types of shot. I think it adds a certain style to it, and so it's generally something we want to avoid, but just be aware of it. So a couple of the canon lenses have built in hood. Some of them are very limited, especially on the wide angle ones. They're very nice On the tele photos, we have a variety of different hoods. E w stands for wide angle s for standard T for telephoto on their newest lens. There 100 of 400. Let me grab this over here. They've added a feature in that Yes, Pentax Pentax has had for years. But Canon has added it into theirs. And so now we have a lands and they set up right. And so now remember, those polarizer is we were just talking about I have a special little window here so that I can come in here and I can adjust the polarizer rather than trying to reach in here and adjust the polarizer or take the hood off. And so I can open and close that and adjust the polarizer because the edge of the filter is right there. And so that's kind of a unique, special new feature. That's the only lens. But I bet we're going to see that mawr on different canon lenses now this is the E. T. 1 55 w two. Don't worry about writing it down in your notes. This is the lens hood for their 400 millimeter lands. Don't lose this hood if you buy the 400 it is a $700 hood. Do not lose this hood or let a football player land on it as They're jumping out of rounds. And so some of these hoods can get very expensive. Most of these other ones are around 50 or 60 bucks. But those big ones, which is one of these ones over here on the big lenses. Yeah. You don't want to break or lose those. One of the nice things when you do get the L lenses is that hoods air supplied on all of the L lenses. Well, a question had come in from Jonathan that it said, Is it true that we need hoods on Lee on telephoto lenses? That does not seem to be the case, right? No, but I will admit that the hoods on the white angle lenses don't do a lot of good, And so maybe we could do a little live demo here. And so this is a 24 to 70. Actually, it's not the winds I wanted. Let's do Let's do the 16 to 35 here. So we got a 16 to 35. This lens hood doesn't do a lot of good. So here's my camera. So you guys are the light source here. Lens hood right now is doing nothing. OK, so it's the same is without using the lens. So where the lens hood comes in handy if you're the light source, I'm going to say right about here, cause now you guys can no longer see the front of this lens here. The lens hood does no good here. The lens does lens Hood doesn't do any matter. So it's on Lee helping out in this little area right here. And this is a pretty big chunk of lens hood, and it beefs up the size of this. And so there was a number of people that just kind of lead this aside just cause this doesn't fit in their bag quite as well. Technically, though, you're better off here. And one of the nice things about this is Oh, I bumped into it. And so that just kind of absorbs a little bit of the shock. And so it's preferable to use this. Although please do not ever take pictures on one of my tours like this, I will bug you every day. Jane, Remember Jane? She's probably watching Jane. You're watching right now. Are you using your lens? She was walking around all either. Turner, just I don't care that it makes your photos better or worse. Just do it for me cause this drives me nuts. It's like you went to all the trouble of buying the hood, bringing the hood. You're walking around the hood, just turn around and use it properly. And so that's my plea. Tell us how you really feel. Do you use that just also for a little bit of protection for the lens? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's It's also really nice, especially if you're shooting and rain where you have a little bit of water coming down or missed. That just helps keeps it off the front of the lands. And so one more thing again, can you tell us? Laura had asked, Do you use a polarizing filter with a lens hood? Yeah, that's no problem, especially when you have that little drawer. But sometimes if you have to take the lens off hood off and adjust it and get it, I would do it. And you know, that kind of dives into an area of Do you really have to go through so much work to get the shot and it depends on where you are and what's important to you. But if that's what it takes to get the shot and it's important to you, it's worth the extra five or 10 seconds or the extra little bit of effort if it's just a throwaway shot and it's not that important. Okay, maybe it's not that big a deal, but, you know, if it's a good shot, take the time and do it right. Wendy is watching John, who is going on your turkey tour and says, Now I know how to get to you, John on. She's just the one to do it. Just to spite me would probably be like, I know I'm getting terrible flair, but John, are you feeling it?
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
user-b3a96c
I so appreciate what a good teacher John is. I wish I would have known this much about lenses when I first started out buying my lenses. It was hard finding information about lenses. I didn't want to spend money on a lens I wouldn't use. The better understanding we have about our gear the better photographers we will be. I have never seen a class like this. Invaluable...yes I bought the class! I am really impressed with the high quality photography classes available on Creative Live!
Abbeylynne
This was a great class not just about the lenses that Canon offers but also how each lens works. As usual, John's slides are alway informative and entertaining. There is a phrase: John has a slide for that! I am not even a Canon user and found this class to have great information for the use of each specific lens. Great work John! Thank you Creative Live for another great class!
Tami Miller
Have loved the other John Greengo classes I've watched & purchased - and this is another winner! Having been a high school/college science teacher, it is refreshing to take a course with someone who not only is extremely experienced, seems to be a computer having stored so much knowledge, but is equally concerned about making the information truly understandable to different levels. And he shares the information using every tool he can: slides, video, interactive presentations, and great quizzes. I learned so much about my Canon lenses - and lenses in general with their many components. I am excited about testing each of mine to see what macro ratio they handle, and especially appreciated the tutorial on testing each for their specific quirk that affects super sharpness. This class is great whether you own Canon lenses or not. Thanks John Greengo!