what lens

[mrrod]

I'm in need of your thoughts on canons lens. At the moment i have an EF 50mm F1.4 / EF 70-200 F4 L USM.. I'm now looking for a wide angle lens like the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for landscapes, would this lens also be a good choice for portraits? if not, what would be a good lens? and is the 16-35mm lens a good choice for landscapes or is there something better? I'm also picking up the canon 5D MKII, being a full frame camera would these lenses change in performance compared to using these lenes on my trusty canon 30D ?

[Amberglass]

I'm in need of your thoughts on canons lens. At the moment i have an EF 50mm F1.4 / EF 70-200 F4 L USM.. I'm now looking for a wide angle lens like the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for landscapes, would this lens also be a good choice for portraits? if not, what would be a good lens? and is the 16-35mm lens a good choice for landscapes or is there something better? I'm also picking up the canon 5D MKII, being a full frame camera would these lenses change in performance compared to using these lenes on my trusty canon 30D ?

Oh yes, you're going to notice a big difference. For one, you're going to loose the 1.6x reach factor that the APS sensor creates. Right now you're used to seeing the following focal lengths with your current lenses:

50 mm -> 80 mm, 70-200 mm -> 112 mm-320 mm

So the 16-35 will really be 26-56 mm. Once you go FF, the 16-35 will be way too wide for many and they often choose the 17-40 f4L as an alternative (also much cheaper but still works wonderfully for landscape work). The 17-40 is a favorite amongst portraiture on APS sensor cameras fyi.

[Colin Southern]

I'm in need of your thoughts on canons lens. At the moment i have an EF 50mm F1.4 / EF 70-200 F4 L USM.. I'm now looking for a wide angle lens like the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for landscapes, would this lens also be a good choice for portraits? if not, what would be a good lens? and is the 16-35mm lens a good choice for landscapes or is there something better? I'm also picking up the canon 5D MKII, being a full frame camera would these lenses change in performance compared to using these lenes on my trusty canon 30D ?

Hi "mrrod",

I shoot a lot with the EF16-35mm F2.8L USM II - it's a great lens for agressive-perspective landscape photography, but not suitable for general portraiture. It CAN be used for a certain "look" with some portraiture, but it's the exception, not the norm; and in those types of shots you'd better use a breath freshener because you'll literally be shooting 2 to 3 feet from your subject.

The lens that'll give you the most pleasing look when shooting portraiture is ...

... the one you already have -- something around 200mm (in the 135mm region on your camera. I took these with my F2.8L version a few days ago ...



If you want shorter working distances, then the EF24-70mm F2.8L USM is the "standard workhorse" of the industry (in fact I often refer to the 16-35, 24-70, and 70-200 as being the "standard trilogy" of Canon lenses.

Hope this helps!

[mrrod]

thanks for the replies , i'll look at the 24-70 lens instead, i have a small room at home with a home made light box for stock photos, i'll use the lens for that also.

[Colin Southern]

thanks for the replies , i'll look at the 24-70 lens instead, i have a small room at home with a home made light box for stock photos, i'll use the lens for that also.

If you need to do closeup photography you can also add a canon 500D closeup adaptor to the 24-70.

[mrrod]

Colin, how far away were you from the subject in the portraits you posted here? thanks for the info on the adaptor, cheers for the filter info also connor.

[Colin Southern]

Colin, how far away were you from the subject in the portraits you posted here? thanks for the info on the adaptor, cheers for the filter info also connor.

Hi ya,

Not far - in the 2.5 to 3.0 metre range at a guess. - that's on a full-frame camera though. I'd have to check the exif to see where I was on the zoom range though.

[wjh31]

If we're moving towards macro work, then consider playing around with reversed and double reversed lens techniques discussed breifly here: reversed lens macro