I had a 16-35L II for a few short weeks before I decided to get something else again. I loved 16mm and all but f/2.8 wasn’t enough at times therefore I had to give up the flexibility of a zoom for a fast prime. Hence, enter the Canon 24mm f/1.4L; it sucks in 4 times more light than my previous Canon 16-35mm!
Here are some sample shots. All taken at f/1.4 to maximize the use of this lens.
(Note: I had to use a 6-stop ND filter outside to reduce the amount of light coming into the lens because the shutter is already maxed out at 1/8000 of a sec when shooting at 1.4 in a bright sunlight)
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM with B+W 82mm UV Haze Slim MRC 010M Filter and the new iPad 32GB
As some of you know, I had a Sigma AF 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 HSM DG II for a little while. I loved the fact that it was SUPER wide but I ended up returning it for a few reasons: I wanted an UWA that would accept filters, would have more range (24mm vs 35mm) and I wanted to have nothing but L- Series glass from Canon :P
Overall, I love this lens. It’s plenty wide for my taste. Distortion isn’t as bad as I thought but I’m disappointed with vignette from 16-20mm wide open at 2.8. One other problem (for most people) is the fact that it takes an 82mm filter which much more expensive than the standard 77mm filters. This is Canon’s tpe of the line UWA so I got the best filter for it which is MRC (multi coated). It’s got a nice solid build. Nice smooth zoom & focus. As a wedding photographer, this is my bread and butter lens. This lens might replace my 24-70L. We’ll have to wait and see after I use this lens for my next wedding shoot. The 24-70L is the ultimate “all around” lens for travel, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome lens but it’s not as wide and not too long for portraits. It falls somewhere in between.
And of course the new iPad :P Just something to play around with when I have free time. You can’t drag your 27” iMac everywhere so I had to fill the gap between the iPhone and iMac.
Here’s an image of a 16-35L II mounted on my 5D2
And here’s the angle view at 16mm of my room.
Taken at 16mm, f/4.0 1/20 sec.
And another image of my brothers. Not the best test but results are surprising at 16mm wide open:
Here’s the vignette problem I mentioned before. Before and after corrected in LR3:
