Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 L IS: First Thoughts

July 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

(This article has been slightly updated since it was originally posted i 2014.)

Canon has released a new ultra-wide zoom lens, the Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 L IS lens.* There has been a lot of excitement about this lens among Canon photographers since it addresses some weaknesses in previous Canon lenses of this type, including the EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II and the venerable EF 17-40mm f/4 L. Each of those can produce fine photographs, but each also has its issues, mostly related to corner resolution. Early tests of the new 16-35mm f/4 L IS suggest that it performs much better in the corners. (In the first months following introduction, there were some issues with corner performance on some copies, but those have been addressed.) The lens also adds “IS” (image-stabiliztion), which is useful if you use it for handheld photography.

With this in mind, I did something I rarely do, and I purchased a newly-released lens right when it came out. Mine arrived last week, but I did not have a good opportunity to put it to real photography use until several days later when I took it out for a morning of redwood forest photography at the Muir Woods National Monument. (I did snap a few promising handheld shots right after I unpacked it, but such things rarely tell the whole story.) I did something else that is a bit unusual for me — I stuck the ultra-wide zoom on the camera at Muir Woods and shot with only that lens instead of the longer focal lengths that I more typically use.

Corner performance has been one of the main issues with the older Canon ultra-wide zoom lenses. The 17-40mm f/4 is known for soft corners at the largest apertures. It is always sharp in the center, but I most often shot mine stopped down, often at f/16 for landscape photography when maximizing depth of field. At smaller apertures the corners improve a lot, but they are never as good as what we see on more recent lenses with short focal lengths. Canon’s f/2.8 16-35 L II starts out fairly well at f/2.8 — in fact, its performance at f/2.8 is arguably its chief virtue compared the previous f/2.8 version — but performance stopped down isn’t any better than that of the less expensive 17-40. The promise of the new 16-35 f/4 lens, and the assessment in many early articles about it, is that it offers significantly better corner performance. Many who used early copies reported that it provides good resolution all the way into the corners, even wide open at f/4 and at all focal lengths. So I wanted to try it out in real-world shooting of the sort I’m most likely to do with such a lens, and see how it stacks up against my 17-40 lens on my full frame camera.

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Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Ocean View Trail

July 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Ocean View Trail traverses a grove of young trees, Muir Woods National Monument

First let me get a few preliminaries out of the way. Despite the title of this photograph, there I no “ocean view” here, and despite hiking a good distance up this trail I never saw one — perhaps due to the fog but also to never getting high enough above the valley or out of the trees. Second, and perhaps of more interest to some who use Canon equipment, I had a chance to work with the new Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 L IS lens for the first time on this shoot. I’ll have more to say about that in a separate post, since I know that quite a few folks are interested in this lens. All I’ll say on that technical subject here is that I was not disappointed! (Link goes to site sponsor B&H Photography.)

The conditions on this morning were those of a typical San Francisco summer day — in other words, it was foggy! There are, at least from my point of view, significant advantages to this. It can be quite warm in Northern California this time of year, especially if you get away from the coast, so the cool coastal fog is almost always a welcome relief. The fog also softens the light, and when shooting in a forest like this one that is often quite important — brighter sunlight can send light beams to the forest floor that make for very wide dynamic range and a harsh effect. And, not insignificantly, the fog means that this photographer doesn’t have to get up quite so early to have this wonderful, soft light. This trail branches off from the very popular (absurdly popular at the wrong times on the wrong days) main trail up the valley of Redwood Creek, with its easy access to the redwood trees. The Ocean View trail climbs, steeply at times, at first through redwoods and then at times through more open vegetation. In this section all of the trees appear to be very young and packed together closely. I liked the patterns of their dense trunks and also the slight glow of light on the trail.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Elephant Seal Family

July 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Baby elephant seal and its mother, Piedras Blancas

I spent some time photographing at the elephant seal rookery at Piedras Blancas, California at the end of January, but I let the image files sit for a few months before going back and looking at them with fresh eyes. The rookery at Piedras Blancas is special for several reasons. Not that long ago the elephant seal popular was terribly depleted on the west coast, but they have made a tremendous come-back in recent years, and now the Piedras Blancas rookery is one of the places where these huge animals are easy to see. During the breeding/birthing season they haul out on this beach (and many others that are less accessible) that is right off of the Pacific Coast Highway, making it very easy to observe them.

At times the beach is literally covered with these creatures — the huge males, the smaller breeding females, and the newborn babies. The sound is amazing, and I doubt that I can offer any real description in words. You have to hear it. The big males make guttural sounds that seem almost mechanical. The babies howl and whine. Most of the time they lie almost still on the sand, but every so often something sets them off and pairs will engage in mutually threatening behavior, especially some of the males who are apparently trying to establish dominance. The little scene in the photograph belies all of that action, as an elephant seal pup rests next to its mother’s curving body.

Ideas

Going Out, Slowly

July 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 10 Comments

My photography can sometimes come in waves. At certain times of the year I may be out photographing frequently and almost constantly working on recent photographs in between the photography excursions. At other times of the year life intervenes and/or the weather doesn’t cooperate. I’ve been somewhat in the latter state for the past couple of months. I’ve still been doing a fair amount of photography, but teaching work and other distractions have also required more of my focus.

In the last few days I had an experience that reminded me of how important it is to connect to my subjects on a deeper level, and which made me feel that I was beginning to move back into that photographer state once again. It was nothing profound — simply a morning walking a different trail than the one I usually take at Muir Woods. A brief encounter with another hiker got me thinking about this way of seeing and engaging the landscape.

I saw him coming up the trail as I was stopped to make a photograph, with camera and tripod set up and a pack of other gear on my back. He was traveling light, with only a very small pack, and moving quickly. As he went by he asked, “How much does that weigh? Eight or ten pounds?” That caught me slightly by surprise, since I hadn’t really considered the weight of everything — it weight what it weights! (It is probably more like 20 pounds.) I mumbled something about “perhaps a little more,” and then thought to ask, “And you?” He mentioned that he had a very small point and shoot style camera only, and that he didn’t want to be burdened by the extra weight. I replied that I had gone through a phase like that too, at one point, so I understood where he was coming from. Continue reading Going Out, Slowly →

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 L IS: First Thoughts

Ocean View Trail

Elephant Seal Family

Going Out, Slowly

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.