midkin wrote:
Hello everyone. Been reading the forums for a while now. Time to make my first post.
Greetings midkin.
It’s been a month since I got my M50(mark I), with the kit lens 15-45. I ‘ve been reading a lot since then, about photography and different equipment. I have already taken some nice shots mostly with the use of a tripod.
"Fast" (Bright) lenses with wide apertures can capture the scene in less time, effectively without having to use a longer exposure and therefore you can freeze your subjects in many instances. Image Stabilization can remove shake from your lens/camera/sensor/hands and can help retain sharper images... and whilst OIS (Optical Image Stabilizers) can help you capture a sharper image in lower light, the exposures are likely to be longer... hence the scene might be steady but any moving subjects will likely blur. Both Fast and Stabilized lenses produce the sharpest landscape and architecture shots when stopped down (with a smaller aperture) whilst placed on a tripod or resting on a surface (a wall, table, a rock etc). For those of us who prefer to shoot in low light to begin with, a wider aperture lens is essential.
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For nightscapes and lowlight images where you need an assurance of clarity, we have to use a tripod. Although this does change when shooting with f/1.4 and f/1.2 lenses. The kit-lens that Canon used to supply with EOS M cameras was the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens and now it's the 15-45mm lens - the same one that you received with your kit. This lens is (or at least was) known for copy-to-copy variation. Normally when you buy a lens it has strengths and weaknesses. But the 15-45mm lens is a very "standard" type of lens that has no obvious traits to help it stand out. As a travel lens it's very useful because of the wider focal length and it performs very well in bright sunlit shots, especially where strong contrast occurs in a scene (eg dark shadows and bright highlights). You can capture fairly wide views with it and you get a bit of zoom to play with as well. But you will struggle to take handheld shots in lower light with it due to the narrow aperture. That's where stabilizing your lens by placing it on a fixed surface or a tripod is important.
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What will change your entire shooting experience will be to obtain a new lens with a notably wider aperture. Most photographers own more than a few lenses but only tend to shoot with one or two favorites. So take your time and decide which lens you feel won't overlap what you already have too much. Some folks sell their 15-45mm lens when they buy their kit and replace it with an 11-22mm + 22mm f/2 lens. Others simply retire their 15-45mm lens in case they need it later. I'm thinking that you would benefit from a brighter lens if you prefer to avoid using tripods. A handheld shot in lowlight will require you to shoot with the aperture wide open on any lens, no matter how fast or bright it might be, so the best results for night photography will still come from using a tripod. If you shoot with the aperture wide open, even on a tripod, your images won't be as sharp or refined as you might want them to be.
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EOS M + EF-M 22mm f/2 lens - at night handheld.
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I am now thinking of buying a new lens and maybe an ND filter. After using the kit lens I found myself needing faster lens. I like walking at nights and getting the M50 with me. But it’s quite annoying that when I want to take a picture I have to spend like 2-5 minutes, getting the tripod out of my backpack, opening it etc and taking some test shots. So I was wondering if there is a len that I can use to take low light pictures without a tripod. I had almost decided buying either Canon 32mm f/1.4 or the Sigma 16mm f/1.4. More in the favour of Sigma because I like to shoot landscapes.
If you are going to be shooting with a wide aperture lens but want to use an ND filter for night photography (to make people disappear or to blur traffic on a road or clouds in a sky), you will need to be using a tripod since the light will be reduced considerably. So you'll be doing some longer exposures in those instances of filters are in use. If you are using an f/1.4 lens and want to shoot with the aperture wide open (to obtain shallow depth of field) during daylight photography, you'll need to use either an ND or CPL filter to help reduce the intensity of the light during bright sunny day exposures. If you're into landscapes then sharpness would be important to you. I think you'll find that the 11-22mm lens is hard to beat for landscapes and and I've usually been extremely happy with the corner-to-corner sharpness along with resolved detail. I could say the same about the EF-M 32mm lens but that's a uniquely sharp lens for one with such a wide aperture. Neither of these lenses are known for copy-to-copy variation.
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The EF-M 32mm f/1.4 lens is one of the more recent lenses to be released for the EOS M system cameras and it's one of the very sharpest lenses I have used, especially considering the aperture. Although it is a Prime lens ...and Prime lenses are usually known for being sharper than Zoom lenses - with one of the few exceptions to this rule being the EF-M 11-22mm lens.
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EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens.
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On the other hand I see the excellent results of the canon 11-22mm, but this lens is sadly even slower than my kit lens... I also read that the image stabiliser works very nice giving awesome results even at slow shutter speeds.
The EF-M 11-22mm lens is indeed slower (aperture is not as bright when wide open at f/4) but this is actually the typical aperture of any landscape lenses. This particular lens is very sharp, even wide open. But at 11mm it may show banding in the sky (where the blue area appears to have a dark spot or streak), depending on the angle of the sun. Zooming in towards 22mm tends to remove this effect, so does rotating the CPL filter ring to lessen the effect of the polarization. Whilst an ND filter can also cut down on the light, it does not produce banding. But it also does not polarize the light, resulting in reflections on stone, plant, glass and water surfaces. Avoid 'Variable' type ND filters on ultra-wide lenses as well because those will produce some nasty banding at 11mm.
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One of the reasons people like the 11mm focal length is that it produces strong perspective lines in some scenes... creating an interesting effect. In the case of the samples below from my own lens, I didn't bother to set the aperture for any of these shots. Normally you'd reduce the aperture slightly to ensure the sharpest possible results with any landscape lens... but these were almost point-and-shoot and were shot in JPEG.
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EF-M 11-22mm lens samples (middle bottom image required a tripod).
M6 + 11-22mm lens - at 11mm
M6 + 11-22mm lens - at 22mm
M6 + 11-22mm - Tripod used.
M + 11-22mm lens - Handheld
M + 11-22mm - Handheld (but resting on a fence)
M + 11-22mm lens - Mini Tripod used... hence the low angle
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So, for low light situations where you want to shoot without a tripod what’s more important? Wide apertures offering faster speeds or the image stabilisation? Should I get the Canon 11-22 or the Sigma 16?
Thanks in advance!
Well, it's going to depend on the type of photography you do. For handheld street photography at night, an f/1.4 lens (or even brighter) is the way to go. The EF-M 32mm lens has just enough zoom that it's pretty much ideal for street photography... plus I can shoot closeup as well as produce panoramas with it fairly easily. If you don't like to stitch images together and want a wide lens, the EF-M 22mm f/2 lens is perhaps the best value lens in all of Canon's entire selection. And it can be used handheld at night plus it takes clean landscapes in daylight. The option of using non-Canon lenses may appeal to you but there's always the chance it won't work properly with future models of Canon camera (which has happened before). Yet in the end, you should buy a lens that suits your shooting style. If you prefer to use a non-Canon lens and it works on your camera, then by all means consider it. The longer the lens is (with focal length), the more important Image Stabilization becomes.
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Note that Canon tend to apply OIS to lenses that are either slow (smaller apertures) or long (longer focal lengths). For faster lenses that are considered wider, they don't believe there's a need to apply an OIS.
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Shooting handheld on a street at night with the EF-M 22mm f/2 lens.
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I used to carry the 11-22mm lens when in remote landscapes but carried the 22mm f/2 lens for switching over to when the light dimmed. More recently I've replaced that lens with the 32mm f/1.4 lens.
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But if you want to capture the sharpest results for lowlight and night time architecture and landscape photography, you should consider using a tripod. Sometimes a mini-tripod is all you need. But if you prefer to shoot at shoulder/chest height, a full-height tripod is the way to go.
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I find that the EF-M 32mm f/1.4 lens tends to emulate the look of a classic 35mm film image shot with an SLR camera on occasions. This is because of the FOV combined with the amount of DOF that the lens applies. It's producing classic-looking image styles that are appealing to the eye and it's hard to take a poor image with this lens. If you prefer a wider lens then there's certainly other alternatives out there.
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M6 + 32mm f/1.4 lens
M6 + 32mm f/1.4 lens
M6 + 32mm f/1.4 lens - shot handheld in candle-light at night. No NR applied. You can shoot with lower ISO settings handheld but I needed to freeze the action here as the subject (my wife) was talking to someone when I took this picture.
M6 + 32mm f/1.4 lens - classic bokeh - shot as I was walking out of a cafe.
M6 + 32mm f/1.4 lens - handheld at night
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One of the replies in this thread from member 23speaker23 commented was quite accurate...
"... A tripod is still the best option for shooting statinary objects at night. The tripod allows you to keep your ISO down which usually means better image quality.
And if you are not happy with the results from your kit lens handheld in low light, then you will not see any noticeable improvement from other stabilized lenses like the efm 11-22."
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Take your time to research your lenses. Download samples of images from lenses that you like and use those to determine if you should buy a particular lens or not. There are threads in this forum that are filled with examples from all the different EF-M lenses. And there are experiences and observations from those using 3rd party lenses on their M cameras. Feel free to ask specific questions and you should get replies from members fairly quickly. Enjoy your new EOS M camera. These are capable of DSLR-quality images and should serve you well.
