GET THE MOST FROM YOUR LENS - things you should know before taking photographs

Behind the Lens video blog with Joel Grimes. Covering topics ranging from the creative process, image capture, post processing techniques and product review.

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[marchayes]

Thankyou clear love the way you explain spent many hours listening to your photo knowledge helping me to set up my studio in the done!..Thank You so much..Marc.

[paullanoue]

You give great practical advice. Most of what I see on line is bloggers telling people if the buy the latest camera body they will be Alfred Eisenstaedt overnight. Glad to see someone with experience. Thank you.

[ocubex]

First of... love your work. I am one of those partial to a wide open lens, although don't go crazy, I usually hover around a stop over wide open and even for portraits I rarely go over f4. This is a real eye opener. I actually paused the video and took out my 24-105 f4 and from my eye, the sweet spot seems to be f8 but I love the f5.6 as well. Thanks for this great tip.

[vivahabbitvanassen]

thank you so much for all your information. Your work is out of this world.

[joelelizabeth]

seriously love all the info you put out. it has inspired me a great deal. thank you and keep them coming 

[_HMCB_]

Great stuff. As a beginner, knowing the whys is so helpful. In time, by assimilating this knowledge, I’m then able to focus more on the creative aspect of a shoot. Thanks Joel!

[dcgfhgjnzgfnjcbgn]

Every lens is different. f8 is not necessarily the sweet spot of ur lens. Everyone should do this - write a word (any word - sharp?), with a black pen on a white piece of paper, put ur camera on a tripod, take pictures of the word at every second or third f stop, making sure to zoom in and get the focus absolutely perfect for each shot, and review the shots zoomed way in on a big screen, rate each shot and write your results down. You will find ur lenses sweet spot for sure. Easy peasy. Do it once and you will know the specific spot for the life of your lens.

My current favorite lens starts getting great in the 4's, gets awesome in the 5's an 6's, then gradually slopes back down in sharpness.

[nickandtanya]

Thanks Joel! This is one of the best videos explaining this topic

[ironian]

Really well put Joel, and a good set up to explain too. love your work as a photographer I have learnt so much from your earlier videos explaining how you shoot and blend images together, also more importantly How you do such amazing work being colour blind too.

[geniustheatre]

Great video! Really appreciate the clarity and images, not to mention the solid useable advice.

[BrianAnderson-]

This is a fantastic video Joel. I did get the sweet spot until a friend of mine showed it to me and then my photography began to open up. Please do more videos like these. They're great.

[starrshine]

This is the second video in 24 hours that I came across discussing the "Sweet spot". And I watch dozens of photography videos, and they never mention the sweet spot. Bokeh, yes, sweet spot, no. Thanks for video. Someone once said, shoot at f8, everything is great. LOL.

[doriebailey]

Nikon Handbook Series "Lenses and Lens Systems" By Cooper and Abbott Proved in depth info of the older Nikon, Descriptions, . Lens Specifications and Depth of field Charts. So many shooters and blogs push the Bokeh but there is a cost when you tilt the subject a fraction one eye is now out of focus!! Knowing and using the sweet spot is crucial. You provide so many basic elementary concepts that are key to great imagery. Keep sharing great words of wisdom.
Depth of field is very crucial when shooting wide open at 1.8 -2.8. I don't see the value of 1.4 for twice the cost.

[MrNYCman]

Interesting info! As far as bridge cameras are concerned, what would the sweet spots be for 1 inch sensor bridge cameras such as Sony RX10 III with a 2.4-4.0 lens and a Canon G3X with a 2.8-5.6 lens, especially for zoo shots? Both max out at 600mm.

[tvdtnmy]

Great info. Yup. Not much can be done (yet) w/out of focus/blurred image. We can work on noise and grain.

[elusivelens]

I shoot all primes Canon FD lenses on Canon M6ii with a speed booster [near full-frame :)], and it's be nice to do a test like that on every lens. I don't think dpreview has that tool any longer.

[CardsMan]

I'm guessing, but I suspect that diffraction really gets going at actual apertures less then 4mm. For example, with a 120mm lens shooting at f/22, the actual aperture is 120/22, a little over 5mm, so no diffraction problem. But at f/32, its 120/32, a little less than 4mm, so diffraction starts to creep in.

[Borakinyilmaz]

Thank you for this wonderful video. It helped me a lot understanding abberation and defraction. One question, is this fact also acceptable for old prime telephoto lenses?

[espenharaldsen]

Hi Joel.

Great episode on the tech issues on lenses. However, when speaking on "sweet spots" on a lens I would want something about lens to motive. The techs is simple, advice on how to use one can save you a lot of money. 

S
EVH

[DrDenham]

If you could recommend 2 lights that every photographer should have, what would they be?