G Dan Mitchell Photography

Stairs. San Jose City Hall. November 19, 2005. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.

I was wandering around downtown San Jose today, trying out my new 17-40mm Canon L lens. This is a handheld shot at the new City Hall.
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G Dan Mitchell :: Nov.19.2005 :: Photographs: Structures :: Comments Off

This week I again expanded my lens collection by acquiring the Canon 17-40mm f4 L. It should be noticably sharper than my EF-S 17-85mm lens and it has a constant aperture zoom, giving me a bit more light at the long end. (The 17-85mm is a very useful lens, combinging a good zoom range, light weight, small size, image stabilization, and decent image quality.)

I hope to get out and test it this weekend.

Now I’m contemplating how to fill the gap between the 17-40 and the 70-200 lenses. For the time being I am leaning toward the 50mm f1.4 prime which is very sharp, fairly light, and would be great for low light. In the long term I would probably like to have either the 24-70 L zoom or the new 24-105 IS L lens, but either of those will have to wait until I have more money.

Update 5/7/06: I now have had plenty of opportunities to use this lens, so there is more to write about it.

This is my most-used lens at this point. I favor wide angle photos and this covers (on my 1.6 crop factor 350 XT) a range from wide to slightly long. For a zoom lens of this range it is quite small and light.

The color and contrast quality are both excellent. The sharpness is quite good, though not as good as my very excellent Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 or Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 IS L lenses – but those are fairly stiff competition and, in general, wide angle zoom lenses will not be as sharp as primes or longer lenses. I do have to watch the focus on this lens a bit more carefully than I anticipated.

For me it is not only an excellent walking around lens, but currently my favorite landscape lens. Many of my recent Death Valley photos – including all from the Racetrack Playa – were shot with this lens.

Update 8/21/08: When I first wrote up this lens I was using in on a Canon 8MP cropped sensor body. On such a camera it performs as a wide to slightly telephoto zoom. I have since move to a full-frame camera, and it now functions as an ultra wide angle (UWA) lens. In my view this lens really comes into its own on full-frame, especially for photographers who often shoot wide at small apertures – e.g. natural and urban landscapes, architecture, and similar.

A weakness of this lens is its tendency to soft corners at large apertures. (If you shoot a lot at the largest apertures the 16-35mm f/2.8 might be a good alternative for you.) However, stopped down to f/8 – f/16 the across-the-frame performance becomes quite good. And while you wouldn’t likely shoot at such small apertures on a cropped sensor camera due to diffraction blur issues, on a full frame camera you can do so without significant problems with diffraction. In fact, the lens is quite usable even at f/22 on full frame.

Related: A post on the sharpness of this lens.

If my write-up helped you with your decision, you can purchase this product from B&H Photo via this link and help support this web site – thanks!

G Dan Mitchell :: Nov.19.2005 :: Equipment :: Comments Off

New York Times: The works on display at Paris Photo, which closes this Sunday, make a daring argument for photography as art. By Alan Riding. [NYT > Arts]

If photography began escaping the shadow of painting a century ago, decades passed before it was widely recognized as an art unto itself. Today proof of its star status can be found in a four-day international fair called Paris Photo, which closes on Sunday. Clearly, the market for art photography is booming.

(Free online subscription may be required to read the full article.)
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G Dan Mitchell :: Nov.19.2005 :: News :: Comments Off

New York Times: The works on display at Paris Photo, which closes this Sunday, make a daring argument for photography as art. By Alan Riding. [NYT > Arts]

If photography began escaping the shadow of painting a century ago, decades passed before it was widely recognized as an art unto itself. Today proof of its star status can be found in a four-day international fair called Paris Photo, which closes on Sunday. Clearly, the market for art photography is booming.

(Free online subscription may be required to read the full article.)
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G Dan Mitchell :: Nov.19.2005 :: News :: Comments Off