After reading Dan post (a while ago) about wide angle lenses  with wide aperture, it got me thinking. While I have been happy with my 17-40L4, as it is wide enough for pretty much everything I do, going wider would open the door for more creative shots. Ex: having an even better separation of foreground and background objects. Also, Dan reviewed lenses from a 1DMrkIV perspective so I wanted to see what was out there for full frame owners.

Before going into the list of available options, I think it is worth looking at the effect of wide aperture on wide lenses. After all, the goal of this exercise is to find a wide angle lens that will give us some control over DoF. As we all know, a wide aperture allows more light into the camera which allow us to shoot in lower light which is always good. The other result of aperture is too control the depth of field (DoF), which is another familiar concept. The thing you might not be aware of is how hard it is to get a shallow DoF when shooting ultra wide.

For most of us, this is a good thing because it allows us to shoot in low light without having to worry about keeping the subject in focus. But what happen when you need to shoot wide and want a shallow DoF? Lets look at some numbers.

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A few people asked me to give more details about how we shot the love story clip (posted here). Instead of writing a structured post, I am just going to go with the flow and write everything that comes to my mind.

The clip was shot on two days. Originally, it was all planed to be done in a single afternoon (and end with a sunset shot) but a series of incidents (read: traffic) slowed us down and delayed everything so we had to split the shoot.

Pro Tip: Plan your itinerary ahead of time, map it in Google Map and make sure everyone has a copy. Park the car as close as you can to the location. Walking from one location to the next is a big time sink. Even more so when you have to carry tripods, sliders, bags, props, etc… Try to travel with as few cars as possible to reduce time spent finding a parking spot.

The crew was: Robert as the main shooter/director, me getting the wide shots and details, Christina to carry stuff and use the reflector and Florin as a photographer.

Pro tip: have the smallest crew you can manage and make sure everyone know his role. The less you are, the easier it is to manage and the faster you can move and make decisions.

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I was reviewing the clips we shot yesterday and found this horror. Look at Meggie left eye in this clip. What do you see? Me!

It might not be that noticeable at lower resolution, but when viewed full screen in HD, it is very annoying. At least to me…

While it is sometimes impossible to get out of the reflection (like in this case), a good way to minimize its effect is to be dressed in black. Of course, this never crossed my mind Sunday morning when I pick my shirt for the day! The weather was great and I was thinking about perfecting my tan…

At least I learned my lesson. Anyone has funny accidents/errors to share?

I have seen this question a few times in various forums so I thought it would be another good fit for the “The Basics” section.

Since people rarely explain what they would consider “best”, I assume they are talking about the best shutter speed to achieve a filmic look.

This brings us to the question “what makes a film look like film compared to tv or Canon 5d standard clips” ? Contrary to the general belief, it is not the number of frames per second but the duration of each exposure that creates the look. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a repost from my old blog. It was one of the most visited page and since I keep seeing people asking the same question over and over again, I think it would be a good idea to forward them here. I have a few more of these posts that I will file under ‘learning the basics’.

Using tools in new ways is an essential skill for the photographer who wants to develop his creativity. In this post, I am going to do a quick exploration of the link between focal length and perspective.

To better appreciate the differences between wide and long lenses, it is important to understand two key principles:

• The focal length of a lens determines the field of view. This number, expressed as an angle, determines the amount of information that is available in the viewfinder / sensor.
• Sensor/negative size is constant. This means that if you get more information in the frame (using a wider lens), all of these elements will take less space on the sensor to make them fit.

Knowing that, if you take two shots of a subject at different lens range (let say 24mm and 70mm) and you want the subject to be the same size in both picture, you will have to be closer to the subject when using the short lens.

Now lets put this into practice! The shot bellow is done using a 24-70f2.8L at its shortest focal length (efl 24mm). Notice how much of the background is visible and the distance between the two pots.

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Before the release of the firmware update, I wrote an article about why controlling the shutter speed would be as important for us, cinephotographers, as controlling the aperture. I promised to show an example video at the time. Well, it took some time but I finally managed to get the required clips! The best subject for such an example would have been to shoot an helicopter but since I could not find one, I picked the next best thing: a waterfall.

Notice, in the clip bellow, how the water looks different according to the shutter speed. While on the left it looks like ‘normal’ water, on the right it looks like something else. It is because each frame in the sequence on the left has some blur while those on the right are super sharp. While the blurry frames are blending nicely with each others at 30fps, the ones without blurs looks very harsh.

As you can see, the difference in the shutter speed is only noticeable when comparing the extremes, so as long as you keep the shutter under 1/250, anything moving slower than the water in this clip should look natural.

Note: The constant exposure was created by increasing the ISO. Notice how, even at high ISO, the image quality is very usable. The rightmost section was shot at ISO 6400.

We read this question at least once a week in any photography forum. While there are a lot of possible answers, the first question should be “What do I want to shoot?”. It is only once you know what is the kind of subject that interests you that you can pick up the perfect lens.

So to help you clarify your thoughts on the subject I made a list of the most useful lens, grouped by categories of subject/style. Note: most of these lenses are on the expensive side since they are specialized lenses mostly targeted at pro.

General

If the only thing you want to do is walk around and take pictures, flexibility is key so you definitely need a zoom lens. While some people would argue that the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L is the perfect walking lens, I find it a bit too short and I rather recommend the excellent Canon 24-105L f/4 IS. Indoor or outside, this lens has the reach and width to get great shots.

Suggestions

• 24-70mm f/2.8L
• 24-105L f/4 IS

Portrait

Generally speaking, portraits look best when the background is blurry. While the 50 mm f/1.8 might do a nice job, its short focal range means that you have to be close to the subject which could distract them. This is why lenses such as the 85mm f/1.8 (or 85mm f1.2L) or 135mm f/2L are preferred. While a lot of people suggest a zoom (24-70 or 70-200), I personally think it is better to have a fixed focal length in a controlled environment since since the image quality is better, the lenses cheaper and you can always zoom with your feet.

Suggestions

• 50 mm f/1.8
• 85mm f/1.8
• 85mm f/1.2L
• 135mm f/2L

Wildlife

While the full frame sensor of the 5D might not be suited for wildlife photography because of its shorter reach compared to cropped sensors, its video mode might interest people who want to film the behaviors of animals. Depending of the kind of animal you are expecting to encounter, you can pick either the 300Lf4IS or the 400mm f/5.6L. While the 300mm is good for anything bigger than a dog or not easily scared, the 400mm is the minimum required reach for small birds. Both of these lenses have incredible image quality and focusing speed.

Suggestions

• 400mm f/5.6L

Architecture

When you shoot a building, it is rare that you have a lot of room in front of you to position yourself, generally the farther you can go is on the other side of the street. That is why wide angles are popular among architecture photographers. While the first lens that come to mind for such a task is the 17-40mm f/4L or the more expensive 16-35mm f/2.8L, if you are really into architecture, you have to take a look at the tilt-shift lens, such as the TS-E 24mm f/3.5L or the TS-E 45mm f/2.8. Tilt-shift lenses allow you to do more than just correct the perspective, by shifting the lens you can create a mosaic of pictures that you can later on combine for a perfect panorama. This is why even at 45mm, you can take pictures of buildings right in front of you.

Suggestion

• 17-40mm f/4L
• 16-35mm f/2.8L
• TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
• TS-E 45mm f/2.8

Landscape

When people think about landscape, the first thing that comes to their mind is wide-angle. Well, they are right. Lenses such as the 16-35mm f/2.8L and 17-40mm f/4L are classical landscape lenses. But limiting yourself to a wide angle would be a terrible mistake! Every serious landscape photographer carries in his bad a… 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS lens too! Surprised? You should not be. having a long focal length is the only way to create a perspective compressing effect that looks so cool when shooting mountains, or to take a sunset pictures with the sun taking half of the frame.

Suggestions

• 16-35mm f/2.8L
• 17-40mm f/4L
• 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS

Macro

The line up of macro lenses is not that impressive, only 3 models are available from Canon for the 5D. The 100mm f/2.8 Macro having the most flexibility. While the 180mm f3.5L Macro is incredible to shoot bugs, it has limited uses outside of the macro world. An interesting alternative to macro lenses, if you are shooting still life, is to use a TS-E 90mm f/2.8tilt-shift lens. While the macro effect might not there, this is the preferred lens of food and gem photographers since you can tilt the plane of focus to have the whole picture in focus.

A cheaper alternative is to use extension tubes. While I have never been able to take a good macro shot with these without using a tripod, they offer the best bang for the buck and are easy to carry around.

Suggestions

• 100mm f/2.8 Macro
• 180mm f3.5L Macro
• MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro
• TS-E 90mm f/2.8
• Extension Tube Set

Sport

It is hard for me to advice in this category without knowing which sport you want to shoot. The general line of thought is that you need wide aperture and a zoom unless you have complete control over your position relative to the subject. In this regard, the 70-200mm f/2.8L is a great chose for most activities. Dont mind the IS. In sport the action is going on so fast that IS would never help you to stop it down.

Suggestions

• 70-200mm f/2.8L

Wedding

Wedding photography equipment is pretty standardize: 24-70mm f/2.8L and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. These are the two lenses you will ever need. But if you are interested in weeding photography, you probably already know that.

Suggestions

• 24-70mm f/2.8L
• 70-200mm f/2.8L IS

Conclusion

I hope this article helped you to organize your thoughts about the subject. If I missed an obvious pick, please leave your suggestion in the comments.