Ian Lind’s Photo Blog

This was one of those “can’t quite make up its mind” days, where the weather was somewhere in between.

As we reached Swanzy Beach Park on our early morning walk, the sun had just come up, and the coconut trees in the middle of the park stood out against the large dark clouds and curtain of rain in the background.

Although this patch of rain passed us by, another hit as we reached the far end of the beach. It did get a little wet.

I couldn’t keep any detail in the bright spot in the sky around the sun and still have any shadow detail in the foreground. I suppose more post-processing work could have resulted in additional range, but this was relatively quick and dirty.

I’ve come to like the G10, although I’m curious about the newly announced G11.

Canon PowerShot G10
1/40 sec at f/3.5
ISO 80
Focal length 13.761 mm
Lens 6.1-30.5 mm

6:17 a.m.
August 22, 2009

I finally broke and bought a new 5D earlier this year, upgrading from a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. After telling my wife how much it cost, there was no way that I was going to be able to order any L-class lenses. Don’t even think about it!

Luckily, I already had a selection of less expensive Canon lenses, mostly primes, and was looking forward to using them on a full-frame digital camera. But how would they perform? Would I be happy with the results? I was worried by all the forum discussions saying that the 5D demands only the best glass.

But I’m not a professional, although I’ve been an amateur photographer for decades, well back into the film era. That was really the reason I wanted to go full frame–I remember quite well how these lenses render a scene in 35mm, and I was tired of having to account for the digital conversion factor of smaller sensor DSLRs when trying to “see” ahead to how the camera/lens combo and the resulting photograph will interpret a scene.

My lineup of lenses:

Canon 24mm f/2.8

Canon 28mm f/2.8

Canon 50mm f/1.4

Canon 85mm f/1.8

Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS

Nothing fancy here.
I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve been very pleased by how well these lenses work with my 5D. They all have performed quite well.

Over the next week, I’ll collect a few representative images from each lens, just to give some flavor of what I’ve found.

I’m beginning here with the only zoom in the bag, the Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS. This is half the price of the L-grade 70-200 IS, and I’m happy with its results.

I recently took it to a birthday party for a neighbor’s daughter and got a number of good shots which made the parents very happy. The long reach of this lens allowed me to get up close without being totally intrusive. I’m sure the L version would make me even happier, but without side-by-side comparisons, I’m a happy camper.

Click on the photo for a few more samples of the 70-300 IS at work with the 5D. The black & whites were converted using Lightroom 2.2.

-Ian Lind, Kaaawa, Hawaii

http://www.ilind.net

ian(at)ilind.net