I received my new Canon 24mm f/2.8 lens yesterday and I just went outside to take some sample shots. I didn’t spend much time; just enough to grab some quick photos and to make a determination of its performance. I’ve heard a lot about this lens and I was excited to get down to it. What I’m really looking forward to is taking photos of some very nice scenes while using a tripod. If you aren’t aware, this lens doesn’t have any image stabilization, so there’s the possibility of the images including some camera shake. Luckily, I don’t think mine had any, but it’s a definite possibility when shooting in low light or indoors.
The lens is very small. It’s considered a “pancake” lens and it weighs next to nothing. It’s well built though, For its size, it feels very solid. From the photos I just took, I can tell you right off the bat that I noticed two big things. First, the colors of the images look more vibrant than those taken with my Canon kit 18-135mm lens. Second, the images are very sharp. I heard that you can actually take photos with this lens from farther away than with another lens and you can crop the images and they’ll still be sharper in comparison. I think this may be true. There’s a lot of sharpness.
Oh yeah, one more thing. Well, a few things. I can bring the camera very close to my subjects while using this lens. Very close. It seems like only around six inches. I got nice wide shots and the bokeh is very nice looking. It’s strange, you don’t really notice bokeh until you see it in its high quality form.
Onto the photos. For the first two, I wanted to see how the lens would handle full sun.
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i
Focal Length: 24mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i
Focal Length: 24mm
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
After that, I went around to the back of the house where there was some shade. I took a few more shots. Some of these have been cropped so they show some up-close detail. I think you’ll see which ones those are. Also, I did some very light editing in Adobe Camera Raw, just to add some contrast. Nothing major.
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i
Focal Length: 24mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i
Focal Length: 24mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/180
ISO: 100
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i
Focal Length: 24mm
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i
Focal Length: 24mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Camera: Canon Rebel T7i
Focal Length: 24mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
So, as you can see, I didn’t use a crazy fast shutter speed for any of these shots and a few of them were teetering on being too slow for handheld shooting. I still got some very nice clarity out of them though. They’re all sharp. I actually didn’t get any blur with any of the shots.
I also wanted to test the depth of field, so with a few of the photos, I brought the aperture down as large as it can go at f/2.8. That’s the way I let the camera increase the shutter speed automatically.
Overall, I think I’ll have a lot of fun with this lens. It seems like it’s going to give me some high quality wider angle photos and I think it’ll be fun to use it as a walk around lens. Also, I think it’s going to be perfect for video because the focus is nearly silent and it’s pretty fast. Because the lens is so light, I think my camera and lens setup will work well with one of those steadycam things.
Okay, until next time…If you have any questions, please ask down below. Thanks!
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