Canon 8-15mm – A New Perspective

Canon 8-15mm – A New Perspective. So I have had a 8-15 in my box for a bit here’s what I thought about it.

Canon 8-15mm has been one of the lenses I have been considering for a while. I can already cover everything from 24mm all the way up to 600mm. I know I need something wider than 24mm but which one?

I had thought the 16-32 f2.8 was a good option. Mainly for the low light capabilities. But then again that is only a measly 8mm extra and loads of over lap. So that left the Canon 8-15mm L but was kit too wide. A kind of joke lens you would use a couple of times a year? So the only option was to test drive one.

The good folks at Lenses For Hire had one and at a reasonable price. So I made sure that I had enough variation of  Press assignments to give it a true test.  I thought the Chelsea Flower Show and the first time the FIA World Rallycross Championship came to England would be a fair test.

So here are a few frames from the Media Day at Chelsea Flower Show.

Canon 8-15mm - A New Perspective

Canon 8-15mm – A New Perspective. RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Press Day 19th May 2014, Chelsea London.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Press Day 19th May 2014, Chelsea London.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Press Day 19th May 2014, Chelsea London.

I quickly started to really enjoy using the lens and the new angles it allowed for. One thing that is a bit daunting is how close to your subject you can get. The following picture I was so close I very nearly knocked the guy over!.

Canon 8-15mm - A New Perspective

RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Press Day 19th May 2014, Chelsea London.

And so onto the FIA World Rallycross at Lydden Hill. Now motorsport isn’t normally associated with ultra wide angle glass but I wanted see what it would do in the paddock as well as trackside.

Canon 8-15mm - A New Perspective

The Focus of Ollie O’DONOVAN (IRL) (2). Day 1 of the Autosport World RX of Great Britain. Round 2 of the new FIA World Rallycross Championship. Lydden Hill Race Circuit, Canterbury.

Canon 8-15mm - A New Perspective

Supercar Driver Derek Tohill ready to head out on track. Day 2 of the Autosport World RX of Great Britain. Round 2 of the new FIA World Rallycross Championship. Lydden Hill Race Circuit, Canterbury.

Its ideal to simply ‘get everything in’ in alot of environments. There seems to be a growing trend on landscape type action shots and its damn perfect for that kind of thing.

Canon 8-15mm - A New Perspective

As I got more used to it its great to use it to get get otherwise unachievable scene setting images. But you have to be careful on the framing

Canon 8-15mm - A New Perspective

Day 2 of the Autosport World RX of Great Britain. Round 2 of the new FIA World Rallycross Championship. Lydden Hill Race Circuit, Canterbury.

To see a quick summery and for other links have a look on my other site www.rubberduckdoes.com.

In conclusion

Its great lens which I will be adding to my arsenal soon. Its not for everyone as some of the frames you get are a little ‘freaky’ but it adds a new look that will compliment the way I work. On a Full Frame sensors results will be interesting for sure and at 8mm you’ll be cropping shots with your toes in!. Its also not cheap so out of reach for most. Performancewise I was worried by the low light capabilities as its only F4. I didn’t need to as it handled every situation I used it in with no problem. So for me it ticks all the boxes.

Photographic Equipment, How Do You Use Yours?

So just how do you use your photographic equipment? More importantly do you actually know what you use and when?

Not totally sure where I’m going with this one, but bear with me there is a point!

My thinking all came about after I had some comments from one of the picture editors I work for. Basically his comment was along the lines of ‘are you having problems?’

Regrettably I instantly knew exactly what he was referring to and it was something that I had been ignoring for quite some time. For quite a while I had been making compensations in camera sometimes by as much as a stop!  I had to face up to the cold truth that I simply had to get my kit serviced!

To cut a long story short when I got my first body back from Miles ‘the Man that does’ his diagnoses was that the sensor was out of line, possibly due to a knock or two! no shit sherlock. not really a surprise I suppose! The difference was simply staggering. I could trust readings the camera was giving me for, ahem the first time in months!

This got me thinking about how I use the rest of my photographic equipment.

Way back in the dark ages of film. When I as a bright eyed and freshly qualified as a photographer. My photographic equipment consisted of only primes. which consisted of 35mm, 50mm, 80mm and 135mm and that was it! (I didn’t shoot any motorsport or sport then)

I now cover those lengths and more with just two zoom lenses. But I got thinking what focal lengths out of that range do I use the most?  Professionals and amateurs alike are always planning new photographic equipment purchases, normally new lenses. And they aren’t cheap and as a full time photographer any money invested comes directly off my bottom line and in turn the money I take home to pay the bills! So I need to invest in any new photographic equipment carefully.

So I decided to analyse what I use and when. To help me I found a great little app called Exposure Plot. I simply ran it on only the frames I shot this year up to the end of August only. A total of around 43,000 images so a pretty fair cross section.

This is what I got for the most used focal lengths:

Photographic Equipment - Focal Length Analysis

And this for apertures used:

Photographic Equipment - Aperture Analysis

So what does this actually mean? Well to date rather than fork out a massive wad of cash I have opted to hire in specialist lenses against jobs when I have needed them. The downside of this is that my hire bill from this year currently stands at around £2,500! money I’d sooner hang onto in the long run. This is mostly for large primes, which considering the amount of Sport and Motorsport I shoot isn’t really too much of a surprise. I had been thinking about an 85mm prime but looking at the graphs what would the point be other than a gigantic waste of money? The trusty work horse 70-200mm f2.8 never misses a beat.What is does suggest is that its time to invest in a large prime again.

What is more interesting is the usage at the other end of the focal length scale. I am very tempted to retire my 24-70mm f2.8 and invest in 2 or 3 fast primes instead.

Go and give it a go I think you’ll be surprised I know that I was! If nothing else it will help you spend your hard earned wisely!