- Cameras, videography, and photography are confusing.
There are a lot of misconceptions on how things work,
and YouTube can sometimes be a lonely thing to do.
Most of the time, it's just me here, all by my lonesome,
talking to confusing cameras, so in today's video,
we're going to attempt to improve both of those issues
by taking a look at clearing up
some common misunderstandings in the camera world
with the help of some incredibly talented
friends from YouTube.
My name is Dunna, and if you're new here, welcome,
and if this is the kind of thing that you like,
consider hitting that subscribe button, and the bell,
so that you can keep up with what I've got going on.
All right, let's hop right into things with our first guest,
Dr. Chris Nicholas.
You might know him from the channel Becki and Chris.
He saves lives, he flies helicopters, and right now,
he's gonna give you the rundown on something
that a lot of people are confused about.
- Hello, Dunna's audience, Chris from the channel
Becki and Chris here, and Dunna asked me to
weigh in on what I think one of the biggest misconceptions
with cameras is, and that is the myth of lens compression.
Now, I'm gonna start with a question.
Do you think that this lens at 600 millimeters
would make the background of an image bigger
with respect to the subject than a wider angle lens
like this 12 millimeter lens?
And I would venture to say that it doesn't matter.
So traditionally, people have always been taught
that a longer, or more telephoto lens will increase
the size of your background with respect to the subject,
as compared to a wider lens.
I think that's a bit of a myth because it's the distance
you are from your subject that actually determines
how big the background appears.
The only difference is, you have to use a longer lens
to get the same framing, and therefore,
people always associate the longer lens
with the bigger background elements,
but it's really just the fact that you are far away
from your subject.
I'm gonna illustrate this point very quickly,
and succinctly with a dolly zoom shot here.
So as I'm moving backwards, I'm zooming in,
and you can see the background gets bigger
with respect to the subject.
Now, if I move back, the same camera movement,
but leave the focal length the same,
but I simulate a zoom in by just magnifying
or enlarging the image in post, you get that same
effect, you get that dolly zoom, Alfred Hitchcock effect,
so there you go.
That's proof that the focal length, or the lens
actually doesn't have any effect on the size
of the background.
It's all about perspective, and how far away you are
from the subject.
If you wanna dive deeper into this, we actually have
a full video on it in our channel link up here,
but in the meantime, back to you, Dunna.
- If you wanna see an even more detailed explanation
of what Chris was just talking about, feel free
to head to the description at the end of this video.
There's another video link in there that you can go
check out, and you might even see yours truly,
but in the meantime, let's get on to our next guest,
and our next topic.
When he's not busy editing television shows
and documentaries, Mark Holtze is reminding us
that newer isn't always better.
It's easy to get caught up in the latest and greatest,
but his YouTube channel is often an affirmation
of just how awesome vintage lenses can be.
Tell us about that vintage goodness, Mark.
Thanks, Dunna.
Lenses, it's said that lenses are for life,
and that they're one of the best investments
you can make when it comes to photography.
This full frame 50 millimeter f/1.4 lens is 45 years old,
and can easily be adapted to mirror-less digital cameras
for use today.
So if lenses are for life, can a 45-year-old vintage lens
compete with today's modern lenses?
Well, I say yes, they can.
It just depends on how you use them.
Vintage SLR lenses still have a lot going for them
when used in photography.
They're fast, inexpensive, built like tanks,
and work almost seamlessly with modern cameras.
This makes them highly accessible for anybody willing
to experiment with them.
They may not have that edge to edge sharpness
of modern lenses, but what they lack in clinical sharpness,
they make up for in character, or patina,
which is really just a nice way
of describing optical imperfections.
Embrace imperfection.
When properly used, you can exploit the individual
charm these lenses offer to get some unique shots.
For example, the Helios 44M 58 millimeter f/2
is know for its swirly bokeh, which is best used
to emphasize portraits with nice bokeh background.
This effect leads the eye towards the middle of the image,
isolating your subject.
It's an effect that's hard to replicate optically
with a modern lens.
This is just one of many examples, but if you leverage
these flaws, and turn them into opportunities,
you can capture images that really help you
stand out from the pack.
Using vintage lenses today definitely requires you
to alter your perception a bit, but I think
there's a lot of value in that.
It's not only a cheap alternative to a modern lens,
it's a great opportunity to step outside
your comfort zone, learn photography fundamentals,
and to experiment, and most important, though,
it's fun, and ultimately, that's what's
gonna keep you going.
Thanks, guys.
- And, once again, I'll link to an awesome video
in the description that you can check out
if you want more info on this topic.
Okay, here's something that we can all agree on.
If we want to take photos or videos, we need light.
Our next guest is the resident pro, and host of Aputure's
four-minute film school show on YouTube, as well as
an incredible travel doc filmmaker, Valentina Vee
is here to shed some light on the situation.
Yeah, I'm sticking with it.
- Something that a lot of people come up to me
and ask me about is what lighting should I buy?
And then, they don't tell me anything else,
and what lighting you should buy really depends on
two things, what is your budget, and what are you making?
If you're just gonna get a three-pack of these panels,
that's fine, but it's probably not gonna be the best
in every single one of your situations.
Why?
This is a multi-source light.
As you can see, there are 672 lights here,
which means that this light is only ever going to be soft.
You cannot create hard shadows.
You cannot imitate sunlight.
You can't do a lot of things with this light
that you can with a light like this.
This is the Aputure 300d II.
It is a single-source light, which means it has
one giant diode, instead of 672 small ones,
so with something like this, you're gonna be
really able to not only get the harshest light you can,
but also, the softest light if you add different types
of modifiers like soft boxes.
So when you're considering what type of lights
to buy, again, are you only ever going to need to light
soft things, or large spaces, or do you wanna invest
in something that's gonna give you a little bit
more flexibility, and is gonna give you more creativity
down the line?
That's it.
That's all I have to say.
I don't have anything else to say.
- That is super awesome advice to a really common question.
You need to know stuff like that when you're looking
to pick up lights for your project.
Now, before I get to my point, we have one more guest
that's gonna blast through some misconceptions
of sensor size.
Everyone's favorite YouTube camera nerd, Gerald Undone.
He's crazy.
- Despite the number of videos I've made on the subject,
I'd say the impact of sensor size is a topic
I still see drenched in misconceptions.
The most common one is that larger sensors have
a shallower depth of field, and when it comes to
depth of field, the only role sensor size plays
is determining how far you're standing from your subject,
and what lens you're using.
Focal length and subject distance
are the determining factors, not sensor size.
However, if you use a smaller sensor, you'll likely
be using a lens with a shorter focal length
compared to composing that same shot on full frame.
For example, you might be using a 16 millimeter lens
on Sony APSC, compared to a 24 millimeter lens
on full frame to achieve the same look.
This 16 millimeter lens will produce
a deeper depth of field not because of sensor size,
but because of the diameter of the entrance pupil.
I have a whole video on that if you wanna learn more,
but the simplified version is that a 16 millimeter lens,
when using the same aperture will have a smaller front hole
for light to get in, which focuses the rays more closely
together, and increases your depth of field.
Sensor size is irrelevant.
Shorter lenses always have a deeper depth of field,
when everything else is the same, and the same is true
for subject distance.
If you were using the same lens on both cameras,
you'd have to stand farther away on the crop sensor
to achieve the same framing, and being farther away
from your subject will always increase your depth of field.
The only way to compensate for this is to use
a wider aperture on your shorter lens.
In our 16 millimeter example, we need to be at f/2
to match the entrance pupil size of the 24 millimeter
full frame lens at f/2.8.
Now, the rays will be coming in similarly,
assuming you're standing the same distance away,
and your depth of field will be similar.
Of course, shooting at f/2 will appear brighter
than the f/2.8 exposure, which is the perfect time
to drop your ISO to match because smaller sensors
do, generally, produce more noise than full frame
at similar ISO settings, so you should reduce your ISO
by your crop factor squared to complete
the equivalency, and make your images match.
In the case of the 1.5 times APSC crop,
this is similar to about one stop, so ISO 800
at f/2 on APSC will be quite similar to ISO 1600
at f/2.8 on full frame, however, this leads to another
misconception, which is that somehow, these rules
don't apply when putting a lens design for smaller sensors
on a matching camera, i.e., a crop lens, on a crop body,
but they still do apply, and I'll pass this back to Dunna
to tell you more about that, since he shot a ton
using lenses specifically designed for APSC.
- Oh yeah, the old focal length misconception
is strong when it comes to lenses built for different
sensor sizes, so let's break it down.
This is a 16 millimeter lens made for full frame
camera bodies, and this is a 16 millimeter lens
made for APSC camera bodies.
Now, if I take a photo with each of these lenses
on cameras with the intended sensor size,
the full frame lens looks like this,
and the crop lens looks like this,
and just for clarification, the camera was the exact same
distance from the subject in each photo.
As you can see, the APSC crop photo is more zoomed in.
It has a narrower angle of view.
The thing that trips people up about this
is that if they have the same name, 16 millimeters,
how come they don't look the same, considering
one lens was designed specifically for crop bodies?
Why do we have to do math?
And I definitely understand the confusion because
we're used to thinking of how wide a lens is,
based on that number, the 16 millimeters.
What's happening here is, we're confusing
our focal length of 16 millimeters with our angle
of view, which is the true measurement of how wide
our photo or video will be.
Those things are definitely connected, but not the same.
The focal length is a physical measurement
of the distance between the lens' optical center,
and the center of the camera when that lens is
focused to infinity.
I know that sounds very complicated, but just remember this,
it is literally measuring a part of the lens.
As that measurement gets longer, let's say we go from
16 millimeters to 35 millimeters, the angle of view
gets narrower, which we would think of as zooming in.
Basically, you are seeing a narrower slice
of the scene, or a narrower angle of view.
So, the reason that a 16 millimeter lens made for
crop sensors is still called a 16 millimeter,
even though the photo looks more zoomed in
is because physically, inside the lens, that measurement
is still 16 millimeters.
It's a different angle of view,
but it's still the same focal length.
This is why we take crop factor into account
when buying lenses for crop cameras.
In that case, you may hear terms like full frame equivalent.
That's because a 16 millimeter lens on crop cameras
has a similar angle of view as a 24 millimeter lens
on a full frame camera.
If I keep going on on this, I'll start feeling like
I'm talking in circles, but if I haven't made
myself clear enough, always feel free to hit me up
in the comments, and I'll do my best to help you understand.
I wanna say a huge thank you to Chris, Mark, Valentina,
and Gerald for helping me out with this collab.
I highly recommend going and following them all.
I'll leave links to all of their channels
in the description.
I sincerely hope that you feel slightly more enlightened
than you were coming into this video.
If so, make sure to hit that like button,
and subscribe to the channel for more like this.
Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
(calm music)