Lenses

Key points

There are many brilliant photography YouTuber’s we’ll be learning from a curated set of their videos. See my Nit picks on the next video on Lenses.

Transcript

Hi, this is a placeholder video, so watch it quickly before it disappears. I did the maths and I worked out that if I was to script and shoot all of the videos that I wanted to shoot for this course, then the student I initially wanted to shoot them for wouldn’t actually be able to watch them all before it was time for them to submit their final project. So, I had already worked out pretty early on that I should feature other photographers’ photographs rather than shooting every illustrating photograph myself. But then I realized that I could do the same with videos. You see, it’s not like biotech, for example, where you might struggle to find a good biochemical engineer who also happens to be good at videography and is comfortable in front of the lens as comfortable as they are behind it. Most photographers can become pretty good videographers with very little upskilling. And lots of them are very happy in front of the camera. So there are millions of photography videos already on YouTube. All I really need to do is find the best ones to explain all the concepts needed for this course. Unfortunately, some are pretty bad. Um, and I actually really struggled with the first one that I wanted as I couldn’t find one that I was 100% happy with, but many of the others were much better than I was planning on doing anyway. So, I’ll perhaps just cheekily explain how I would have done things differently between each video if I would have done them differently, while I also set you a little exercise to do before you watch the next one.

Now, if you’re a photography teacher helping me out, thank you by checking if I’ve missed anything or misexplained anything. Please do add comments to my videos, not the ones that other people have produced, to let me know if there’s anything missing or misexplained in their videos or indeed mine that we need to include in this playlist. So if you’re watching as a learner and anything doesn’t make sense, the same goes. Please add a comment in one of my videos about the video that you didn’t understand and I’ll try to explain it. I’m pretty thick skinned and I don’t mind negative comments. You can add as nasty comments as you like about me and my work as long as you keep them clean, otherwise I’ll delete them. But the last thing I want to do is to encourage people to be criticizing other creators’ videos. They’ve put a lot of time into them and yeah, it’s just not very nice.

Without any further ado, I’d like to introduce my good friend Think. Mr. Media and I go way back. Actually, I’ve never met him. But you might be wondering why I’ve had this video of Think up through this entire video. Good point. Well, the main answer is that I want you to know what he looks like. I want you to remember what he looks like. That’s because the first time I saw him, I saw him through a 20 mm lens just like you will. Now, you’re soon going to understand that this is a wide angle lens, and he’s a much better looking chap than me. So, he pulled it off pretty nicely. Now, you’re used to watching me at a focal length of 115 mm. That’s what we’re using now, and it’s quite a flattering angle on a full-frame 35 mm sensor. Don’t worry, this should all make sense once you’ve actually watched Think’s video. But this is what I look like if I was shooting this at 12 mm. I’m horrendous. I know I wasn’t pretty in the first place, but my nose is now even more massive and my ears are tiny. Not at all a good look. Anyway, the thing manages to pull off 20 ms on what I assume is an APS-C sensor, which would be 30 mm on my full frame. Again, don’t worry about all this if you don’t get it. He’s going to explain everything very shortly. But because you’re then used to seeing him that way, when he tries to show you what 11 ms looks like, you’re probably thinking, “H, it’s not too bad.” The other thing to point out is that the problem here isn’t actually the lens. Now, many people think that wide-angle lenses are bad for head shot because they distort the image. My favourite lens, favourite lens I ever owned was a 24 mm. And I assure you, it had virtually no distortion. But if I shot this video with it and I had my head this size in the frame, I’d still look awful. No, it’s not the lens distortion that makes professional portrait photographers pick like 85 mm and longer lenses for head shots. It’s perspective distortion. Look at my hand. It’s not that big. It’s a bit but it’s bit bit smaller than my head. Right. Now I’m going to keep the same camera lens and 115 mm focal length now. And I’m going to move closer. Hang on. I’ve just got to get round my desk first. See how my hand gets bigger? Now let’s cut back to me in my usual spot. My hand got bigger because relative to my head, it’s much closer to the camera. This is perspective distortion. So what makes long lenses more flattering in portraiture is that you can get further away from the subject. So my ears and nose are relatively close to each other compared with their distance from the camera. So you get less perspective distortion. Does that make sense? Do let me know if it doesn’t as I should really reshoot this video and I can try harder to explain perspective distortion.

One other little thing that I’d like to say to perfect Think’s video is when he gets to this bit just for this section. Every time he says aperture, I’d like you to shout maximum aperture at the screen. Okay? If you’re in a public, you can shout maximum aperture in your head, but every time he says aperture, but only do it during just this section. If it still doesn’t make sense, please come back to this video. In fact, try watching it a few times doing that whole maximum aperture thing. Make sure that yeah, he means maximum aperture just in that section when he says aperture. Right. So, come back to this video. Anyway, give us some comments to let me know if it’s still not making sense and I’ll produce another video to explain.

So, now off you go and watch Think’s video immediately, right? I’m afraid you can’t have a break. Or if you can’t watch it immediately, then what I’d like you to do is come back and watch this video again straight before watching his second time. You can focus on this photo of him, though, cuz that’s the important bit. This is to let you know, get your brain thinking what he actually looks like in real life, assuming you’re not standing too close to him, or watching through a 20 mm lens. Oh, and straight after watching his video, do watch my next one where I’ll highlight the most important lenses. Well, the most important lenses that you need to know about for this course anyway, and I’ll give you a fun exercise on lens choice. See you soon and say hi to Think for me.

Extra Thoughts

Lenses are a fundamental piece of equipment, and understanding their types and effects is crucial.
Different lens types, categorised by their focal length, produce distinct visual effects and are suited for different photographic scenarios.
- Wide-angle lenses: Have a wider field of view than human vision, making them suitable for capturing expansive landscapes, architectural interiors, or situations where you want to include a lot of the scene. They can also create exaggerated perspective, making foreground elements appear larger and more dominant while pushing background elements further away.
- Telephoto lenses: Have a narrower field of view, making distant subjects appear closer and larger. They are often used for wildlife, sports, or portraits where you want to compress perspective and create a shallower depth of field.
- Standard lenses (e.g., 50mm on full-frame): Provide a field of view similar to human vision, offering a natural and balanced perspective. They are versatile for various subjects and situations.
- Macro lenses: Designed for extreme close-up photography, allowing for true 1:1 reproduction or greater magnification of small subjects, revealing intricate details not visible to the naked eye.
- Fisheye lenses: Offer an ultra-wide, highly distorted, spherical view, creating a unique and often dramatic creative effect. Straight lines can appear curved, especially towards the edges of the frame.
- Zoom lenses: Allow for variable focal lengths, providing flexibility to change the field of view without changing lenses.
When using lenses, photographers must select and use appropriate equipment competently to achieve desired creative and technical outcomes.

Exercises

Portraiture

Grab any camera with either a number of lenses (that could be a multi-lens phone) or with a zoom lens (digital zoom will suffice if you have a single lens phone).
Take photographs of a friend, pet, soft toy, action figure, or pretty much anything with two eyes and a face at different focal lengths.
Move your camera closer to or further from to their face at different focal lengths so you keep the distance between their eyes constant in your viewfinder/screen at the different zoom positions.
Have a look at the images and take some notes on the impact of focal length, how close you needed to get at different focal lengths and how that impacted the image. Which do you think works best?

Landscapes

With the same camera and lenses or zoom settings, take some landscape photographs.
Take some notes on how the focal length impacts what you can fit into the frame and the perspective of foreground and background elements within it.