Canon 5D, 40 mm, ISO 800, 1/60 sec @ f/5.6

A while back I was caught a wonderful documentary on Sky Arts about Steve Schapiro. Whilst watching I noticed he always (obviously!) had a camera with him and I started wondering why that wasn’t the case with me. I soon realised it was because physically the smallest lens I have is the not insignificant Canon EF 100 mm f/2.8L Macro USM. Sorted! I clearly needed a small lens!

The question then was what focal length. I have a Canon EF f/4L 17-40 mm that is great for landscapes on the full-frame 5D. I thought about a 24 mm but would that be flexible enough for all forms of photography? My lenses are the aforementioned 17-40 mm and a Canon EF 70-200 mm f2.8/L IS USM along with the 100 mm macro. I also have a 2x convertor for the 70-200 zoom so I’m covering most bases. If I were to get a fixed focal length lens I need to know it’s going to be useful in most situations.

The choices seemed to be within the range 24-50 mm. That’s some choice and needed to do some research. I really fancied the wider angle as it would suit my style of photography…

Another consideration this time was the cost of the lens. I hadn’t scrimped on costs before but I couldn’t justify dropping a lot of cash on something I might not enjoy using.

It seemed the sweet spot at the intersection of price, usability, image quality and physical size was the Canon EF 40 mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens so that’s what I’ve gone for. It’s funny how different the 5D looks with such a small lens – almost like a toy camera. I’m looking forward to taking the camera with me more and trying out some new techniques. I’ve got a trip to Istanbul coming up at the end of June and I have decided that this will be the only lens that I take with me.

During the course of my research I was pleased to find Sean Tucker’s website. It’s a great site with some great images and even more amazingly some good tips and knowledge sharing from a professional who takes pride in helping others improve their craft. In his blog, Sean sets himself a challenge to use a series of single focal length lenses. Included were 24, 35 and 50 mm lenses. It was good to read his experiences particularly with the 24 mm as that was my original preferred choice.