Lynda.com photography experiences?

[MassiveEntropy]

I just got a canon T5i for christmas (much yay!  ) and I was wondering if Lynda.com had a good photography section. Anyone care to give personal experiences with it? Is it good to learn from very basics to a little more advanced? Is there an actual course setup? I've never used Lynda.com, but I visited the page a couple times and seems like there are a lot of vidoes and information on it!

 

[DeViLzzz]

When I looked at the title the first time I thought it said pornography experience.  I guess that was what was on my mind. 

[MassiveEntropy]

When I looked at the title the first time I thought it said pornography experience.  I guess that was what was on my mind.

Do they also have that there?? I mean... ahem, definitely meant photography.  :mellow:

[Flight1sim]

I just got a canon T5i for christmas (much yay!  ) and I was wondering if Lynda.com had a good photography section. Anyone care to give personal experiences with it? Is it good to learn from very basics to a little more advanced? Is there an actual course setup? I've never used Lynda.com, but I visited the page a couple times and seems like there are a lot of vidoes and information on it!

YAY me too! 

(what lens?)

Lol I also wanted to try Lynda.com for 10 days on a photography course  

[ZacDaMan72]

The best way to learn is by experience IMO, the videos will give you a few tips and tricks though.

[rmac52]

I think the best thing to do is get the basics down and just get out and shoot.  It cant hurt to try the lynda.com stuff.  But you there is no substitution for experience.

[MassiveEntropy]

YAY me too! 

(what lens?)

Lol I also wanted to try Lynda.com for 10 days on a photography course

The 18-55mm kit lens, it's my first DSLR so I gotta work my way into more and more stuff  But the Lynda.com trial is only 10 days??

 

The best way to learn is by experience IMO, the videos will give you a few tips and tricks though.

 

I think the best thing to do is get the basics down and just get out and shoot.  It cant hurt to try the lynda.com stuff.  But you there is no substitution for experience.

 

Yeah, I would agree with that, photography doesn't seem like something you can really teach. I guess I was looking for more information about all the settings, and an in-depth look at the focal lengths, and what everything means.

[Flight1sim]

The 18-55mm kit lens, it's my first DSLR so I gotta work my way into more and more stuff  But the Lynda.com trial is only 10 days??

 

Oh, nice, I got the 18-135mm

yeah only 10 days

[rmac52]

The 18-55mm kit lens, it's my first DSLR so I gotta work my way into more and more stuff  But the Lynda.com trial is only 10 days??

 

 

 

Yeah, I would agree with that, photography doesn't seem like something you can really teach. I guess I was looking for more information about all the settings, and an in-depth look at the focal lengths, and what everything means.

I don't know how good lynda.com is but if its as good as Linus makes it out to be then you should be able to learn that kind of stuff there no problem.  I would also recommend searching YouTube for tutorials on your specific camera.  Things like where the buttons are and what they do.  How to find and change things in the menus.

[MassiveEntropy]

Oh, nice, I got the 18-135mm

yeah only 10 days

How do you like the T5i? I am personally loving the interface and the feel, but kind of having issues with blurry pictures. Albeit, i'm sure the blurriness is my fault, since I tend to have a little shaky hands 

 

I don't know how good lynda.com is but if its as good as Linus makes it out to be then you should be able to learn that kind of stuff there no problem.  I would also recommend searching YouTube for tutorials on your specific camera.  Things like where the buttons are and what they do.  How to find and change things in the menus.

That is actually a pretty good idea! I've just been messing around and looking for things, and finding things I never knew existed!  B)

[LAwLz]

How do you like the T5i? I am personally loving the interface and the feel, but kind of having issues with blurry pictures. Albeit, i'm sure the blurriness is my fault, since I tend to have a little shaky hands 

If you are in a mode that allows you to change ISO and/or shutter speed then lower the shutter speed (or increase the ISO if the shutter speed is on auto) and you should get less blurry pictures. For example you can put it in S mode and then change the shutter speed to maybe 1/40. Then you shouldn't have any issues with blurry photos.

Either that or make sure the focus is correct.

 

 

I haven't used Lynda.com but doesn't Linus' code give you like a week or two of free membership? If you're on winter break right now then just sign up with his promo code and see if you like it or not.

[MassiveEntropy]

If you are in a mode that allows you to change ISO and/or shutter speed then lower the shutter speed (or increase the ISO if the shutter speed is on auto) and you should get less blurry pictures. For example you can put it in S mode and then change the shutter speed to maybe 1/40. Then you shouldn't have any issues with blurry photos.

Either that or make sure the focus is correct.

 

 

I haven't used Lynda.com but doesn't Linus' code give you like a week or two of free membership? If you're on winter break right now then just sign up with his promo code and see if you like it or not.

How would I know if my focus is off? Also, aren't higher ISO's worse for image quality? I've heard numerous things about high ISO causing noise? Still not sure what that really means, and I don't know if that "noise" is similar in effect to blurriness from shaky hands or not. I still have a lot of things to figure out... hahaha

[LAwLz]

How would I know if my focus is off? Also, aren't higher ISO's worse for image quality? I've heard numerous things about high ISO causing noise? Still not sure what that really means, and I don't know if that "noise" is similar in effect to blurriness from shaky hands or not. I still have a lot of things to figure out... hahaha

Well are they blurry as in "smeary" or blurry as in "they look out of focus"?

 

Does your picture look like the middle or the right image? If it's the middle then you just need to fix the focus. If it's like the image on the right then you need to change the shutter speed.

 

I recommend you mess around in M mode a bit, and take pictures of things that don't move around. You have to balance ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

 

ISO - How sensitive the sensor is to light. The higher the ISO, the brighter the image. The drawback is that the higher ISO you got, the more noise you will get. Usually you don't want to use anything over ~6400 because it will start looking bad. Obviously that depends on the camera but I am pretty sure 6400 is about as high as you want to go with the T5i unless you really have to go higher. Noise is the grainy, random colors you sometimes see in photos. Here is an example. The top image has very little noise, and the bottom image has some noise. You can clearly see the noise in the green part of the photo:

 

Shutter speed - How long time the sensor captures light for. The longer the shutter speed, the brighter the image will be. The drawback is that it will most likely get blurry if you use long shutter speed. If you have your camera on a tripod then go ahead and crack the shutter speed up to several seconds. If you are holding your camera in your hands then you will probably end up with smeary photos if you go above 1/30. 1/30 means that the sensor is exposed for 1/30 of a second (33 milliseconds). 1/40 would be 1/40 of a second (25 milliseconds).

In my "smeared" photo I put the exposure time to 1 second and then just gently wiggled my camera while the shot was taken. All the movements during that 1 second is shown in the image. In my good picture I had the shutter speed at something like 1/10 seconds. All the movements in that 1/10 of a second is shown in the image. The faster the image is captured, the less movement will have happened.

This also applies to your subject. If you are photographing someone that is running then you need a shorter shutter speed, otherwise it will be blurry (which might actually be a cool effect).

 

Aperture - How much light your lens allows to pass though. There is a Techquickie video about this.

Lower f number = brighter image, but less of the image is in focus.

 

 

Here is a good picture:

 

 

 

I don't know what settings you got your camera at, but what you could do is set it in "shutter speed priority" (on my camera that's called "S mode") and then all you have to worry about is the shutter speed. The ISO and aperture will automatically be set to match your shutter speed. If you reduce the shutter speed the camera will increase the aperture and ISO to compensate, and vice versa.

[Bsmith]

How would I know if my focus is off? Also, aren't higher ISO's worse for image quality? I've heard numerous things about high ISO causing noise? Still not sure what that really means, and I don't know if that "noise" is similar in effect to blurriness from shaky hands or not. I still have a lot of things to figure out... hahaha

your focus is off if your subject looks out of contrast or the focus is laid on other things then your subject and take all attention unwillingly.

high ISO amounts cause a colour noise(blue red green) at high amounts if the camera isn't really made to handle it(no compliments with the 1200D/t5i so far) so it's pretty different then shake hands, but don't worry everybody has to learn stuff.

 

I remember when i turned on my uncle's old 350D(birthday gift to me) the possibilities are nearly endless, when you want to experiment i suggest shooting in M(manual) mode, which allows you to tweak all the settings(iso, shutter speed, aperture size, flash etc) until you got a good idea for settings.

when shooting bit more serious and not really sure yet i suggest using P(program) mode with iso on automatic, this way you can only change your shutter speed and the aperture size and iso change along automatically.

avoid A+ mode whatever you do, i tried it a few times but all shots ended up blurry and way to bright, could be the lens i used, but it also prevents you form changing anything at all.

 

my best recommendation is getting a nice allround telezoom lens(20-300mm) with the white dot/square connection(ONLY use tele zoom with red connection on full frame, due to crop factor) a telezoom this size gives you enough space to practice and find out what focal length works best in what situation.

but even after that, experience is the key factor in photography, like knowing that a good lens is more important then a expensive body(lens>body)

[Bsmith]

-snip-

 

nice run through of the important stuff.

[LAwLz]

nice run through of the important stuff.

Thanks!

I am new to photography too (bought my first very own DSLR just 2 days ago, fooled around with my sister's for a few weeks before that) so feel free to correct me if I say something that is wrong.

[Bsmith]

Thanks!

I am new to photography too (bought my first very own DSLR just 2 days ago, fooled around with my sister's for a few weeks before that) so feel free to correct me if I say something that is wrong.

 

didn't find any mistakes(assuming the text not related to pictures is correct)

 

one more tip(or more) i just remember, the shutter speed should be equal to the focal length of your lens for the best image quality(theoretical) so a 300mm lens equals a shutter speed of 1/300th of a second.

 

this one is rather simple/basic:

portrait shots: 20-100mm lens(20-50mm preferd)

landscape shots: wide angle

wildlife/animal/distant: 100mm+

 

for lens type buying:

always buy lenses made for your type of mount(unless you know the effect/risk)

since a full frame 300mm canon EF-S lens(red dot) mounted on a canon 7D mark 2(ASP-H ,non full frame)

becomes a 480mm lens due to the bodies 1.6x crop factor, resulting in a bigger zoom and losing a piece of the photo.

chart with sensor sizes

 

edit:

the blue square in the picture resemble's the size of a full frame sensor compared to the other, smaller sensor.

the size of the smaller sensor is the square with grayish filling and a black border, everything between the black border and blue border are what fall away when you use a full frame lens(like canon EF-S series) on a non-fully frame DSLR like the 7D mk2, which uses a APS-H sensor IIRC

[Kereplaz]

If been asking the original question myself. I got a new dslr and was wondering if there are advanced stuff about photography on lynda.com. Ill take the 10 day trial to find out if anyone's interested a could post a analysis after couple of weeks. I would be focusing on higher level stuff though.

[MassiveEntropy]

-snip-

Just... Wow. Thank you! Probably the best beginner description I have ever read so far. All of that information is out there, just never in a single post. Bravo good sir! 

 

didn't find any mistakes(assuming the text not related to pictures is correct)

 

one more tip(or more) i just remember, the shutter speed should be equal to the focal length of your lens for the best image quality(theoretical) so a 300mm lens equals a shutter speed of 1/300th of a second.

 

this one is rather simple/basic:

portrait shots: 20-100mm lens(20-50mm preferd)

landscape shots: wide angle

wildlife/animal/distant: 100mm+

 

for lens type buying:

always buy lenses made for your type of mount(unless you know the effect/risk)

since a full frame 300mm canon EF-S lens(red dot) mounted on a canon 7D mark 2(ASP-H ,non full frame)

becomes a 480mm lens due to the bodies 1.6x crop factor, resulting in a bigger zoom and losing a piece of the photo.

chart with sensor sizes

So does the shutter speed change if lens has IS? I read somewhere that if there is IS, that you can take your max focal length divided by 3? Just curious 

 

If been asking the original question myself. I got a new dslr and was wondering if there are advanced stuff about photography on lynda.com. Ill take the 10 day trial to find out if anyone's interested a could post a analysis after couple of weeks. I would be focusing on higher level stuff though.

I would definitely love to see an analysis! Especially if you think the higher level stuff is really good, I would wait for the summer to try it and use this next school semester to just take pictures everywhere, haha

[Bsmith]

-snip-

So does the shutter speed change if lens has IS? I read somewhere that if there is IS, that you can take your max focal length divided by 3? Just curious 

 

-snip-

 

theoretically seen, yes, although it's also depends on the situation of light and movement around you it still is a factor of trail and error, where i personally find that a higher shutter speed works better most of the time(i prefer 1/4000th for trying out) although everything can work out fine.

but if you are after a specific feel of realism, depth or whatever it is better to try to keep that rule in mind, don't get me wrong IS is a very useful thing on (DSLR) lenses, especially above the 120mm focal length(or with big lenses) the effectiveness of it strongly depends on the user, device settings, surroundings etc. the numbers they give are so far i know decided in perfect situations, where everything is the way they want/need it to be, something which is nearly impossible to duplicate in real life.

 

 

If been asking the original question myself. I got a new dslr and was wondering if there are advanced stuff about photography on lynda.com. Ill take the 10 day trial to find out if anyone's interested a could post a analysis after couple of weeks. I would be focusing on higher level stuff though.

 

 

that would be nice, im quite interested in what you find out, willing to learn.