Dec 13

Dec 13 The Lenses Pt.6

Following on from my previous blog post, this post will be looking at the head to head i have now with 2 lenses with both giving me a different option.

This was a lens that i originally got to replace my very first zoom lens. It was a step up to the red ring l series lens which was able to be paired with a full frame camera body like the 6D that i had just purchased.

Graffiti art. Taken in shoreditch on a birght sunny, summers day.

Wedding party group shot. Using the zoom of the 24-70 this lens is very versitile when it comes to inpromptu shots like this one. I was as far back as i could go before being in a bush so needed the wideness and flexability of this lens

As shown in the images above, when shot at the 24mm end it produces really great shots. I have found as time as gone on that i do favour the wider shots and this as a coule of examples where it has come in handy.

Wollaton Hall, taken at 24mm on the 24-70mm canon F/4 IS USM lens

This lens was used throughout the summer for weddings and events and it became the lens that was constantly on the camera. My ownly gripe with it was its low light capabilities. This is something i come back to again and again but it is one of the most frustrating areas of selecting a lens. I always seem to find myelf in a dark room or an overcast day with an F/4 Lens. Now i know i could move up to the f2.8 big brother of this lens but the cost difference is crazy. i got the F/4 for £675 new. The F2.8 WAS £1600 new. This was simply a cost i could not warrent but understood that i would need to find a lens that i could get the low light capabilities from and not spend over £1200 for the privilege .

This lead me onto another change and a step towards having a lens collection that is purely fixed when i went for this bad boy:

This is by far my most expensive lens at over £1000 but it has been well worth the investment. It is a perfect lens for portraits and street photography as well as being versatile enough to use for landscapes.

as you can see from the image above the colours are just amazing with the 35mm. As i have found with all my Lseries primes the colours can not be matched.

As discussed before the low light qualities of the zoom lens just are not up to scratch and even paired with the 6D body it will pick up grain due to the high ISO required to shoot at F/4 without flash or tripod.

This image taken in York demonstrates how the 35mm can handle minimal light and produce stunning pictures.

again on the tripod, paired with the 5D mk3

I was also able to test the 35mm on a trip down to cornwall with the 10 stop B+W Mounted on my travel tripod.

All of the images above were using a shutterspeed of over 15 seconds to get the water to look the way it does. This test demonstrated to me the quality i was able to get from corner to corner with the 35mm.

So which lens will i use more?

currently the 35mm has not come off of my 5D MK3 so i guess that tells you something. but it has not been tested in the field of weddings so this is something that is going to happen in the future. But i am hoping that when in the low light situations like a church, i will get much better results than the F/4 lenses that have come before it.

Buying lenses has taught me a great deal about photography and just the research i did made me a better photographer. I do believe that the fixed focal lens is the way i will be using moving forward but the inclusion of a f2.8 70-200mm may change my mind. Money has always been a factor when selecting the lenses i have and there has always been a trade off between things like IS and a high F stop like the 1.4mm. If i could have my way and money was no object, of course i would have all my lenses at F2.8 or lower and of course it has taken time to come to this realisation but i have still enjoyed every lens i have owned and all of them have given me that moment that you always hope for when you look at the back of the camera and know the shot you just got was bang on the money.