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Jan. 25, 2001 - Bill Cooper
01:00:22
The Lens
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of the world.
Thank you.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
You're listening to the Hour of the Time.
I'm William Cooper.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen you're listening to the hour of the time I'm William Cooper
tonight is the second in our series on photography so uh I'm going to sort of briefly recap last
Thursday's just to uh little intro to the recap Ha ha ha ha.
Just so that, you know, you haven't forgotten what we talked about.
It took me a whole hour just to say this.
And really, you know, it's the crux of the whole thing.
A camera is nothing but a box.
It's just a box that is light-tight in which film can be contained, or is contained, or must be contained.
There's no point in having a light-tight box.
And it holds the film flat against a film plane that is absolutely perpendicular to the focal length of the lens.
A camera has to have a method of letting light in and to be able to determine how much light comes in and for how long it's allowed to come in and shine upon the film.
That's all a camera is.
It's a light tight box with a film plane that holds film flat against the film plane and exactly perpendicular to the line of light coming in through the lens.
It has a shutter that determines how long light is allowed to fall upon the film and there's an aperture either attached to the camera in the camera or as an integral part of the lens that determines how much light is going to be allowed to come in.
That's it, folks.
Every camera, I don't care what it is, is exactly what I just told you.
That is its basic, uh, that is a camera in its most basic form.
That's exactly what it is.
Okay?
So if you had a pinhole camera that just had a piece of film in the back and with a light tight box with a little pinhole stuck in the front, that meets all those requirements.
Okay?
All you have to do is cover up the pinhole.
The pinhole is the aperture.
The size of the pinhole is the aperture that determines how much light's going to come through.
Your finger, if you're covering up the hole with your finger, is the shutter.
So when you take your finger off the pinhole, and you time how long it's off, and then you put it back on the pinhole, that's what the shutter does.
Determines how long the light is allowed to pass through the aperture and fall upon the film.
So a camera doesn't have to be fancy.
All cameras Fit that exact description.
I don't care if it's the most expensive Hasselblad medium format system.
I don't care if it's a huge 8x10 large format Bellows studio camera.
I don't care if it's a 35mm camera.
I don't care if it's that little piece of plastic junk that most people have that's an automatic thing that you don't have to do anything except aim and click the shutter.
They're all exactly The same, they all meet that specification.
What makes cameras different is a whole lot of things added to that formula that allows you to make decisions and to have very, very precise and sometimes even infinitesimal control over the size of the aperture, the length of time the shutter is open before it closes, And how to determine the proper exposure.
Most modern cameras have a light meter integral to the system, some way.
And we're going to cover all of these things as we go along.
But we talked about a camera last Thursday.
And I gave you the basic description of every camera that exists in the entire world.
And it doesn't matter what camera you ever look at, if you understand those basic principles about a camera, Then you know how every camera in the world works already.
Okay?
Now there's something else that has to be added to a camera to make sure that you have sharp, focused, fantastic quality in your photograph with good contrast.
And that's called a lens.
You've got to have a lens.
Now I'm going to tell you right off the bat Aside from all the other things that are wrong with a lot of these modern, inexpensive, automatic cameras, most of the lenses are cheap, junk, plastic.
Consisting of one or two, or at the most, maybe three elements.
Unless you're going to buy an expensive automatic camera and then you get into, you know, high priced articles that approach the professional quality.
So, but most people don't have those.
And you don't need to spend all that money to get one.
We offer one on the hot shop.
It's called the Canon Canonette QL17 or 17 QL G3.
And it's one of the best cameras ever made that has arguably one of the best lenses that Canon has ever made in its history and competes, and I mean competes, right alongside the Leica lenses.
It's a fantastic little camera.
So you don't have to pay tons of money to get a real good camera.
And that's not the only one out there that's available.
There's other good cameras available.
But most people are buying little automatic cameras that are junk, folks.
I'm telling you.
And you better listen to me.
If you want really beautiful photographs that you can be proud of, that will last a long time, and every time you take them out, you'll just have this sense of wonder at how you made that photograph.
Remember, you have to get into the line of thinking that you make photographs, you don't take snapshots.
And if you've got an automatic camera and you just put up your eye and you snap the button, you're taking snapshots.
And snapshots very seldom ever, if ever, look good.
The lens on a camera can mean the difference Between what you see in National Geographic or in some of the better magazines that have, like Arizona Highways, for instance.
When you see those photographs, you say, my God, I wish I could take photographs like that.
Well, you can, if you have a good camera with a good lens.
And that's the secret.
Even if you can't compose a picture and never understood how to do it in your whole life, if you can figure out a proper exposure, And you've got a good camera and a good lens, you, too, can produce photographs that look exactly like those that you've seen in National Geographic, in Arizona Highways, in Life Magazine, and you know, a lot of other things.
Some of those big, expensive coffee table books that you open it up and you look at the photo and you say, Oh, wow!
It blows me away, man!
And you know, some of them are pictures of exact scenes that you've taken on vacation.
You've been there.
You've stood in that spot with your little cheapy snapshot camera.
You took the same picture.
What's the difference?
Well, folks, the difference is number one, in knowing how to choose film, which you're going to learn in our photography series, but not tonight, that you have a good camera that can give you a proper exposure.
and that you have a real super top-notch lens because the lens in you know if you take everything else and put it together the lens is going to make most of the difference in the world aside from a proper exposure as you don't make a proper exposure the lens doesn't matter what kind of lens you've got on your on your camera.
You're going to learn how to do that a little bit later.
We've talked about it.
We've touched on it.
But you're going to learn how to do it exactly so that you always make good exposures.
And let me tell you what a lens is so that you're not... I hope you've all got pen and paper and you're ready to write.
I hope you've got your camera with you so you can sort of look at your camera because as I talk about these things You're going to want to look at something.
You're going to want to see what I'm talking about.
If you have a camera in your hands, then sometimes you'll be able to do that, sometimes you won't.
It depends on the camera.
But it's better at least to have one in your hands so you at least know what part of the camera I'm talking about.
The lens is that little thing on the front with the glass in it.
Unless you've got a cheapy auto camera, then it's got plastic in it.
Just like you can tell a good camera by looking at it or holding it in your hands, you can tell a good lens by looking at it or holding it in your hands.
You can't tell the best lenses that way.
The best lenses, you have to go by results.
And the best way is to try them or read the reviews of professionals who have used them in the past.
But no matter how expensive, folks, and you don't have to, it's like shortwave radio.
You can buy a $5,000 radio, or a $200 radio, and in shortwave radio listening, it's the antenna that counts.
So, if you've got a $200 radio, that's a good radio, and you've got an excellent antenna, you'll be listening to this broadcast much better than somebody with a $5,000 radio who hasn't, you know, that's just got a little antenna, a telescopic antenna, you know, like most people have.
So, that's what a lens is to a camera, besides the photographer.
No matter how expensive, now listen to me carefully, no matter how expensive or technically advanced your camera might be, it is still nothing but a light-tight box designed to hold the film, and it's really the lens, along with the creative vision of the photographer, That makes the image.
Remember I talked a little bit last Thursday about being able to see photographically.
Being able to see the finished photograph in your mind's eye before you even take the picture.
Being able to see things coming together so that you have that camera to your eye and you're ready to snap that shutter the moment that all of the different elements come together to make a perfect photograph.
And if they won't, many photographers will create those elements and make them come together using models or asking people in the area if they would serve as models for him or her.
Lots of people like to do that, especially if they think they might see their photograph in a magazine someday.
So, it doesn't matter how much money you spent or how technically advanced your camera is, It's still basically a light-type box designed to hold the film and control how much light comes in for a certain period of time.
It's really the lens that makes the image, along with the, of course, the vision of the photographer.
While a few photographers have produced a body of exceptional works with a single lens, Most photographers would probably tell you that they at least need several lenses.
The 50mm lens is what we call the standard lens because if you close one eye, the 50mm
lens is what you would...it shows you the same scene covered by the same angle or the
same number of degrees that the human can see with one eye closed and the other one
open.
Bye.
That's a 50 millimeter lens.
It has about the same scope of vision that one human eye is capable or not capable of but usually does have.
So And that's the lens that normally comes with most cameras when you buy them.
Now these little cheapy automatic things you get today usually have a 35 or 40 millimeter lens somewhere around there.
But anywhere from about 45 to 55 is what's called a normal or standard lens.
Okay folks?
And that's what you're going to get on your camera usually when you purchase a camera unless you tell them that you don't want that lens.
If you have the capability to change lenses, you can have that lens taken off and another one put on so that you can purchase the one that you want.
Most people today would choose some sort of a zoom lens, but we'll talk about that later too.
One of the advantages of modern cameras are their ability to accept a whole array of different optics or different lenses.
Gosh, I remember not too many years ago when the fisheye lens first came out and it made a big splash for a little while and then everybody forgot about it because it really has very limited use but it opened up the realm of extreme wide-angle lenses that never existed before.
In fact, most wide-angle lenses that were any wider than like 28 or 24 millimeters produced such terrible distortion in the image That unless you were doing it for some kind of special effects or novelty photography, they really weren't good for much else.
But today, they're producing these extreme wide-angle lenses, even down almost to the fisheye level, and I'm going to tell you what that is in just a minute, that produce absolutely no distortion whatsoever as long as the lens is held parallel to the lines in the scene that you're going to photograph.
In other words, they don't create the distortion that you used to see in these wide-angle lenses.
They're beautiful, fantastic instruments.
Here's what a fisheye is.
Anything up to and including 15 millimeters.
From zero, which does not exist.
In fact, the widest angle lens that I think I've ever seen, that I personally have ever seen, has been a 7mm lens.
That's way too wide for anything that I would ever use.
But anything from zero to and including 15mm is called a fisheye.
Fisheyes, even as good as they're making lenses today, still will produce distortion in horizontal and vertical lines.
Now, here's where they made these tremendous improvements.
Anything over 15mm today, if it's a good lens, made by a good lens manufacturer, will not have that distortion.
They're called rectilinear.
They're called rectilinear lenses.
Now, if you put the lens at a weird angle to a line that you're photographing, then you may get some distortion, but you can see that through the viewfinder.
And so you position your lens looking through the viewfinder in a manner that you don't have any distortion.
And there won't be any.
But you'll have this incredible vista.
For instance, you could sit in the front seat of a car, in the center of the front seat, turn around and photograph every single person in the back seat, including the sides of the back seat, and have absolutely no distortion whatsoever.
They're incredible.
So 16mm, 17mm, 18mm, 19mm, 20mm.
They have created lenses that are called rectilinear lenses that use special glass, rare earth glass.
Nikon calls theirs ED glass and aspherical glass.
Canon calls theirs the L series.
etc.
Everybody's got their own name for it, but if you read the literature, you'll find out what it is.
And if it doesn't say it's a rectilinear lens, then don't buy a wide-angle lens that won't tell you that.
Okay?
Telephoto lenses are lenses that magnify.
In other words, they bring the scene closer.
And while a wide-angle lens will take in broad vistas and sweeping Uh, areas, and you can take a picture of a whole room just by standing in one corner and not leave anything out except yourself.
Uh, they're incredible lenses.
And they push things away.
For instance, you could be standing in front of a huge building, but when you look through the viewfinder through an extreme wide angle lens, it's going to look like that building's quite a ways away from you.
And you're going to see things on the side of the building and right in front of you, right down in front of your feet.
It'll be photographing the road, even.
So, they're incredible things.
And telescopic lenses magnify.
They bring things closer instead of pushing them away.
They bring them closer and make them bigger.
And they compress the elements of a scene.
Telescopic lenses will compress elements of a scene.
For instance, you can be standing on a, oh, Let's say it's a promenade, where people walk.
And along this promenade are benches, and each bench is spaced, they say, 25 feet apart.
Now, if you took a picture with a wide-angle lens, you'd see the spacing between these benches, and you would see that this promenade stretches way, way, way, way down there.
It'd probably make it look longer than what it really is.
If you used a normal lens, it would look like the normal perspective that the human eye would see.
A standard lens, anywhere from like 45mm to 55mm.
If you use a telescopic lens, say a 300mm lens, that gives you a lot of compression, a lot of magnification, and brings all of the elements in the scene closer to you, you take the same picture, it looks like those benches are placed end to end, touching each other.
So, if you want to create a sense of space, use a wide angle lens.
If you want people to see what it would normally look like with the human eye, you would use a standard lens.
If you wanted to compress the scene, to bring it together and crowd things up and make things look busier than what it is, make it look like there's more people in the crowd than maybe what there really is in the crowd, you would use a telephoto lens.
Okay?
Now I'm just telling you some of these things so you get a sense of what I'm talking about when I'm talking about a certain A certain type of lens.
Now, when I say 16mm or 55mm or 300mm, I'm talking about the focal length of the lens.
In other words, lens gathers light.
And the purpose of the lens is to focus the light as sharply with the least amount of aberration or distortion Our chroma errors and chroma errors or color errors are things like that.
And focus them exactly on this film plane so that you have sharpness from edge to edge, from side to side, and from top to bottom equally across the photograph.
So that everything is in that photograph focused to the very best ability of modern optics.
Now, nothing is able to do that perfectly.
We all, I'm sure, understand that technology is not perfect, but it comes to the point where sometimes it gets better than what the human eye can tell.
And the best lenses are like that.
The human eye couldn't tell if it made an error.
Okay?
So, that's what a Lens does.
Somewhere in this lens there is a point where the light brought in from the front crosses from side to side at a perfect point in the lens and for instance the light entering the top of the lens in the front will pass through some point in that lens and then actually end up on the bottom of the film plane.
The light that comes in from the bottom of the front of the lens will pass through that same point and end up on the top of the film plane.
And other light rays, all in between those two points and from side to side, they all pass through that same point.
That is where, from that point to the film plane, the focal length of the lens is measured.
And it's measured in millimeters or centimeters.
You may see some older lenses measured in centimeters, but all modern lenses are measured in millimeters.
So that determines the focal length of the lens.
The measurement from that point to the film is the focal length of the lens.
The smaller the focal length, the wider the angle of the lens.
And the more of the scenic area will be included in that photograph.
The longer the focal length of the lens, the less of the area that you're looking at will be included, and everything will be magnified and brought up closer and bigger on the film.
It's like looking through binoculars.
And, you know, binoculars have the same thing.
They'll have a focal length.
You'll see 7 by 50 millimeters.
And things like that.
Seven is the... Well, we won't go into that.
We're not talking about binoculars tonight and I don't want to confuse you.
So, it's good to be able to change lenses because different lenses are used for different purposes.
So, I'm going to discuss the concepts In terms of 35mm systems.
35mm, when I talk about a 35mm camera, I'm talking about the size of the image on the film.
Okay?
In other words, the size of the image on the film that's produced by that camera is called 35mm.
And you purchase 35mm film to use with your 35mm camera.
your film to use with your 35mm camera.
So lens is composed of multiple elements of optics glass.
The glass has to be optic quality.
The better optic quality the glass is, the better the image that you're going to produce
on your photographs.
Now you'll have different elements within the lens that will be either concave and convex.
And they're designed to focus light rays exactly on a common point, the film.
This is the purpose of the lens.
In order to produce an image that you will perceive as sharp, and I mean sharp, I mean if you've never really seen a real sharp photograph, get an issue of National Geographic, or Arizona Highways, or some really top quality magazine that has super photography printed in it.
On good paper with good printing.
Okay?
And take a look at those.
It's better to look at the photograph.
If you ever get a chance, go to a photo gallery and sometime when they're having an Ansel Adams exhibition or some of the other famous photographers and go look at their prints.
And you'll begin to see what I'm talking about.
If you've ever seen a perfectly exposed Print, taken with a good camera, utilizing one of the best lenses available.
You'll never forget it in your whole life.
You just will not forget it.
That's why some of the images in National Geographic will just knock you down.
They're incredible photographs.
And they're beautiful.
And that's because these photographers that took those photographs are using the right equipment.
They have the right knowledge.
They know how to make the proper exposure for what they're trying to convey.
To whoever's going to be reading that article in the magazine.
And they're using the best lenses.
The best lenses that money can buy.
But you can get lenses that will take pictures just as sharp without spending that kind of money.
Okay?
One of those lenses is for sale right now.
It's a part of the camera that we're selling off in the hot shop.
A lens, folks, in order to perceive an image that you're going to perceive as sharp,
and photographers like to say that lens is sharp as a tack.
Boy, when they tell you that, they're saying they wouldn't sell you that lens for nothing.
That's a prize to a good photographer.
When they say that, that's the highest praise that they can give to any lens.
Sharp as a tack.
To be able to do that, a lens must have high resolving power.
That's an ability to clearly define intricate detail and good contrast.
That means a well-defined distinction between light and dark areas.
And most lenses can't do that.
And I'm absolutely Positively going to tell you right now that most of the cameras that you have, that you're taking pictures with every day, can't even come close to it in your wildest dreams.
The lens controls the amount of light that will strike the film, and that's true with most modern lenses because the aperture, the diaphragm, which determines the size of the aperture, which is the hole, that determines how much light will be allowed to enter the camera.
Today, in most modern cameras, it's in the lens.
It's an integral part of and a function of the lens.
So, in modern lenses, the lens controls the amount of light that will strike the film.
By changing the setting of the diaphragm to increase or decrease the size of the aperture.
Remember the aperture is the hole.
The diaphragm is the mechanism by which you change the size of the hole.
And it depends on the size of the aperture in the diaphragm mechanism within the barrel of the lens as to how much light you're going to allow through that lens to fall upon the film.
The range of apparent sharpness within a scene is called depth of field.
Now the depth of field, folks, is how much of the scene you're photographing in front of and behind the subject that you focused the lens upon will be in focus.
And that depends upon the size of the aperture.
So the aperture doesn't just allow a certain amount of light to enter the camera it also determines the depth of field in the scene that you're going to photograph and you will see that in your picture.
Now you've all seen pictures in magazines or articles or in the newspaper where or even on television I've seen them do it with television cameras where A person is in perfect focus but everything in front of the person is out of focus and everything behind the person is out of focus.
And that's a trick photographers use to draw attention to one single thing within a scene so that your eye doesn't wander.
Everything that's out of focus your eye is going to refuse to look at and your eye will be drawn to that element in that photograph that is in focus.
So, you control that with the aperture.
Now, there's a little bit more to it because the focal length of the lens also has something
to do with it, but we're not going to get into that because you'll be able to tell just
by changing the aperture.
Sometimes you have to stop down the lens, but you can actually see the depth of the field, the focal field in the scene that you're going to photograph before you ever push the shutter button to take the picture.
The exact point, folks, of maximum sharpness, such as the eye in a portrait.
For instance, when you take a portrait of somebody, don't focus on their face.
Don't focus on their nose.
Don't focus on their ears.
Always, when you're taking a picture of a person, always focus on their eyes.
If the eyes are in sharp focus, remember the eyes are the mirror to the soul?
The eyes tell the story of a person.
The eyes are the most important thing in any portrait of any person, even if the eyes are closed.
And if you never learn anything else, you're going to take better pictures of people if you just remember this.
Always focus on the eyes of a person when you're going to take their portrait.
It is so very important.
The exact point of maximum sharpness.
The perfect focus in the photograph, such as the eye in a portrait, is controlled by the photographer, who uses the focusing ring on the lens to set focus.
An autofocus camera system can be set to focus automatically, but you don't really know exactly what it's focusing on.
Unless you have a real fine instrument.
Like a Canon EOS-1V or a Nikon F5 or a Nikon F100, something like that.
Those cameras are capable of autofocus and, in fact, are the best in the world.
The size of the subject in the frame is controlled by the lens, at least to some extent.
You can control the size of the subject without moving simply by changing lenses.
If a person is nervous because you're right in their face with a 50mm lens or a 35mm lens trying to take their portrait, in the first place, a 35mm lens is the wrong lens to take a portrait with, and so is 55mm, because it distorts the facial and physical features of the subject.
Okay?
So you would want to use a medium telephoto lens, anywhere from 85mm to 135mm.
With about 105mm being the very best for taking portraits of people.
Because it makes them look natural.
It does not distort their physical features.
And since it's a medium telephoto, it does not compress their features in any amount that will make them look weird and unusual.
In fact, it's very flattering, to tell you the truth.
Anywhere from 85mm to 135mm, that's the portrait lens range.
Okay?
And you can stand back from a subject and move in or out in order to determine the size of your subject in the frame without being right in their face with lenses that are included in that series of focal lengths that I just gave you.
You can control it by the lens and you can make the subject larger in the frame by getting closer to it.
But some lenses are intended to magnify very distant subjects so they will appear much larger on the film.
Others, macro lenses, are designed to permit extremely close focusing for very high magnification
when you're taking photographs of things real close up that are very small, such as flowers
or coins or stamps in your stamp collection for insurance purposes or whatever, whatever
the reason that you're doing it.
Or if you're on an excursion in the Amazon jungle for National Geographic magazines and
you're taking pictures of the most incredible insects upon the face of the earth, most of
which have never been discovered or catalogued and nobody even knows the name of them, you
can make yourself famous with a macro lens and a camera.
And some photographers, as we all know, have done it.
If you set up your camera in one spot, the amount of the scene, folks, now listen to me very carefully.
If you set your camera in one place, the amount of the scene before you that's going to be included in the photograph is going to depend upon the focal length of the lens.
Okay?
Now there's some instances where you know that you can't get closer to the thing you want to photograph.
And there's some things that you want to photograph that you know you can't get farther away from.
Because of physical limitations.
Because of limitations such as rules in a zoo, for instance.
You're at a wedding, you know, and they don't want to hear all this clicking, clacking, and flashes going off and stuff during the ceremony.
That's where a rangefinder comes in real neat and a telephoto lens.
Sometimes I've seen better photographs taken by some of the people sitting out in the wedding party in the audience attending a wedding with a little camera like the one we have in the hot shop right now than the photographs that were produced by the professional photographer who was hired and paid a lot of money to take the photograph.
And I'm sure you've seen some of those too.
So, if you're in one spot and you can't move, you can't move!
If you wanted to get back farther from the subject and you couldn't, all you need to do is put on a wide angle lens and that will do the same thing as if you had moved way back.
Or if you need to get closer to the subject, but you can't move closer, use a telephoto lens.
That will bring you as close as you want to get for as much as you can afford to buy The lens.
Some telephoto lens when you get up to the higher focal lengths are very, very expensive for good lenses.
You can buy any kind of lens, any size of lens you want for cheap money.
Folks, there's lots of them out there.
Be very careful when you do that because nine times out of ten, unless you're buying a used lens that is really a good sharp lens, you're going to get stung.
Okay?
They're cheap for a reason.
To make a real good quality lens, it takes a lot of work, a lot of technology, a lot of experimentation, a lot of, you know, a lot of money, a lot of dedication, a lot of tooling.
I mean, it's very competitive out there.
So nobody charges a thousand dollars for a lens if they don't have to, believe me.
In the 35mm format, the 45-55mm lens is considered normal.
Anywhere between that lens.
Other people will say it's 50-55mm.
Some people will say it's 48-53mm.
Listen to me, folks.
Very carefully.
Anywhere between 45-55mm, you can consider to be a normal or standard lens.
And if you don't believe me, look through the viewfinder, and then take your You know, your eye off the viewfinder, close one eye and see if you're not seeing just about the same scene.
Okay?
With any of those, any lens in that 10 degree spectrum that I just gave you, from 45 to 55, you'll find that that's about equal to what you see with one eye closed.
In the 35 millimeter format, which is what we're talking about tonight, the normal lens is anywhere between 45 and 55 millimeters.
It offers the angle of view of about 45 degrees, and that's about the same as that of one eye with the other eye closed, except in extreme close-ups.
It produces images with a look or perspective that is very natural, without distortion, and it looks like what you see when you walk around every day.
That's why we call it a standard or normal lens.
The scene that's produced in a photograph that you take with a normal or standard lens
looks very much the way you remember seeing it.
Bye.
Before zoom lens got popular, most cameras were sold with a 50mm lens and they still try to do that today.
Some photographers still use one.
Since it's lightweight, affordable, very useful in low light situations because you can get very fast single focal length lenses where it's very hard to do that with a zoom lens.
Because zoom lens by their very nature have less quality than a single focal length lens.
And when you try to build other things into it like be able to open the diaphragm really wide to let a lot of
light in so that you have what we call a fast lens, then you lose even more quality.
Now here's one thing that you might want to remember.
If you can afford to buy several different single focal length lenses, it's much better than having a zoom lens that might cover all of those same focal lengths.
Simply because the quality of the photograph will be much better if it's taken with a good single focal length lens than it ever will be if taken with a zoom lens.
I don't care how much you paid for the zoom lens.
There isn't a zoom lens made anywhere that's been able to equal the quality of the best and the really good single focal length lenses.
The advantage of using a zoom lens is you have a wide angle, the telephoto, and the normal range all in one lens.
There are some lenses that go from 28 millimeters all the way up to 200 millimeters.
Now also remember this, the greater the range of the zoom in focal lengths, the less quality that lens is going to produce.
The less you pay for the lens, the less quality it's going to produce, and the faster the lens, which means The bigger the aperture it's capable of creating to allow more light in, the less quality the lens is going to produce.
And I'm talking about zoom lenses.
Okay?
So.
That's a lot that we've covered tonight.
I mean it really is.
I can go on.
We can talk about perspective and we can really get into what wide angle lenses and telephoto lenses are capable of doing and all their characteristics and all kinds of things.
We can get more into depth of field and we're going to do that and I'm not going to cover that tonight because we're going to get more into depth of field when we talk again about aperture and about shutter speed.
Because shutter speed does more, just like the aperture has more of an effect on the photograph than just allowing a certain amount of light to pass through, so does the shutter speed.
It does more than just timing the length of time that the light is allowed to pass through the aperture.
Okay?
For instance, the shutter speed, you can either make a moving object look blurry to create the sense of motion, or you can stop it dead in its tracks and make it look... You can make a Grand Prix racer look like it's parked on the racetrack.
With the shutter speed dial.
And there's reasons that you would want some blur in your picture, and there's reasons that you wouldn't.
But it has to be determined by you, not the camera.
That's what's wrong with an automatic camera.
Okay, now before I open the phones, we're going to talk a lot more about all of this stuff.
And if you're confused right now, I'm going to open the phones and you can ask questions.
I'll be happy to try to answer them if I can.
And believe me, sometimes somebody asks me a question that I'm supposed to know that I can't answer.
So like I said, I will try to answer your questions when I open the phones.
But here's one reason why you don't want to buy these little cheapy plastic You know, they look really nice, but they're plastic.
They're cheap.
You can't control the shutter speed.
You can't control the aperture.
The lenses are junk.
They're plastic.
You couldn't produce a good photograph with these things if you wanted to.
For people who like snapshots and want a reasonable facsimile of what their children look like on film, I guess they're okay.
But for somebody like me that really appreciates and loves photography, I wouldn't have one in a million years.
If it was the only camera on earth, I'd go make one.
I'd go make a good one.
Because I know what a camera is.
I know how to do it.
And believe me, it's not all that hard.
I know people who make their own cameras.
That's their particular niche in the hobby of photography.
I know people who make just pinhole cameras.
And they do just pinhole photography.
I know people who grind and make their own lenses.
And some of the lenses that they make are better than anything that anybody's ever made.
Because it's their hobby.
And they have the time to work on it.
And they love it.
They love doing it.
Okay?
So, aside from those things, another reason that an automatic camera is absolutely something that you should not have is because most of the time you're taking pictures, you're taking pictures with a very slow shutter speed.
And that's why a lot of your pictures look blurry.
A little out of focus.
They're just not sharp.
And sometimes that's just a sign of a junk lens and sometimes it's because you're not able to even use what quality the lens is capable of producing because you can't hold the camera still enough because the automatic function in the camera is telling it to use 1 15th of a second to take the picture.
Okay?
One way to get around that is use a faster film speed and we'll talk about that on another night.
Right now let's open the phones and if I said anything tonight that confuses you, Now's the time to call and ask your question, and I'll be happy to try to clear it up for you.
520-333-4578 is the number, and good evening, you're on the air.
Good evening, Bob.
This is Ed from Connecticut.
How are you doing?
Good.
Okay.
Hey, uh, I like the three important points that, uh, at least two important points you broke up.
Uh, they're always focus on the I and, uh, oh, the R-T. I've forgotten now.
Take a deep breath and you'll remember.
Yeah, I hope I remember.
You sound a little nervous.
Anyway, don't forget to recommend to your people that wherever possible they shoot with a tripod.
That will get rid of the last thing that you were talking about, the blurs.
And sometimes it's The blur you'd have to distinguish by looking at it with magnified glass, but it still blurs the picture.
Yeah, and if you set it beside a picture that's perfectly focused, taken with a good lens, at either a high shutter speed or on a tripod, you can tell the difference instantly.
That's for sure.
That's for sure.
And the other thing I forgot, what I was thinking of, is try to see what Imagine in your mind what that picture is going to look like on a flat piece of paper before you take the picture.
Every artist that ever was any damn good at all, whether it's a photographer, or a painter, or a sculptor, can see the finished product in his mind before he ever sets his mind to the work.
That's correct.
That's what distinguishes a photographer from a snapshotter.
You got it.
You got it.
And one other thing.
I was able to pick you up last night.
It was a very good program.
You have to be able to visualize what it is that you want that photograph to say and convey
to the viewer before you ever snap the shutter.
Yep.
And one other thing.
I was able to pick you up last night.
It was a very good program.
I'm sorry I haven't been able to pick you up for the first three days of the week, so
that's why I didn't call in for Wednesday night's program.
Well, it's a joy to be able to pick you up.
I'm sorry I haven't been able to pick you up for the first three days of the week, so
that's why I didn't call in for Wednesday night's program.
Well, it's a joy to be able to pick you up.
I'm sorry I haven't been able to pick you up for the first three days of the week, so
that's why I didn't call in for Wednesday night's program.
Well, it's a joy to be able to pick you up for the first three days of the week, so that's
why I didn't call in for Wednesday night's program.
Well, it's a joy to be able to pick you up for the first three days of the week, so that's
Well, that's okay.
Catch you later, guys!
Alright, thanks for calling.
Cheers!
520-333-4578.
We'll talk about, on another night, about tripods, and film speed, and shutter speed, and what you need to do to make sure that... See, everybody's... You may not realize it, but you're never holding anything still.
You're breathing.
The blood is pumping through your veins.
Most people's hands may shake just a little bit, imperceptibly.
You may not even see it.
So, at slow shutter speeds, let me tell you something right now.
Don't, try not to take your photographs at any shutter speed lower than 1 60th of a second.
And unfortunately, most of these automatic cameras, half the time you're taking pictures, you're way below that.
Why they set them up that way, I don't know.
But they do.
520-333-4578 is the number.
If you have a question on anything that we've discussed tonight, if I lost you, if I got you confused, give me a call right now and tell me what confused you or where you got lost and I'll try to explain it so that you can understand it.
Or at least clear up any confusion that you may have.
And if you're like the last caller, maybe you've got a couple of tips of your own.
Remember, this is Fun Night.
I enjoy photography.
I know a lot of you do, too.
So, it's for having fun and learning at the same time.
And we're going to have a photography section on the website, folks.
And, you know, a lot of you have been asking me about where I live and stuff like that.
Well, for the last couple of days, there's been a couple of photographs that I took, one from the back porch and one from the front yard.
And the front yard photograph is up there right now.
So you can see that it's been snowing here.
And that's the, you know, I wasn't trying to be artistic or anything, just show you what the view is from the back porch and from the front yard.
So if you go to the website, williamcooper.net, you can see it right now.
You can see the view from my front yard on our website right this moment on the webpage.
Williamcooper.com.
Well, it doesn't look like anybody's got any questions, so I must have explained it absolutely perfectly, and I didn't confuse anybody, and nobody has any questions, and everybody understands exactly what a camera is, and exactly what a lens is, and exactly what wide angles and telephotos are, and normal lenses are, and all that kind of stuff, right?
Good evening, you're on the air.
How you doing?
Mr. Cooper, Robert from Tennessee.
Hi, Robert.
Uh, fine.
I'm doing fine.
I got, uh, one question.
Uh, I was given a Minolta camera from my brother.
Uh-huh.
35 millimeter.
Yeah.
And, you know, uh, I'm a novice there.
But, you know, I use it one night to take pictures there.
And, you know, uh, my pictures came out, you know, I know my problem was I did not have enough light because it came out dark there.
Uh-huh.
But, you know, uh, I'm not, you know, with the air stuff, I don't, how do you determine What's enough light there?
How do I determine what would give me enough light to get the proper exposure?
If you have experience as a photographer, you will learn to be able to see the scene and you know if you've got enough light or not for the film, with the film speed that you have in your camera.
And you can do things to adjust that and still be able to use that film by pushing the film.
But we're not going to get into that right now because it's a little complicated.
But what you need to do is either get a faster film, which means a higher film speed.
What was the film speed you were using when you took those photographs?
I forgot, it's been about a year ago since I took the picture, but I haven't, you know, the picture came out so bad I never picked up the camera again.
Well, that's a common problem with a lot of people.
They don't understand the relation of light to the film speed.
The only other thing that I can tell you, do you normally buy like 200 ASA film or 100 ASA film or 400 ASA film?
What do you normally buy?
Probably 400, something like that.
Okay, if you were using 400 and that wasn't fast enough, then the next time try using an 800 or 1600.
Okay.
And buy that kind of film.
But just remember that the higher the ASA of the film, the less you can blow it up.
In other words, you couldn't blow it up real big.
If you took a picture with 1600 ASA film, probably the biggest you could blow it up would be like 8x10, which is big enough for most people.
The only other thing I can tell you besides increasing the film speed is pushing the film speed, and we're going to have a special broadcast on that sometime in the future, so don't worry about that right now, or get yourself a real good TTL flash that is meant to go with your camera.
Don't ever go out and buy You know, third-party flashes.
You know, if you have a Minolta camera, buy the Minolta flash that Minolta made to work on your camera.
Okay, so you shouldn't have a different make on a separate camera?
No, and I'll tell you why.
They say that they're compatible and that, you know, they're cheaper sometimes, but I'll tell you what, on these modern electronic cameras, you can actually ruin the camera if you put the wrong Uh, accessory on that camera that wasn't made by the manufacturer.
You can destroy the electronics in the camera.
Okay.
And you don't want to do that.
Okay, uh, fine.
Great.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Good show.
Thank you for calling.
Thank you.
Well, that's it, folks.
We're out of time.
How about that?
So, uh, here we go.
Good night.
God bless each and every single one of you.
Good night, Andy, Kuhn, Allison.
Hey, we'll see you all on Monday night.
and I'm going to be doing a lot of work on this. So I'm going
to be doing a lot of work on this. So I'm going to be doing a lot of work on this. So I'm
going to be doing a lot of work on this. So I'm going to be doing a lot of work on
this. So I'm going to be doing a lot of work on this.
You've been listening to the Hour of the Calling with William Cooper.
That's me, folks.
The most dangerous radio host in America.
And if you were listening carefully tonight, now you know why.
You'd be absolutely amazed at some of the photographs that we have that we're not supposed to have.
And you know, you can help us out by listening to this photography series, getting a good camera, and acting as reporters for Veritas News Service in the hour of the time.
No money.
Say hi, folks.
I'm going to be honest.
Back and forward and the saddle on the horse.
That is said to be dedicated and is such a funny meter.
To the roaring is the beater how they run.
Quite near the pelican because the western folks all know.
He's a high-polluting rootin' cootin' son-of-a-gun from Arizona, ragtime cowboy Joe.
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