6 Essential Camera Skills | Infinity Focus | Sensor Sizes | Depth of Field & More

[@hawkwut]

I wish you all the best and thank you for doing this amazing work for us for free.

[@tremaincheerful4189]

Marcus' description and illustration of focal length provides a deeper understanding of one's ability to control composition in any scene. Brilliant.

[@UncleJaxx]

Perfect for someone like me who likes to review the fundamentals occasionally. All of your essential camera skills videos fall into this category, so having them all in one place is really handy. Well done.

[@chrisjames1924]

Wow, hideous distortion on that Canon 12mm! No wonder the Fuji 8-16mm cost so much! Really looking forward to a return of this channel. Quality of content is second to none.

[@ПавелПанин-ф2н]

Best technical photography show ever. Thanks a lot. This episode worth tens of hours of personal research!

[@PhotographyOnline]

Thanks very much.

[@ducgerard2361]

Marcus is a great teacher! Probably the best channel in Europe! And with the subtitles I can improve my english because I m french! Nobody is perfect...

[@markmurray5276]

I have only recently found your channel and find it to be excellent. Great content and informative. Thank you… keep up the good work. Regards 👍

[@PhotographyOnline]

Welcome to our content Mark. New show out this Sunday at 4pm UK time!

[@h.o.j2375]

Thank you for this informative video, as a photography newbie this is exactly what I was looking for.

[@boblee2094]

Really enjoyed👍👍👍

[@vladimirlozanski4863]

Just... golden episode!

[@martinmuldoon603]

This is a very educational episode, I will have to watch it again to take more info in. I think I've understood quite a bit but it will take more time.

[@andysweeny63]

Deja vu !.......... sure i have seen this one before

[@troporobo]

Another great show! I like the compilation as an occasional reminder, please keep doing them.

[@stevengraham7252]

Great show and good ideas to bring all the key aspects of photography together in a bit of a one stop shop

[@TVe200]

So much very good and important information.

[@alisonfairley5444]

Really useful to go through all this again - thanks so much guys

[@harry4323]

Great to see a bunch of photographic topics which are very well laid out and show in a manner anyone can understand. Another great vid.

[@barnaclewatcher4060]

Outstanding show! Highly informative, thank you!

[@neilcole3406]

You guys are a wealth of good information, thanks!

[@joncothranphotography9375]

Wow! Great review of the inner workings of photography! Thanks so much!

[@Tony-Larzzo]

Great Video !😊

[@davedoohan2732]

Handy reminders having this best of compilation. Marcus did a fine job explaining perspective, worth this second viewing. (as was depth of field)

[@maxmayer6009]

Awesome show guys! Love the best of episodes. Keep them coming!!!!

[@andyv6127]

Great refresher. Thanks

[@peters1526]

Hello, dear team of Photography Online! I have now discovered this channel and subscribed immediately. Photographing for a few decades and knowing all these things, but I have never seen such a good summary of these important and fundamental topics as in this video! It is very suitable for beginners, and those like me can refresh their knowledge. And of course I thank Ruth for her calm and professional moderation - and in any case this "media face" with her beautiful smile does NOT belong only in Radio.... ;-) Best regards Peter from Germany

[@sanketnawle]

Ruth Taylor should be called Cute Taylor ♥️ Great show!

[@yuepuning5307]

Very useful. Thanks a lot

[@PhotographyOnline]

Glad it was helpful!

[@andycoleman2708]

This was perfect! Very good information and practical for most skill levels.

[@madfinntech]

Holy moly this video answered questions I didn't know to ask and then some.

[@johnlindseyphotography1704]

Very good video.

[@molitor76]

Really great show with extremely useful tutorials - as always. I hope you can ramp up your subscribers fast, people otherwise miss out on fantastic, really useful content. All the best from Munich!

[@peterboazman7735]

Nice compilation of useful info.

[@ChrisCollick]

Thanks for putting this together....especially for us who always could use some learning reinforcement in the photography world. Cheers from Jefferson, Georgia.

[@tjmanou6422]

Mark rocks. as simple as that really.

[@Photosbytw]

I seem to remember viewing this video a year or to ago.........one does not forget your daughter.......😊☺

[@user-ik9gw4wh4c]

Love my TS-E 17 and 24 mm lenses.

[@cguerrieri4866]

Great essential skill review (as always)

[@jwransomphotography6785]

Hi Marcus, I watched this episode with great interest and I agree on almost everything you said. The one thing I'm still a little hazy on is the focal length and compression thing. Let me explain. When you took the first shot at 1 meter with the 24mm from your daughter, the building in the background was very small, as would be expected at that FL. Then you moved two meters away from your daughter and used a 50mm, which made the building twice as big whilst keeping you daughter the same size in frame, as would be expected, the same with the 100mm and the 200mm. The point I'm making is that the same would have happened to the building even if your daughter was not in the shot to begin with. So your distance to whatever subject seems to be irrelavant because the magnification of a lens is independent of a subject. Now if you have a subject you want to keep a decent size in frame at high magnification i.e your daughter, then it's obvious that you will have to move back from that subject at higher magnifications but it's not the distance you go back that makes far things more magnified it's just the focal length. Am I missing something here? Sorry for being such a numpty lol. I've never used the term "compression" I've always used magnification. I love the show and I think you and the team are great educators and I wish you the very best in 2024.

[@PhotographyOnline]

Hi. Thanks for your question. Where the confusion is happening is between “compressions” and “magnification”. The former is influenced only by altering your distance to subject. The latter is influenced by both distance to subject and focal length (or indeed, sensor size). If you only have a single subject (no foreground and no background - for example a wall) then you can’t change the compression of the scene because there is nothing to compress (it’s already flat). However, you can still make it larger or smaller by either changing focal length or distance to subject. If you have two (or more) subjects at different distances then by moving the camera closer or further from the closest subject (in fact all of them) will change the perspective (compression). If you simply stand in one place (distance to subject is fixed) then by changing the focal length all you will do is alter the magnification of all subjects equally. So for example, if I had stood 4m from my daughter and used a 50mm lens, but then changed to a 100mm lens without moving, both my daughter and the church will double in size (so the perspective stays exactly the same). However, if I now double my distance to my daughter to 8m and still use the 100mm lens, she becomes half the size (because I’ve doubled my distance to her but kept the same magnification), so she’s now the same size as when I was using a 50mm lens from only 4m. Because I haven’t doubled my distance to the church (let’s say my daughter is 100m from it - I have changed my distance from 104m to 108m, so hardly any change) this hasn’t been affected to the same degree as my daughter has, but the change in focal length has affected them equally. So by doubling the distance and the focal length to my daughter, she remains the same size, but because I haven’t doubled my distance to the church but have doubled the focal length. It effectively becomes twice the size. Does this help?

[@jwransomphotography6785]

​@@PhotographyOnline Hi Marcus, thanks for the amazingly speedy reply. I did not expect that, especially at that time of night! Ahhh right, now I see the cause of my ignorance. It would appear that we agree on most that I said. The only difference I can see is how we use the terminology. Maybe I should start using the term compression instead of magnification when talking about a subject, ("relative" to some background in the distance), staying the same size in frame at any given focal length because I have to change my distance too the subject to allow for the FL. So it seems to me that FL and distance to subject are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. You can't have one without the other if you want to keep your subject the same size in frame. As you rightly say, if you double the distance to the subject you have to double the FL to keep the subject the same size which in turn makes the background twice the size in frame. It makes a lot more sense now. Thank you for taking the time out to reply. Just one more thing. When you was talking about dof and being able to get the same focus front to back by using a large aperture, Matt Granger showed the same thing about 9 years ago. It still falls on deaf ears, lol.

[@bobtaylor364]

Great episode today, pulling together a group of topics into one show worked well, thank you.

[@26BloodKiller]

I've watched every episode 😋😊

[@cuisineundercover]

Awesome show as always folks. Ive really enjoyed the refresher on all those topics so thank you. Meanwhile... is no one gonna mentioned the vandalised car? 😱😱😱

[@keithpinn152]

Hi everyone at Photography Online: This was a great video that laced all the important aspects of focus, DoF and Sensor Size impact into one congruent learning opportunity. Well done. Keep well . . . Keith (Canada)

[@mickeystine3100]

Love these videos 👍👍👍

[@dazedandconfused698]

Really useful video, thank you. May be a daft question..........using the simple way to estimate start of infinity, if using a crop sensor should I use the actual focal length or 35mm equivalent focal length? Thanks

[@PhotographyOnline]

Hi. You just need to use the actual focal length as this is what determines where infinity starts. The size of the sensor simply crops the image - it doesn’t change anything else (such as depth of field or magnification - which many people think it does). Hope this helps

[@dazedandconfused698]

@@PhotographyOnline Thank you. I thought as much, but wanted to be sure.

[@key2adventure]

Isn’t the ability to focus beyond infinity also to enable infrared photography, where lightwaves in this spectrum behave slightly different?

[@PhotographyOnline]

No. For IR you would focus slightly closer, not further away.

[@RohannvanRensburg]

Great points on FL vs distance. The sentiment is "practically" true (given that it's assumed the photo will be framed the same) but not technically true. Something that IS true however is that FL combined with aperture and distance *does* change the DoF. The 12mm photo had the same depth of field for subject and background where as the high FL shot obviously had a great deal of separation. As such I don't think stating distance really matters, unless we're also cropping severely and shooting a narrow aperture, because for all practical purposes a 300mm shot will never look like a 12mm shot. Edit: Given the linear distance relationship with DoF it's an interesting perspective and I may yet change my mind on this.

[@PhotographyOnline]

Hi Rohann. Thanks for your comments but you are mistaken about your depth of field theory. Depth of field increases by a factor of 2 (ie - it doubles twice) if you double the distance to the subject. If you then double the focal length, depth of field reduces by a factor of 2. So the two changes cancel each other out. Also, what part about the FL vs distance isn’t “technically” true? Thanks for watching and we look forward to hearing your theory. All the best and happy new year.

[@RohannvanRensburg]

@@PhotographyOnline Oh I wouldn't call it a theory at this point, that's a bit generous. Let's go with "loose hypothesis". I was mostly observing that the extreme crop of your 12mm shot seemed to be at "infinity" in terms of focal point, but with the 200mm comparative shot there was an obviously much-shorter DoF. Perhaps this only applies when one is comparing vs infinite focus? Or was it more because the focus was slightly past the subject in the 12mm shot (obviously nearly impossible to nail it from that far away at 12mm)? I have yet to experiment and compare, and am reluctant to argue against physics, just trying to wrap my head around it. And I meant it the opposite way around -- the idea that FL compresses the background is "practically" true but not technically true (as you folks elegantly demonstrated), in that using a longer focal length to get a similarly framed photo does result in background compression, but because of distance and not FL. There are also some wider shots that are practically impossible with longer FL's due to positioning. Fantastic segment though, I'm honestly not sure why I hadn't encountered this previously! Cheers, and thanks for continuing to output these fantastic episodes!

[@rrblint]

Great compilation! Seen them before but it never hurts to see them again. Marcus is a pretty good snooker player. Care to play a game for £20 Marcus?

[@theoptimisticskeptic]

At 13:30 did he really just say, changing our aperture doesn't mean more of our scene is in focus but less of it is out of focus? Uh, what?

[@PhotographyOnline]

@@theoptimisticskeptic - no, that’s not what he said. Please listen properly before falsely quoting people. What he was explaining is that changing your aperture doesn’t make more of the scene in focus. It simply makes the out of focus areas less out of focus.

[@serkan4241]

First he said it doesn't at 10:30 then he said it does at 16:50 . Confusing people .

[@PhotographyOnline]

@@serkan4241 you seem to be confused because you’re confusing focus with depth of field. These two things are not the same,

[@edsassler]

So many things that people often get wrong - focal length and perspective is just one example. There is a similar misconception in studio lighting. The rules are pretty simple, the larger or closet the light source the softer the light. To create a hard light you could make the source smaller or move it further away. In countless cases people confuse focused light with hard light, so they’ll add a parabolic reflector of a fresnel lens, which just increases the size of the source…

[@thompentax2985]

PHOTOGRAPHY ONLINE: I got a question for you on sensor size. If I have a micro 4/3 sensor at 20 megapixels and I have a full size sensor at 80 megapixels under low light / bright light would I get the same results because the pixels would be about the same size on both formats using the same ISO?

[@karlgunterwunsch1950]

You still capture 4 times the light on the full frame camera - thus the individual pixel may be of similar quality, in terms of the full image captured you will have less noise visible at whatever size you show your image.

[@yukonchris]

@@karlgunterwunsch1950 You would have to show this mathematically. I suspect that with equivalent lenses, each sensor site would receive precisely the same number of photons under identical shooting conditions. I mean, if you took equivalent lenses, one 35mm format, and one four-thirds format, and glued them to a light meter at the same aperture settings, the light meter would not show four times the exposure from the 35mm format lens. The light would register at the same value.

[@karlgunterwunsch1950]

@@yukonchris There is simple maths involved - on constant area size the amount of light photons captured will be equal (pixel peeping) but the area of the 35mm sensor is 4 times as large as the 4/3rds sensor - thus the absolute amount of photons will be 4 times as large. When you look at the individual pixels of the 4/3rds sensor you still will be looking at a group of 4 pixels from the FF sensor if you captured the same subject.

[@yukonchris]

@@karlgunterwunsch1950 In a practical sense, however, if the sensors are roughly equal in terms of wiring efficiency, then it's the electrical resolution of each pixel site that, cumulatively, results in the quality of the image. As per the original poster, the pixel pitch will be the same in the case he has suggested so the resolution of each site will be identical. Each pixel will receive exactly the same amount of light, and have exactly the same ability to collect photons with exactly the same maximum capacity. So far so good. The only place where this differs, and where your extra light is going, is to additional pixels on the 35mm sensor which fall outside the four-thirds imaging area. So in absolute terms, there is indeed four times the light falling on the 35mm format sensor, but it is completely irrelevant to the imaging ability of each individual pixel. It only comes into play when you consider the enlargement of the image for display, and that is calculated geometrically by the outside dimensions of the finished piece. Will you see a difference? It would depend on how far you want to push the enlargement, and there would be diminishing returns because compared to an 11"x17" print, both sensor sizes are tiny. So, in most cases, the answer is no. If you are doing massive enlargements, perhaps, but then you might want to shoot 8"x10" negatives to start with. For, the sorts of prints you're going to frame and mount on the walls of a home, there is probably no discernable difference between those two small sensors. This comes from personal experience by the way. I maintain both a 35mm format system (30 MP Canon EOS R), and a m43rds system (16 MP E-M1) I occasionally print at 8x10, 11x14, 17x20. It's just about impossible to see quality differences. Finally, while in total terms, you are receiving more light on the 35mm sensor, the cost you will pay come in the form of larger glass elements to cover that area. Making larger elements is more difficult and more expensive. Unless you are willing to fork out a lot of cash, you may see a small drop in optical efficiency, and image quality overall. So, the argument becomes really academic. There are always tradeoffs. The question is whether they result in real world discernable and significant differences. As raw processing algorithms improve, I'd argue that even tiny sensors on phones, which are just a fraction of the area of either of the formats we've discussed, may be able to produce results that are indistinguishable from what we're doing with our current sensors. Ultimately, if you can make images you like, it doesn't matter.

[@PhotographyOnline]

Hi Thom. Yes you would get a very similar result in terms of noise (assuming all other aspects such as sensor type and processors are identical) but you would end up with more noise in the final print due to having to enlarge the MFT image to a greater degree. As I mentioned in the feature, the only real advantage to having a smaller sensor is to be able to reduce the bulk and weight (and therefore - price). For some people, this is a priority, but if image quality is your priority, then the larger the sensor, the better the output (assuming all aspects are equal). Hope this helps. (Marcus)

[@karlgunterwunsch1950]

As I already commented on the original video regarding depth of field, the main common misconception is that in macro photography you are better off with a shorter lens - which is untrue. In macro photography the same physical laws are in play, so if you ever shoot at 1:1 magnification there is no difference between the DOF of a shot at 50mm f/11 or 150mm f/11 - as long as the magnification stays the same. What is changing rendering of the background (as now the change in perspective because of the different distance comes into play). So don't let anyone tell you that a 150mm macro lens will give you less DOF than a 20mm macro lens as long as the subject size in the frame is the same... In short, you could exchange the combination of distance and focal length with one single value: magnification.

[@lefturn99]

A good photograph is knowing where to stand. Ansel Adams

[@africansinclair]

Just here after watching Flatzoid use your focal length demonstrion to prove that earth curve is only visual.

[@PhotographyOnline]

🤣

[@PhotographyOnline]

We’re just happy that we’ve helped to prove beyond all doubt that the world is in fact flat. Thank god the truth is now out there!