I took an optics class in college and it was terrible, the professor couldn't teach his way out of a paper bag. Where were you then, FilmmakerIQ? Great video.
John, Thanks for posting/producing this video, I am a high school physics teacher and I use this video in my physics classes(both AP and college-prep). The historical background about lenses really adds to the course content and your explanations 'lens mechanics' are spot on. Currently, my AP Physics 2 students are studying lenses (geometric optics) and we plan to move on to multiple lens mirror systems. Keep up the good work, great to have someone show how the content is used and applied rather than just talk about the equations and basic ray tracing! Chris Peoples Sunny Hills High School
As always, nicely done sir. Always impressed with the content and what must be an incredible amount of research (and production) to pull these off. And congrats on 100,000+ subscribers. :)
25:27 minutes without pausing the camera! And every single word worths to be there... Thank heaven I found this youtube chanel, thank you very, very much!
This is the greatest teaching video I have seen on the internet so far and I have seen. I learned a lot and I will now start binge-watching your tutorials.
As a physicist and film/film history enthusiast, I greatly enjoy watching your videos. My favorites thus far have been this one, the history of film fakery, and the video on the stargate sequence in 2001 Space Odyssey. Keep up the fantastic work!
Who would've guessed that the best explanation of the physics behind lenses I would find would be produced by someone focused on cinematography. I watched at least 20 other physics videos about lenses and all those mooks like using rulers and markers to do their ray diagrams. Finally someone who uses some real life examples! Thank you
I realize I just showed up 8 years late here, but I have to say this was an excellent video! Your presentation is fantastic. Now I have many years of videos to catch up on. Thanks!
I have never seen such an insightful video on lenses before. This is a treasure trove of knowledge and learning. Thank God I came across this video. AMAZING..!!!
I have become a huge fan of your teaching methods over the last 48 hours. I am a aspiring filmmaker and you manage to hit all points of interest. Thank you!
(March 2023) - Your video should be required viewing for all very interested photographers. Thanks for the history, custom ray tracing, and explanations at an easy pace. Now I have a different appreciation for my SIGMA 150-600mm F5-6.3 zoom lens carefully made with 20 lens in 14 groups. It's a workhorse! Keep doing what you're doing!
Watching this video is like striking gold. I normally watch TH-cam videos at 2x speed or faster these days. I'm going to have to come back to this one when I have time to digest it properly.
You are a genius,I am a Msc physics student and I loved it,it illuminated me and gave a large picture to see. I now know what my electronics subject was trying to teach me. Thank you so much,it helped me a lot.
This is the coolest demonstration I've seen on TH-cam. If you did science videos, you'd probably be best science channel. I love the clear and easy to understand speaking style, the quality demonstrations, and the extra depth of research. I also like how you leave little mistakes in, which adds humanity. The thumbnails are also excellent branding. As soon as I see one, I instantly recognize it as an F-IQ video.
You Sr. are awesome. You pierce my pea size brain empty of photography processing knowledge, and make feel I can accomplish the two short film projects I've written, just to show myself That I'm capable. Thanks again.
Spent a number of years working in and around the chemistry of photography. The basic chemistry is straightforward but in the real world it gets very complicated. Same for lenses, the basic principles are pretty straightforward but in the real world they are confounding. Always fun to learn but it has always amazed me how these two disciplines got together to give us photography. And all that before we consider digital. Excellent presentation by the way. Thanks for posting.
Such an entertaining & informative video that reflects the research & time spent on composition that was needed to create it !!! Well done !!! It's clarity & continuity are the result of a lot of work !!! I wish so much more had been presented in this way throughout my education - the best comment I can make is that " through this presentation - I undertook more investigation & research of the subject !!! Thank you
Thank you for this. I'm not unfamiliar with optics and photography but I have been struggling to understand at an intuitive level how DOF works and your fundamental optics explanation described in both diagrams and real world made it all click into place.
Even with some of the omissions pointed out in the comments, an extremely well-made, instructive, and entertaining video. Definitely the most fun science lesson I recall in a long time. Keep 'em coming, John - you rock!
I love your series. Amazing. This was a great description of the history of lenses. However, don't forget one of the most amazing lenses, and fastest, used in Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon", the Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7. This allowed for STUNNING images using only candlight.
+David Townend I'll mention one or two curiosities here and there but I didn't want to stray too far from production lenses. But if you think the Barry Lyndon lens is cool, google the Carl Zeiss Super-Q-Gigantar 40mm f/0.33 lens ;)
We've been saving some videos up for our new site relaunch... we haven't let up producing these - just need to take care of business side of things. But the next video will be up in April and it will cover the Science of 3D renderings.
+Filmmaker IQ I should have googled that Gigantar 40 f/0.33 lens - it was a practical joke at the time :P The fastest lens on record I guess is the American Optical 81mm f/0.38 Solid Schmidt Mirror lens.
The slowly erasing text mistake on Alhazen at 2:03 is a funny quirk! Oh those funny thing we don’t notice until we publish and then TH-cam doesn’t allow for redactions or replacements... maybe my comment was a bit more about that aha! Keep up the great work! These videos are incredible for feeding the curious!
I consider myself a smart guy, hell my tested IQ proves that out. But, man, there's a lot in this, I may need to watch it again to grasp all of it. But, my interest in it and understanding it as all due to John's enthusiasm and the way he presents it. It's really incredible how he tells and teaches these things and while he can blind you with science and numbers, he can utterly capture you into it. I honestly had no idea how much went into how a lens works. I, vaguely, knew about things like F-Stops, focal lengths and so forth just from the basic stuff I've learned and self-taught, but... Man. I hadn't even scratched the surface on understanding! Bravo, John. You really are amazing at this. One thing, though.... Did you forget we're in the 21st century now? ;)
Sir, this video is fantastic! This is a Physics and History class of the top level! I will get some of your products because you deserve - and because they're cool. I would suggest you make a video (if you haven't already done) about focus and start with the pin-hole camera. I've been watching your videos and they are high quality creations!!! Thanks!
A key aspect of why lenses can project images is that at the image spot light comes almost only from the projection. Not the image surrounding, not the subject, not even the out-of-focus parts. This is why the "camera obscura" needs (and is named after) a dark room, but not a lens (a pinhole suffice). This is why your demo needs a bright subject (light bulb), since is has no dark room.
I'm rewatching your renewed video and as always you go deep and clear. But now I wish I would say something last time (in case you listen and change it) but when I explain the upside down picture I usually take a lens in a room where you could see the outside as shown from a window appear upside down. Maybe instead of a simple 2 color light bulb you could use (not sure I use the right word) a slide, like in a slide show where a colorful image will appear upside down and then it will be easier to see the focus effect
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Double Anastigmat Goerz, or DAGOR. It was developed in the late 1800s. I used one in the 1970s. Mine, which as I recall had a focal length of seven inches, was labeled “Double Anastigmat Goerz” rather than “DAGOR”, meaning it was manufactured before 1904. It was a very decent lens.
The topic of lenses usually is quite boring ... but this is a very interesting video - especially the section with the laser- and lightbulb-explanation with moving lenses! - Thumbsup! :-)
So I wonder. When you do your videos, Do you find it better better to take all your footage through different software like editing in Premiere, coloring in Davinci Resolve, take back to Premiere, then After Effects, or you prefer a single software which can do all of it like Autodesk Smoke or The Foundry Nuke? Which way is better?
+Smart Halayla Honestly I don't find Resolve all that useful now that Adobe has incorporated a lot more color tools. I don't shoot these flat anyways - there's no point - it just slows down the process. The workflow is we first select the best takes in Premiere - send them with Dynamic Link to After Effects where I do the greenscreen pass (this makes the animation easier) - send it back to Premiere for a rough cut - then everything is sent to AE again to do animation - Then it's back into Premiere to finish and add sound effects. Everything done in the Adobe ecosystem and it's very friendly. I don't know how to use Smoke or Nuke so I wouldn't consider using those platforms.
For me Adobe is basically "All in One" - I treat it as a single package even though there's about 6 or so apps I all the time. It's like wood working, if I need to drill a hole, I reach for a drill. I could use the electric screw driver, and in some cases, it's good enough. But the drill has more power. The same with Premiere and After Effects - I bounce back and forth depending on what the needs of the shot are. As far as Nuke and Smoke - People swear by them but I never used them because my workflow works fine.
Amazing Video/Documentary as always, Just one thing You read "Tommaso Da Modena" Wrong Cause Modena it's an Italian city and we read it with the accent on the "o" .Also the "e" was read as the "e" in the word "Modern" or in the word "Telescope". Just to clarify :) Anyway, Love your channel!
I took an optics class in college and it was terrible, the professor couldn't teach his way out of a paper bag. Where were you then, FilmmakerIQ? Great video.
I learned more in this video than 4 years of Science class in high school.
me too. the purposely keep any non white, (or Muslim) away from the books in terms of advances
I cannot thank you enough for spending countless hours creating these videos and sharing them for free!
John,
Thanks for posting/producing this video, I am a high school physics teacher and I use this video in my physics classes(both AP and college-prep). The historical background about lenses really adds to the course content and your explanations 'lens mechanics' are spot on. Currently, my AP Physics 2 students are studying lenses (geometric optics) and we plan to move on to multiple lens mirror systems.
Keep up the good work, great to have someone show how the content is used and applied rather than just talk about the equations and basic ray tracing!
Chris Peoples
Sunny Hills High School
As always, nicely done sir. Always impressed with the content and what must be an incredible amount of research (and production) to pull these off. And congrats on 100,000+ subscribers. :)
25:27 minutes without pausing the camera! And every single word worths to be there... Thank heaven I found this youtube chanel, thank you very, very much!
This is the greatest teaching video I have seen on the internet so far and I have seen. I learned a lot and I will now start binge-watching your tutorials.
As an electrical engineer i have to say your videos are very very very useful and love to watch.
As a physicist and film/film history enthusiast, I greatly enjoy watching your videos. My favorites thus far have been this one, the history of film fakery, and the video on the stargate sequence in 2001 Space Odyssey. Keep up the fantastic work!
Wow, just wow! That is probably the most comprehensive intro to lenses on TH-cam. Extremely instructive and eye-opening.
Well, I know quality when I see it, and both this man's presentation skills and video craft are most certainly it.
Man, I am seriously looking forward to the next video about the properties. This one was already fascinating!
Great video! Congrats on hitting 100k subs btw :)
This channel is simply awesome! As a photographer, physicist and amateur filmmaker I just love every video. I want more!!
Who would've guessed that the best explanation of the physics behind lenses I would find would be produced by someone focused on cinematography.
I watched at least 20 other physics videos about lenses and all those mooks like using rulers and markers to do their ray diagrams. Finally someone who uses some real life examples! Thank you
I realize I just showed up 8 years late here, but I have to say this was an excellent video! Your presentation is fantastic. Now I have many years of videos to catch up on. Thanks!
The video was posted 7 years ago but still teaching the students in 2022. Thank you for creating this video.
Good thing the basic science of lenses don't change ;)
Man you are freaking good at this...these videos are the best I have ever seen on the subject.
Can not Get Bored Of Repeating This ... Thanks John ...
I have never seen such an insightful video on lenses before. This is a treasure trove of knowledge and learning. Thank God I came across this video. AMAZING..!!!
I have become a huge fan of your teaching methods over the last 48 hours. I am a aspiring filmmaker and you manage to hit all points of interest. Thank you!
(March 2023) - Your video should be required viewing for all very interested photographers. Thanks for the history, custom ray tracing, and explanations at an easy pace. Now I have a different appreciation for my SIGMA 150-600mm F5-6.3 zoom lens carefully made with 20 lens in 14 groups. It's a workhorse! Keep doing what you're doing!
Watching this video is like striking gold. I normally watch TH-cam videos at 2x speed or faster these days. I'm going to have to come back to this one when I have time to digest it properly.
Thank you John Hess! For all you videos. You're an amazing teacher.
You are a genius,I am a Msc physics student and I loved it,it illuminated me and gave a large picture to see. I now know what my electronics subject was trying to teach me. Thank you so much,it helped me a lot.
This is the coolest demonstration I've seen on TH-cam. If you did science videos, you'd probably be best science channel. I love the clear and easy to understand speaking style, the quality demonstrations, and the extra depth of research. I also like how you leave little mistakes in, which adds humanity. The thumbnails are also excellent branding. As soon as I see one, I instantly recognize it as an F-IQ video.
You Sr. are awesome. You pierce my pea size brain empty of photography processing knowledge, and make feel I can accomplish the two short film projects I've written, just to show myself That I'm capable. Thanks again.
A wonderful upload, both in content and quality of production, thank you very much.
Best explanation of how a lens work I ever saw.
Spent a number of years working in and around the chemistry of photography. The basic chemistry is straightforward but in the real world it gets very complicated. Same for lenses, the basic principles are pretty straightforward but in the real world they are confounding. Always fun to learn but it has always amazed me how these two disciplines got together to give us photography. And all that before we consider digital.
Excellent presentation by the way. Thanks for posting.
Wonderful!!! I look forward to watching the rest of the series!
Congrats on 100.000 subscriptions, Very well deserved
I seriously love this channel.
Wow man what a fantastic way to explain lenses and history
Such an entertaining & informative video that reflects the research & time spent on composition that was needed to create it !!! Well done !!! It's clarity & continuity are the result of a lot of work !!! I wish so much more had been presented in this way throughout my education - the best comment I can make is that " through this presentation - I undertook more investigation & research of the subject !!! Thank you
A phenomenal amount of work for one person. Thank you for the video.
Thank you for this. I'm not unfamiliar with optics and photography but I have been struggling to understand at an intuitive level how DOF works and your fundamental optics explanation described in both diagrams and real world made it all click into place.
Seriously, great work with these comprehensive and clear videos. Keep it up!
Very straight forward and informative documentary. Just got yourself a new subscriber.
Lovely work! Your demonstration of the principles of geometric optics and the evolution of lens design is really great. Thanks you.
Even with some of the omissions pointed out in the comments, an extremely well-made, instructive, and entertaining video. Definitely the most fun science lesson I recall in a long time. Keep 'em coming, John - you rock!
This video is absolutely incredible! Thank you so much!
I love your series. Amazing. This was a great description of the history of lenses. However, don't forget one of the most amazing lenses, and fastest, used in Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon", the Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7. This allowed for STUNNING images using only candlight.
+David Townend I'll mention one or two curiosities here and there but I didn't want to stray too far from production lenses. But if you think the Barry Lyndon lens is cool, google the Carl Zeiss Super-Q-Gigantar 40mm f/0.33 lens ;)
I shall. Thanks for the feedback, and I love your series. When is the next one to be shown?
We've been saving some videos up for our new site relaunch... we haven't let up producing these - just need to take care of business side of things. But the next video will be up in April and it will cover the Science of 3D renderings.
+Filmmaker IQ I should have googled that Gigantar 40 f/0.33 lens - it was a practical joke at the time :P
The fastest lens on record I guess is the American Optical 81mm f/0.38 Solid Schmidt Mirror lens.
If my physics teacher was half as good as you were, I'd have enjoyed the class a whole lot more. Thank you Hess.
Absolutely fascinating. Loved it. Let's have more stuff like this please.
You are the BEST teacher!
Ngl, this channel should be a series on tv
I got so much info out of this - and it was demonstrated in a way I could understand. really helpful!
Fantastic video, I can only imagine how much research you go through to make these videos.
Wow man, that was amazing story. Can't imagine amount of effort to put it all together. Well done and thank you for doing this. Cheers.
I will definitely keep watching the videos
amazing tutor, amazing voice over
The slowly erasing text mistake on Alhazen at 2:03 is a funny quirk! Oh those funny thing we don’t notice until we publish and then TH-cam doesn’t allow for redactions or replacements... maybe my comment was a bit more about that aha! Keep up the great work! These videos are incredible for feeding the curious!
Excellent explanation, thanks for this lesson.
I consider myself a smart guy, hell my tested IQ proves that out. But, man, there's a lot in this, I may need to watch it again to grasp all of it. But, my interest in it and understanding it as all due to John's enthusiasm and the way he presents it. It's really incredible how he tells and teaches these things and while he can blind you with science and numbers, he can utterly capture you into it. I honestly had no idea how much went into how a lens works.
I, vaguely, knew about things like F-Stops, focal lengths and so forth just from the basic stuff I've learned and self-taught, but... Man. I hadn't even scratched the surface on understanding!
Bravo, John. You really are amazing at this.
One thing, though.... Did you forget we're in the 21st century now? ;)
+Brian Straight Being smart dosnt mean you can instantly undersant complicated concepts.Also IQ tests are BS.
You guys have so e great technical(non-) explainations. I was really into my Random House encyclopedia when I was younger.
You're a really good teacher!!
sir...! you and your experiments are so awesome
Thanks for this free class. You are the best!
Can you please add chapters? Thanks, awesome video with obviously thorough and reliable information
Sir, this video is fantastic! This is a Physics and History class of the top level! I will get some of your products because you deserve - and because they're cool.
I would suggest you make a video (if you haven't already done) about focus and start with the pin-hole camera. I've been watching your videos and they are high quality creations!!! Thanks!
I've done quite a few on focus actually :)
Once again, very impressive.
very good info thankyou for making these videos obviously tons of time and research was put into it
Brilliant!!! Can't wait for the next installment.
John P. Hess, TH-cam was a blessing for you, and you are a bless for TH-cam.
This channel is amazing. There´s a lot of interesting and cool stuff. Keep it up!
This is great. Thanks for putting it together!
I learn in this channel more than 6 years in my school life
Wow soo good. Crazy the amount of time you put in these videos!
I liked the way that you explained and showed us how zoom lenses worked.
as always, never fails to amuse me. can you guys make a topic about the story of distributing companies especially universal and paramount.
A key aspect of why lenses can project images is that at the image spot light comes almost only from the projection. Not the image surrounding, not the subject, not even the out-of-focus parts.
This is why the "camera obscura" needs (and is named after) a dark room, but not a lens (a pinhole suffice).
This is why your demo needs a bright subject (light bulb), since is has no dark room.
fantastic once again!
Great video, as always!
Holy moly your channel is growing fast!
I'm rewatching your renewed video and as always you go deep and clear. But now I wish I would say something last time (in case you listen and change it) but when I explain the upside down picture I usually take a lens in a room where you could see the outside as shown from a window appear upside down. Maybe instead of a simple 2 color light bulb you could use (not sure I use the right word) a slide, like in a slide show where a colorful image will appear upside down and then it will be easier to see the focus effect
Thanks again and again!!!
Thanks so much for this. Excellent video.
I am enlightened, thank you.
This channel is just great and awesome :)
A interesting tangent in the history of optics is presented in the documentary "Tim's Vermeer". Somehow this video reminded me about that documentary.
Super video. Thanks so much for making it.
Excellent video, thank you for always putting out great quality content!
very good video of the history of optics
What a great video. Thank you so much :)
The lenses in a microscope works perfectly and I like to listen how these glass lenses evolved👏👏!
truly wonderful video thanks
Brilliant video!
this video is awesome! lol today I had an exam about this (and more) in film school
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Double Anastigmat Goerz, or DAGOR. It was developed in the late 1800s. I used one in the 1970s. Mine, which as I recall had a focal length of seven inches, was labeled “Double Anastigmat Goerz” rather than “DAGOR”, meaning it was manufactured before 1904. It was a very decent lens.
Cant wait for the next one.
The topic of lenses usually is quite boring ... but this is a very interesting video - especially the section with the laser- and lightbulb-explanation with moving lenses! - Thumbsup! :-)
So I wonder. When you do your videos, Do you find it better better to take all your footage through different software like editing in Premiere, coloring in Davinci Resolve, take back to Premiere, then After Effects, or you prefer a single software which can do all of it like Autodesk Smoke or The Foundry Nuke? Which way is better?
+Smart Halayla Honestly I don't find Resolve all that useful now that Adobe has incorporated a lot more color tools. I don't shoot these flat anyways - there's no point - it just slows down the process.
The workflow is we first select the best takes in Premiere - send them with Dynamic Link to After Effects where I do the greenscreen pass (this makes the animation easier) - send it back to Premiere for a rough cut - then everything is sent to AE again to do animation - Then it's back into Premiere to finish and add sound effects. Everything done in the Adobe ecosystem and it's very friendly.
I don't know how to use Smoke or Nuke so I wouldn't consider using those platforms.
+Filmmaker IQ
Thanks. So there is no "All In One" software which can do editing coloring, composting and other things as well?
For me Adobe is basically "All in One" - I treat it as a single package even though there's about 6 or so apps I all the time.
It's like wood working, if I need to drill a hole, I reach for a drill. I could use the electric screw driver, and in some cases, it's good enough. But the drill has more power.
The same with Premiere and After Effects - I bounce back and forth depending on what the needs of the shot are.
As far as Nuke and Smoke - People swear by them but I never used them because my workflow works fine.
+Filmmaker IQ
Got it. Thanks.
What an amazing video!!!!!
Excellent! Thanks for this great explanation of lenses.
Thank u sir.
Master look intimate basics n fundamentals of lens.
ok, mind blown, I dig the laser demos. 17 years as a photog and still learning.
Good stuff! Nicely done!
Amazing Video/Documentary as always, Just one thing You read "Tommaso Da Modena" Wrong Cause Modena it's an Italian city and we read it with the accent on the "o" .Also the "e" was read as the "e" in the word "Modern" or in the word "Telescope". Just to clarify :) Anyway, Love your channel!
Yet another first class teaching video - I fear you may have missed your true vocation :-)