Floody McFloodface

Canon EOD M6, 22 mm, ISO 800, 4 sec @ f/8

Late October 2019 saw a lot more rain than usual in the UK – so much so that on Tuesday 29th October saw a number of flood warnings (flooding is expected – immediate action required)  issued by the Environment Agency, including for the River Severn near to Upton-upon-Severn. Since this is now my local area I thought I would pop along to have a look, not having see the Severn in full flow before. Due to other commitments it was almost midnight by the time I was able to get there but needlesss to say the warning was justified and had previously built flood defences not been in place the town and my feet would have been very wet indeed.

Moored alongside the jetty is a large boat called Conway Castle. Normally most of this vessel is out of view, well below foot level. Tonight however the waterline was about two feet above foot level, held back by a wall that had just another inch or so before being breached. The flow rate was scarily fast too, with lots of boiling and swirling going on. Adding to the scary part was the fact that you could only see the immediate vicinity due to the lack of light, but you knew that out there in the dark was a river dooing its best to cause michief and mayhem.

Pancake Day

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.