Tag Archives: telephoto

Equipment, Technique

Yet Another Reason to Like Live View – Shooting in the Wind

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I have posted in the past about some of the advantages of having a live view feature on your camera, especially for the types of photography that I do using my Canon 5DII. This past week I discovered another use, and an unexpected one at that – shooting in conditions of gusty winds.

I most often work from the tripod, and I usually use a pretty large and stable tripod in the context of shooting a full frame DSLR camera. But in some very windy conditions putting the camera on a tripod is not sufficient to stop camera motion and the consequent blur. This is especially a problem when you are shooting in low light or otherwise need to use very long exposure times, and it becomes worse when using long lenses which will catch more wind and magnify vibrations. There are a bunch of tricks that you can try in order to keep the camera steady, but in really strong winds the camera is just going to move, especially if you have a very large lens attached.

One way I try to deal with this is to time my exposures for moments when the wind may momentarily decrease. This can require a lot of patience – sometimes I’ve had to wait several minutes for a very brief halt to the gale, during which I try to make my exposure. But even in this case, you have to make sure that the camera vibration stops completely if you are using a long lens. Ultimately, you have to simply trust that the camera really has stabilized since there is no way to tell directly. Last week, as I was using live view to focus a 400mm lens on a distant subject and again noting that 400mm plus 10x software zoom in live view makes the camera very sensitive to vibration. In the past I have noted this mainly in the context of how darn hard it is to manually focus a big lens this way! But this time it occurred to me that I could use this in my favor.

With the 10x live view magnification enabled, the display is very sensitive to camera motion from the wind. I realized that by leaving the camera in the 10x magnification setup after composing the shot that I could simply watch this display, with its magnification of motion, and wait until the image stabilized during lulls in the wind to take my shots. If the display isn’t bouncing at 10x, motion blur is not going to be an issue. Problem solved. More or less.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.


Equipment, Technique

Using the Wrong Tool for the Job: Which Lens is ‘Best’?

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These are things that everyone knows about picking the right equipment for the subject, right?

Use wide angle lenses to shoot landscapes. When people ask what lens to get, I always ask them what they’ll be shooting. If they say landscape I generally recommend something wide rather than something long. Here’s an example of use of a very wide angle lens on a landscape shot:

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First Light, Banner Peak and Thousand Island Lake

Use long lenses to shoot sports. Everyone notices all of the Really Big Lenses at sporting events. I sure saw plenty of them at this week’s Amgen Tour of California bike race. Heck, I even used one myself to get shots like this one:

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Riding to the Starting Line, Prolog Time Trial, 2008 Tour of California

But wait a minute…

Sometimes the “common wisdom” can be exactly wrong, or at least it is possible to get interesting results by doing the opposite of the obvious thing. How about a landscape shot with a very long lens:

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Big Sur Fisherman, Winter Surf

And here is another bicycle racing shot, done with an ultra wide lens. (That’s Mario Cipollini banking into this turn, for the cycling fans out there.)

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The Peloton Enters San Jose – 2008 Amgen Tour of California

I’ll share one bit of technical information here. All four shots were made with two lenses. Both of the wide angle shots – landscape and cycling – were done with a 17-40mm zoom at the wide angle end. Both of the telephoto shots were done with a 100-400mm telephoto at the long end.

Just to tweak another assumption about “the right equipment,” both bicycle racing shots were done with a Canon 5D – and everyone knows that the 5D is only useful for landscapes and that you can’t shoot action subjects with it. ;-)

Equipment, Reviews, Tests

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 IS L Lens

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(Updated December 28, 2011.)

I have owned the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 IS L lens since 2006. I originally picked this lens for several reasons:

  • On my full-frame cameras,  this lens covers a very useful range from fairly wide to slightly long, making it a very flexible and versatile lens.
  • The lens is quite sharp and has good contrast throughout its focal length range.
  • For its focal length range the lens is relatively compact. This is important to me since I frequently hike or backpack with photo gear.
  • The f/4 maximum aperture is generally sufficient for the kinds of photography I do.
  • The image stabilization (IS) feature is helpful for handheld photography and somewhat compensates for the f/4 maximum aperture.

Like most lenses, this one has a “personality” that gives it particular strengths and weaknesses relative to the individual photographer’s work and working methods. My extensive experience with the lens convinces me of the following:

  • Resolution is very good when the lens is used with care. Sharpness is excellent throughout the focal length range, being best in the middle portion as expected. Sharpness can diminish a bit at the long end compared to, say, 50mm – but this is usually not a reason to switch to another lens except in those cases where I have plenty of time to do so.
  • Vignetting (corner light falloff) is certainly noticeable at f/4 and especially so at the shortest focal lengths. For most of my photography this is not an issue since I most often shoot at smaller apertures. However, I do shoot the lens at f/4 and wide angle focal lengths. In these cases a) the vignetting is actually a nice effect with some subjects, b) it can be corrected easily and pretty much automatically in post when necessary.
  • Barrel/pincushion distortion is mostly not an issue, though the lens does produce noticeable barrel distortion at 24mm. Here the situation is somewhat similar to that with vignetting. In most cases, I don’t even notice the barrel distortion in actual photographs. I do notice it in photographs that have lines parallel to and close to the edges of the frame. When necessary, I let my raw conversion software (ACR) apply an automatic correction and the image lines up nicely and still has very good resolution.
  • There is a false notion that this lens is not sharp at 24mm. This is incorrect. I think that this rumor -which is what it is – got started on internet discussion boards where people morphed the descriptions of the vignetting and barrel distortion into “poor performance at 24mm” and then further to “must not be sharp.” This is simply wrong. Sharpness is fine at 24mm.
  • Handling is great. Compared to the lens sometimes cited as an alternative, the 24-70mm f/2.8 L, this lens is more compact and a bit lighter. The lens is solidly built and the controls are accessible and easy to use.
  • Over time any lens can go out of adjustment and require service. If you use your lenses a lot, you will eventually discover this truth. In my experience, two particular issues might eventually come up with this lens. First, I notice and others have described the development of “zoom creep” after a time. The tension on the zoom mechanism seems to loosen and if you point the lens straight down it may “zoom out.” Second, although I have only my own experience to go on here, I have a slight suspicion that the lens may be a bit more susceptible to going out of adjustment with rough treatment compared to some other Canon zooms. After a few years of being banged around on the trail, mine had to go in for adjustment of a focus issue on one side of the image. After adjustment it came back working great.
  • While a f/4 zoom is generally not going to be a super bokeh lens (though there are exceptions), this lens does OK. It can produce slightly “busy” bokeh at some middle apertures. Surprisingly, it produces very nice bokeh when used with an extension tube for macro work. (In fact, for hand held photography of things like wildflowers, extension tubes attached to this lens with its IS feature can work very well.)

The dimensions of the lens are similar to, but slightly larger than, my 17-40mm lens. However, the 24-105 is noticably heavier, though not enough so to compromise its use as a walk-around lens. Speaking of which, it is regarded by many as a nearly perfect lens for this role on full-frame bodies. In fact, I’ve had great success using it for street photography!

On a 1.6 crop factor body it is less useful as a single lens solution than it is on a full frame body, since 24mm is not all that wide on this camera. (It is roughly equivalent to a 38mm lens of a full frame body which is only moderately wide.) I did use it on a cropped sensor body for about a year when I first purchased it. In practice, I found that I tended to switch back and forth between the 24-105 a wider zoom a lot. Unless you are not fond of wide angle shooting or you like to switch lenses a lot, there can be better solutions for use on cropped sensor bodies. The following are a couple of other lenses to consider if you shoot a cropped sensor body: Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens or
Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Zoom Lens. (The links go to site sponsor B&H Photo.)

My article on backpacking photography discusses how I combine the 24-105 with other lenses to produce a very viable and reasonably light backpacking kit.  In a few cases I have gotten along quite nicely on pack trips with just the 24-105 , though in most cases I combine it with the Canon 17-40mm f/4 L and/or the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L for more flexibility.

Bottom line: I’m quite happy with the EF 24-105 f/4 IS L lens. Color and contrast are great and it is very sharp for a zoom. The zoom range is excellent on a full frame body and might be useful for some shooters even on a 1.6 crop factor camera.

Related:

This lens is available from site sponsor B&H Photo, and your purchase though links at this site help support the blog. If this information was useful to you in making your decision, please consider purchase through the following link: Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS at B&H

Other gear mentioned in this article, with links to B&H:

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.

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Equipment, Reviews, Tests

Canon EF 70-200mm f4 L IS Lens

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(Updated on December 28, 2011. Some links go to site sponsor B&H Photo)

Canon makes four L zoom lenses in this 70-200mm focal length: two f4 versions and two f2.8 versions, with IS (image stabilization) versions being available for both. All four lenses are optically excellent and among the very best zoom lenses you can buy. I like to say that deciding among them on the basis of image quality is like trying to choose between four quarters and a dollar bill on the basis of value. What primarily differentiates among the four models are their functional features, and your choice should be made primarily on that basis – and perhaps cost if this is a significant factor for you. (However, there are reports that the newer Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Zoom Lens is at the head of this pack of very good lenses – but it isn’t necessarily the best choice for everyone.)

When I made my first 70-200mm purchase I chose the f/4 non-IS version – the IS version had not been released at that time. (You can purchase it from site sponsor B&H photo: Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM Lens) The f4 version I purchased set me back about $600 at the time, making this one of Canon’s least expensive entry points into the world of L lenses. The non-IS version of this lens is still a great performer. For those who might always shoot from the tripod, there might not be compelling reasons to spend more on any of the other models of this type of Canon lens.

More recently I acquired the image stabilized version of this lens. (Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM Lens) In most ways its performance is very similar to that of the non-IS version, though the aperture blades are now apparently rounded, which can alter the appearance of out of focus highlights. In fact, both of the f/4 70-200mm lenses produce very nice background blur. For my purposes, I chose the f/4 IS version because I frequently use this lens while hiking/backpacking where the advantages of smaller size and lighter weight are more significant for me than the one additional stop. My feeling is that the f/4 version if fine for the majority of shooters, and is a better choice than the f/2.8 versions for those who cart their gear on their backs! Unless you never shoot handheld, the IS version of the lens is probably worth the extra cost for most buyers, though both will produce very similar optical results.

After using the non-IS f/4 version since 2005 and the IS version for a few months, here is what I have observed.

  • Image quality from either version of this lens is completely top notch. The lenses are capable of producing very high resolution images that will stand up as the largest prints you are likely to create from DSLR originals. Performance is generally very good throughout the focal length and aperture ranges.
  • Perhaps to the surprise of some photographers, the f/4 70-200mm lenses produce very nice bokeh (background blur) wide open. Some think you need larger aperture lenses to get this or to shoot portrait subjects. In truth, you most often don’t want to shoot at a larger aperture at these long focal lengths because the depth of field is so small, and f/4 controls DOF well and gives good bokeh.
  • While a 70-200mm zoom is not a small lens, the f/4 versions make such a lens more manageable. I’ll take my f/4 lenses backpacking, but I would not want to carry the heavier and bulkier f/2.8 into the back-country.
  • The usefulness of image stabilization will vary depending upon your subjects and shooting style, but I think that it is likely enough that you’ll get value from it at some point that most photographers should probably pay the extra cost for it. The IS on this lens is very capable, providing the ability to shoot at 3-4 stops slower shutter speeds. By increasing the ISO I have been able to shoot indoor musical performances under stage lighting with the IS lens.
  • These are very useful lenses for shooting certain small nature subjects such as wildflowers and similar. Not only is the nice bokeh often useful, but the ability to work at the longer focal lengths from a slightly greater distance is helpful. There are some reports that resolution may not be optimal at 200mm and the minimum focusing distance, but I’ve had good success in that sort of shooting.
While I’m doing these comparisons, let me share some ideas about situations in which one might choose any of the Canon 70-200mm options:
  • EF 70-200mm f/4 L – This non-IS lens is a great performer in every way. Its image quality equals the other lenses with the possible exception of the f/2.8 II lens at the larger apertures, and here the difference isn’t exactly going to be “night and day.” If you are on a budget or if you shoot exclusively from the tripod this can be the very best choice.
  • EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS – For those who will do some amount of handheld shooting but who otherwise would be fine with the non-IS 70-200mm lens, this can be the best choice. Again, image quality is excellent and essentially in the same category as that of the non-IS lens. However, the addition of effective IS extends the usefulness of this lens for hand held and low light shooting. If cost isn’t a constraint, this can be a better overall choice than the non-IS f/4 lens.
  • EF 70-200mm F2.8 L – Like the other 70-200mm lenses, this is an excellent performer. Since its cost is often very close to that of the 70-200mm f/4 IS lens, it is essentially a matter of trading one additional stop of aperture for IS. For a few people the added stop might be more useful – those shooting actions subjects in low light, a very small number who might need f/2.8 but who will always shoot from the tripod.
  • EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS – This is the most expensive option among the four, for obvious reasons – it combines the f/2.8 maximum aperture with a very effective image stabilization system… and ends up costing well over $2000. If cost is not a concern and if weight and bulk are not issues, then this can be the safest choice as is has all of the feature potentially provided by the other options. Practical photographers may decide that the additional weight, bulk and cost are not worth the one additional stopped it provides by comparison to the f/4 IS model.

With a 1.6 crop factor DSLR this lens is the angle-of-view equivalent to a 110-320mm lens on a full-frame camera body. By adding a 1.4x teleconverter to this lens, it gives the equivalent of a greater than 400mm lens on cropped sensor bodies. When I shot a crop sensor body I combined this lens with the 24-105mm f/4 L IS and the 17-40mm f/4 L. For me this lens is even more useful on a full frame body.

Bottom line: All four of the Canon 70-200m lenses are excellent products that produce wonderful image quality. On that basis there is little or nothing to suggest choosing any one of them above the others. However, the difference that they do possess (maximum aperture, IS,, weight, bulk, cost) can be determining factors.

Lenses mentioned in this article include:

(Links to site sponsor B&H Photo)

Related:

G Dan Mitchell Photography
About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.

(Basic EXIF data is available by “mousing over” large images in blog posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)