James Shackleton's Blog

I thought I would write about the lenses I own and use on my Canon 50D.

1.  Canon 50mm f2.5 – Quite small and light weight. Inexpensive. Very, very sharp. I also own a 50mm f1.4 (and used to own a 50mm f1.8) and it is sharper than that at any aperture. But it doesn’t go to f1.4 and it doesn’t have USM.

2. Canon 24mm f2.8 – Again small. Inexpensive. Fairly sharp. Sometimes gets a bit of blue fringing on white highlights, which is fixable. If I could only take one lens on holiday, this could well be it.

3. Canon 85mm f1.8 – A lovely chunk of glass to look at. Fairly inexpensive. A bit soft wide open, but stopped down a touch and it is beautifully sharp. USM focusing, which is fast.

4. Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 VC – After only using prime lenses, this feels huge. Wide open, the centre of the frame is sharp, stopped down, the rest is. I have had a few occasions where the results on a tripod haven’t been as sharp as I would like. I forgot to turn off the VC. Could that be it? Maybe.

5. Canon 55-255mm IS EFS – This lens is a chatroom hero. Lots of people post about how it is much better than lenses several times more expensive. It is quite good. It is definitely excellent value. The IS works well. The lens is quite sharp. Not amazingly fast focusing though. But it is super light, you could carry one all day and not really feel it.

6. Canon 70-300mm IS USM – A bit better than the 55-255mm in just about every way. But heavier and more expensive. And still not very fast at focusing.

7. Canon 50mm f1.4 USM – Rather soft wide open. Much better stopped down a bit. Quite compact. Fairly inexpensive.

8. Sigma 30mm F1.4 – Big and heavy for what it is. And quite expensive (I think). But gives an equivalent to 50mm in 35mm format. And f1.4. For general use I wish it focused more closely.

9. Canon 100m f2.8 USM macro – Quite big and heavy. Very sharp, possibly too sharp for portraits. Mid-priced.

10. Canon 10-22 USM EFS – Quite big and bulky. Expensive. Good quality though. I wish it wasn’t variable aperture.

11. Canon 24-105 IS USM – Big, bulky, expensive. Good quality. An excellent studio lens, allowing you to quickly change from full length portraits to head and shoulders close-ups easily.

12. Canon 70-200 USM – Quite big and bulky (though nothing like the f2.8 versions). But really, really sharp! This lens really shows how good a zoom can be. Mid-priced though.

13. Canon 135mm F2 USM – Quite big and bulky. Expensive. Beautifully sharp. Honestly I thought I would use this more, but I tend to find that the 70 -200mm is more useful. But. But. This is a very good lens.

14. Canon 35mm F2 – A tiny lens. Pretty sharp, even wide open. Inexpensive. The other lens which I might choose if I could only take one on holiday. Unimposing. But very good.

 

 

 

Win-a-Car Marathon, Orchard Street, Singapore

I think I’ve posted on this before, using different pictures.

The idea of the competition is to stay holding on to the car. Your hand musn’t leave contact for a moment.

I think the pictures I posted before were about the fun side of it, with people laughing and being silly. But I really wanted to get to the truth of it – these people REALLY want to win. Their families are watching. They don’t want to let them down. I think this picture comes closest.