Great Lens Overview by Vimeo and Vincent LaForet (Video)

by Philippe Dame on August 19th, 2011

Vimeo, the video sharing website and creative competitor to YouTube, has a great section to their site called Video Video School. Done as videos, there are many lessons to be learned in an entertaining format. The videos are either classified as “beginner” or “advanced” and cover these topics:

They’ve launched a new series with Vince LaForet, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer whose been on the cutting edge of DSLR filmmaking. He famously created Reverie, the first widely released 1080p video shot on a still camera – the Canon 5D MKII (it was viewed 2 million times in the first week). I remember it coming out, it was ground breaking and inspiring.

New Series: Behind the Glass

So back to basics, here’s the three part series released this week in which Vincent walks us through lens essentials from focal length to depth of field. Although the series is about video making, this all applies to still photography as well.

Warning: Just remember that their examples are based on a full-frame camera like the Canon 5D Mrk II. Your camera is probably APS-C (cropped sensor) so must DIVIDE any focal length by 1.6 (Canon) or 1.5 (Nikon) to see the same thing. If they show a 50mm example, then you’d need to be at 30mm to see the same thing. There may not be a 30mm lens so you can find something close like 28mm.

By the way, the viking in the demo footage is actually Vincent — pretty funny overall.

Behind the Glass Part 1: An Introduction to Lenses