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
Make a Lens System Choice
a system of lenses. And just in case you're wondering, this is all 100% new material here had to kind of design this originally for this class. And so let's go through the process of what we're gonna be doing. So we need to be some choices about what lenses we want to buy and put into our system. We always were trying to figure out the best lands we always get. This question can write. What's the best lens for this? And so this is where I get to answer that question for a few different types of lenses. And then I'm gonna talk about some recommended lens systems. We're gonna look at some setups that I think are really nice little setups for a photography for different purposes. Talk a little bit about lens maintenance and buying and selling your lenses. So let's go ahead and get started with making a choice, and this is kind of obvious stuff. Here you often end up with the most basic 18 to 55 kit standard zoom lens, and once you have that, you have really four directions that you can go...
. You can go more telephoto, which is generally what most people want to do. They want to be able to shoot with a narrow Rangel of you. As I mentioned back in the focal length section, most people are gonna want something the equivalent of 24 to 200 which on the crop frame cameras is gonna be somewhere in the range of 16 to maybe about 150. And this definitely gets you in that range. The next place that you might want to go is a lens that is faster. That lets in more light, depending on where you were shooting and what type of stuff you are shooting. Some people get into the white angle aspect, and so that's kind of a different direction. And then another direction. It is mom. There we go closer up for the macro that we just talked about, and so these are kind of the four different directions. But even if you get the top of the line 24 to 72.8 zoom, you're going to be faced with the same options. Telephoto lens is going to be a nice matching lens for this. This is a nice little to lens combo, but sometimes you need something faster. They don't make zooms faster, so then you start looking at their prime lenses that fit your particular needs. And, of course, if you need wider than 24 for a variety of reasons, they make a lot of great wide angle lenses. And then, if you need closer up to 24 70 does okay on its own. But macro lenses are definitely going to be doing much better in that regard. I don't know who said it features quality price. Choose to you only get two of these when you are choosing lenses. Now, if you wanted a lens that was built just quality wise top of the line, that's the only thing you were concerned about. You're going to probably end up with something like a 302.8. If you said you know what most important to me is, I want the most features and lens possible. You're going to end up with something like their 28 to 300 l. Siri's image stabilized top of the line quality but huge zoom rangelands. If you said I wanna lends, that's a really low price. You're gonna end up with 50 millimeter, 1.8 lands. But we all kind of want a little bit of everything, and you can have a little bit. You just got to make some compromises. If you want quality and features, you might end up with something like 11 to 24. But that is most definitely not a cheap lens. But say you want a low price lens. It's got a lot of features. Theeighties toe 1 35 is a really practical zoom range, which I could work with in a lot of situations for a long period of time. But when it comes to overall quality of construction, the image quality, it's not at the top of the line. If you said, well, I want a low price lens that's very good quality. You can still do that, but it's gonna be a very focused device like the 85 18 It's good for Portrait. It's not good for close up. It's not good for white angle. It's not good for super telephoto, but it is a low cost, very good quality item, and so the lenses are all gonna fall around this spectrum someplace, and so You have to kind of figure out what is important to you, what you can afford and what the correct balance is for you. One of the things that I think is fascinating is that there's there's like 50 60 choices with cannon. If we add in the after market, there's probably 100. And if we go back maybe 15 or 20 years, there's probably 200 different lenses we could choose. And once you have about three lenses, it's likely that you will never run into anybody who has your same three lenses. You have an individual choice, and, you know, I know quite certainly that nobody else in the world has the exact same collection of lenses idea because they're my personal needs and nobody else has my same personal needs. And so you are gonna end up with if you have a two lens system. There's probably a lot of people that have similar tool in systems, but once you get that third lens in there, the numbers her really interesting because you're just never gonna find anybody with the same system because everybody has their own particular needs, desires and budgets. So what I want to dive into is the best lands. What is the best lands? And that really depends on what you're doing. And so I'm gonna look at three areas in detail. The first is one of the most popular areas that people want to take part pictures. And that is portrait lenses. What is the best portrait lands and I'm gonna make some recommendations. I'm sorry to say this. I'll tell you right now I'm gonna recommend about 16 different lenses, and it depends on the exact particulars of what you think is important to you.
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!