Lens Flare

I did quite lot of research into my own photos before buying: I made statistics (there are many tools for this, but I just extracted the data with some simple PHP script and exiftool) which focal lengths I used most and I noticed I didn’t really use tele so much at all. Most of my photos were on the wider end. Also, the mid range was quite much missing.

Problem with “f5.6″ tele zoom lenses was that they easily ended up shaken despite vibration reduction, since VR or not, it cannot stop movement. So f/4 was the requirement for me in this category. Note that I’m not saying you cannot take good photographs with those, my best photos are with the cheapest equipment (like this was taken with slow 100USD Tokima telezoom). Having good equipment makes just the process more enjoyable and more likely that you get a decent photo. So I decided to scrap “ultra tele” options and go with more moderate 70-200mm with lower f value, which should be “enough” for my purposes considering 5Dm2 gives plenty of cropping room. I considered loooong time taking the f2.8 but the reasoning for not taking that one was the weight – it weights pretty much double the f4 option, and since I wasn’t using telezoom so much I thought the weight would make the telezoom pretty much useless, since I would not carry that around. In contrast, the 70-200mm f/4 is perfect for carrying around even if you don’t use it too much. The image quality on both lenses is similar on similar apertures. Vibration reduction (or image stabilization, in Canon terminology) was a definite requirement in telezoom, since it really makes a big difference there. So I ended up with 70-200mm f/4L IS.

Since previously I hadn’t shot so much in the mid range, I decided that I don’t need to cover all focal lengths. I can compensate again with cropping if needed. So I decided to go with both tele zoom and wide zoom but only one fixed fast mid range lens (normal lens). I’m very happy with this decision, since 50mm f/1.4 is pretty much my favorite lens now. It’s so small, light-weight and fast that if I take only one lens it’s definitely 50mm f/1.4 one.

On wide end I also considered fixed primes, but ended up with 16-35mm zoom since even a few mm change in focal lengths on wide end results big difference in field-of-view. This tilted the choice to zoom lens, and I’ve been very happy with 16-35mm f/2.8L one. Price was a bit steep though, but I didn’t really see too many choices on the wide end.

One of the things I kept all the time track of, when considering different options, was the total weight. I ended up with total of 2.8kg of gear, which is still acceptable. 3kg was the absolute max limit for me, I do photographing mostly when traveling so I definitely don’t want to end up with too much of glass to carry.

With backpack, I ended up with traditional backpack style camera bag. I had before this new kind style of “slingshot” bag, which was great and convenient for quickly taking camera out of the bag, but it put too much weight on one shoulder alone so it didn’t really fit too well for my use (carry bag around whole day). I didn’t buy any branded bags, but robust-looking local brand, and the choice has worked very well.

Besides above, to protect my expensive lenses a bit I of course bought filters to all lenses.

So here’s the full list of gear I ended up with:

• Canon 5D Mark II
• Canon 50mm/f1.4 + Hoya 58mm uv-filter
• Canon 16-35mm/f2.8L + Canon 82mm protective filter
• Canon 70-200mm/f4L + Canon 67mm protective filter
• Backpack-style camera bag