32mm f/1.4 --- Blue Mountains - (PICS)

Canon EOS M6 + Canon EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens
- with optional EW-60F lens hood + 43mm Hoya 'FUSION' Circular Polarizer.

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6 locations with the EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens...
Yesterday I visited 5 rather distant locations in the Blue Mountains National Park with the new 32mm f/1.4 lens- This National Park is located in the mountains just West of the city of Sydney in NSW Australia. I wanted to try the lens out with something more challenging that city architecture and daisies growing along the road. Virtually every shot turned out as expected with just two shots that were out of focus without reason.... I later discovered that one or two of my images were ever so slightly blurred but there was a reason for this...
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Problem #1 - WB
A problem I encountered was that there had been a fire-reduction-hazard (burnoff) recently and the plants themselves were showing a lot of magenta hues in the leaves... which produced issues with the camera's White Balance.  I experienced something like this quite a few years ago with the Canon G1X and the Pro1 so this isn't a lens related problem.  It's related to how Auto WB can shift slightly based on the colors in a scene.  If you put the AF reticule onto the blue sky the results were slightly different to when the AF reticule was on the green foliage. Some shots had either too much cyan or too much magenta (in my opinion) so I altered them in Photoshop.  I regret leaving the camera set with "Auto" WB instead of selecting (or at least testing) the "Daylight" WB - which is designed for clear sky sunlit scenes like I was shooting in. The colors in the mountains were troublesome for me because of the odd tint in the leaves (see example below). When I was in the city last weekend, I had a lot of white shirts and white ships and white boats in my shots for the camera to more accurately guage it's WB from... but not in the Australian bush.
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32mm f/1.4 - The trees and leaves were an off-green with a lot of green mixed with magenta tones. This was taken under the bright sun just before midday.

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Problem #2 - ISO button bumped somehow.
Partway through my day I seem to have hit the ISO button and cranked the ISO up to 25000... which was destructive to the images I took in daylight (not shown here). Fortunately I was watching the WB and spotted it before I took more than 8 shots with that ISO setting. This has happened once before when I held the M6 camera via the back end instead of with my hands on the grip. I have a feeling that there's a special "combo" button setting that triggers this since there's no chance I'd ever choose this ISO level.
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Problem #3 - ISO issue No.2 - Blurred images (just a couple)
It turns out that my ISO reset itself again from "Auto" to "ISO 100" sometime at around 2pm. I didn't do this intentionally. With the CPL filter on the lens, the camera automatically dropped the shutter speed down to 1/60. Normally this is a safe shutter speed although I prefer 1/100+ where possible if the focal length is longer than 24mm. I was presumably moving slightly when I took several of the shots that were at 1/60 ...and this resulted in two of three images that were slightly (very slightly) blurred. I couldn't tell until I got home. One of the shots that was "soft" from the movement is below (red car on a bush track). You probably won't notice it but it's not ideal. I can happily shoot with this lens much slower (eg 1/40 to 1/50sec) but I'm usually aware of this at the time and brace myself differently. If you're quite still, you can hold it at 1/30sec or even slower... but using a CPL filter with a camera that changed its own ISO for some reason is what complicated things for me. This is why I would have appreciated Canon using an Image Stabilizer on this lens although realistically, I'm sure they didn't expect me to be shooting at ISO 100 with a CPL filter on the lens.
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I found myself using the Control Dial far more often with this lens than with any other. I'd scroll to Av to crank the aperture wide for a more shallow DOF or I'd crank it up up to a narrow aperture to increase the clarity of a shot, depending on the subject. Otherwise I'd shoot in P-Mode although the camera seemed to like to hover between f/5.6 - f3.5 for a lot of shots. I picked up quite a bit of dust on the camera's LCD screen and was glad that the Hoya FUSION CPL filter I was using was anti-static and dust repelling.
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The six locations I visited yesterday in the Blue Mountains National Park:
* Three Sisters rock formation (at Katoomba)
* Hydro Majestic Hotel (at Leura)
* Govett's Leap Lookout (at Blackheath)
* Mount Wilson (at Mount Tomah)
* Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens (at Mount Tomah)
* District of Bilpin (tractor and vehicle shots)
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I expected to see more snakes and birds but apparently Springtime has only just kicked-in here and most of the snakes were waiting for it to get warmer. I looked under a few boulders and rocks for reptiles and insects but found nothing. A 'large' Water Skink (about as thick as your finger) was poking its head out of the top of a stone wall and I caught it by slowly approaching to minimum focus distance (MFD). The shallow DOF was beneficial for separating people and plants from complex backgrounds. With this excursion to the mountains, I was no longer testing for sharpness (which was more effectively established in the city shots I took over the weekend) but for simple versatility. 
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NOTES:
* Images taken in JPEG
* No crops.
* No additional sharpening was applied during PP
* 43mm Hoya FUSION Circular Polarizer was used on all shots.
* 1400+ images were taken on one battery.
* All shots were handheld.
* EW-60F lens hood was on the camera for protection.
* Shots of bees were taken using Servo AF
* CPL filters can warm up and otherwise enhance colors.
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I decided to desaturate the vintage tractor and old Dodge vehicle shots (last images at the end) but retained the shallow DOF from the lens in the Dodge shot. The original unedited images seemed too brightly colored and almost unnatural to look at as Golden Hour began to approach and the sun dropped low. Hope they're of use to those of you contemplating this lens.
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My favorite shots below are denoted with an Asterisk "[*]"
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A life-sized lizard sculpture on a walking track.

The visitor's viewing deck platforms at Katoomba

[*] Tourist snapping a selfie

[*] "The Three Sisters" at Katoomba - note the burned areas to the right

Large blossoms over my car at the visitor's carpark

Testing DOF with a shrub that was out of reach.

Springtime

Tourists taking selfies.

Viewing platform - from below.

More tourists taking selfies.

The Megalong Valley. There's a drought here at the moment.

Tourists taking in the view from Spooner's lookout.

DOF test

Those selfie-sticks

Springtime flowers - a lovely violent hue.

The logo of the Hydro Majestic Hotel

No hands but they almost ran be down here. It was moving as I took this shot.

View from behind a window at the bar in the Hydro Majestic Hotel

One of the many vintage buildings on the complex.

DOF test.

Daffodil ... I just liked it for the tiny fly (top right).

Arriving at Govett's Leap Lookout at Blackheath.

[*] The View from Govett's Leap Lookout.

Two shot panorama

Vertical shot

Honey Bee

In the middle of nowhere without a snakebite kit or a PLB - (one of the soft images)

Taken while reaching out of my car door window. - note the bokeh swirl

A more intact section of road. - The car is a metallic red that refracts sunlight.

DOF study

The view from the Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens

Another Honey Bee

[*] Small Water Skink checking me out from the top of a stone wall

Yet another Honey Bee

I should have used a smaller aperture (taken in P-Mode)

The view from the Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens

VERY tiny flowers. Each one was just a little thicker than two grains of rice.

This was for sale

Rust - DOF study

[*] This old Dodge hasn't been enhanced. Nice detail and color from this lens.

[*] Dodge - at f/1.4 - colors were intentionally desaturated. (filled with poisonous spiders.)

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I'm sorry to say that the Sydney weather prediction is "rain" for the rest of the week... this will impact my trip to the beach and to the goldfields - which I was planning to test this lens further.  I still need to conduct a couple more lowlight tests although I'm better able to grasp now what the lens can and can't do.  I think this would make for a great travel lens.

Wow!  Nice pictures Marco.
So is the 32mm f/1.4 a keeper?

What do you think of the M6? I want to get one.

Your landscape images have a bit of a pkasticky look. Is that because of the noise reduction? I thought canon jpeg processing would be better than that.

keeponkeepingon wrote:

Wow! Nice pictures Marco.
So is the 32mm f/1.4 a keeper?

Thanks, keeponkeepingon.  It's definitely an excellent lens... but not everyone wants/needs a shallow DOF and not everyone wants to shoot at near-50mm (equiv).
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For my own use, the 50mm might just be the lens I leave permanently on my EOS M camera. I shoot a lot of lowlight and no-flash shots and I happen to like a shallow DOF for closeups where possible. Strangely, I haven't thought of it as a lens I "own" but rather one that I'm still testing and putting it through its paces.
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Now that I've read your question asking me if it's a "keeper", I need to sit down and think about that for a moment. Here's how the EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens looks when I list the positive attributes:
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* It's very sharp.
* It's a flattering focal length for portraits.
* It's capable of closeup shots.
* It's a fast lens at f/1.4
* It's lighter, cheaper & smaller than alternatives.
* It produces attractive and controlled bokeh,
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EF-M 32mm @ f/16

EF-M 32mm @ f/1.4 (not quite at minimum focusing distance)

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One thing is for sure: I'll be wearing this lens on my camera for a while and time will tell if it's going to be my carry-around lens for the EOS M camera.  If it had a wider FOV then this would be an easy conclusion.  But right now, as a replacement for the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens, I think this might be the ideal native lens.
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Small Water Skink sticking its head out of a crack in a stone wall.

Not quite at minimum focusing distance... but fantastic results.

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Some of the very best compact cameras (eg Canon PowerShot Pro1 and Canon PowerShot G1X) weren't capable of shallow depth of field shots and yet every image they produced was lovely.  They captured vivid, crisp images. Not unlike those from a modern subcompact camera like the G7X II.  But, as one member here noted:  The image quality was sharper from the EOS M camera with a 'standard' lens.
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There's no such thing as "the perfect lens" but there is always a lens that can do what you need it to do.  I'd like to see Canon make some L-series lenses for the EOS M platform.  They managed to stick an L-series f/2.4L lens on the PowerShot Pro1 compact camera and the results were superb.  I think it would attract more interest in the M-series platform although it's not entirely necessary. But this lens is so close to the performance of an L-series lens that it ought to be sporting a red ring.  I can't think of a Canon lens sharper than the now-legendary EF 35mm f/1.4 USM II lens.... but this 32mm lens performs so close that I'm VERY curious to see how the professional reviewers receive it.  I'd swear this one is possibly even sharper.
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I think it's a keeper.  I'll know in a few more days.  I need to do some low-light tests with it plus some creative shots and a few beach shots with it before I'll be comfortable defining it as the best lens for my own uses.  Whilst I'm sure that CA is well controlled by both optical coatings and in-camera lens data correction, I've been very surprised at how well the Purple Fringing is controlled.  I only had to tweak 3 images (out of 4,200+ images) for color fringing and CA.  Each consisted of Chrome and reflective metal in the shots PLUS each image with PF was taken with the lens wide open and the exposure set higher than preferred.  That chrome lizard (at the start of the thread) required no correction at all.  Again, this is impressive although I was using a CPL filter so perhaps that had some bearing on muting the PF.  Canon have made something quite special with this lens.
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Regards,
Marco Nero.

Marco,

Re the ISO problem - same here. I bought an M6 (largely due to your response to my question on this forum) some 2 moths ago. It happened to me twice that I switched from ISO100 to auto ISO, which ruined my photos. It is jus too easy due to M6's responsive touch screen.

Great series of pictures Marco!! They really show what this lens is capable of. I under scribe your remark about the lens not having IS. Yesterday my EF-M32 1.4 arrived and making some test shots I noticed a little bit of shake showing at the display of my trusty M1. It’s amazing how quick one got used to IS 

Thank you so much for sharing all the useful information with us.

Boss of Sony wrote:

What do you think of the M6? I want to get one.

It's an excellent camera. I highly recommend it.

Your landscape images have a bit of a pkasticky look. Is that because of the noise reduction? I thought canon jpeg processing would be better than that.

It's nothing to do with noise reduction although I may have lifted the shadows slightly in one of the image (Three Sisters Image) due to the effect of the CPL filter on shadowed areas.  I wouldn't have done this to excess though. If you want to see how clean the Canon JPEGs are from the EOS M6, you'll really need to take a look at the untouched image directly below...

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EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 - an example of Canon color and detail from the M6.  This is an unedited JPEG from the camera that has not been resized or edited in any way whatsoever.  It doesn't really get any better than this.

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The Australian outback (bushland but not so much desert scenes) consists of details that don't compress well, especially when certain hues are involved. The colors here include hues that even Sony's color-processing struggled to accurately reproduce (specifically Magenta and Cyan tones) and I think most camera processors struggle to resolve the details captured by the most recent generations of lenses. I'm not taunting you over your forum name, I'm just commenting on observations.  I haven't looked at the latest generation of Sony processors but I remember how their image processors were incapable of accurately reproducing intensely-detailed scenery (leaves on trees and grass) without smearing the details with the automatic noise reduction that was applied ...and whilst I'm sure they've allowed users to modify this behavior, it's important to remember that when larger files with intense detail are reduced, they end up creating an artificial look to any image.  The only thing I would have liked to have done yesterday is to have used a Daylight White Balance.  I might try that next time.  Canon used to use Sony sensors on quite a few of their PowerShots so I'm surprised the issues didn't carry across at the time.  Looking at the tourists and their clothing in my shots from the M6 (in the original post on this thread), you can see that the colors are slightly warmer but are still quite accurate.
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32mm f/1.4 - 'The trees and leaves were an off-green with a lot of green mixed with magenta tones. This was taken under the bright sun just before midday.'.
I generally prefer not to add artificial colors to a shot unless it's absolutely necessary to do so.  I try to frame my shots as needed rather than crop the images later.  The only thing I don't mind doing is turning down the Noise Reduction on the camera and then using it as needed when processing any images after downloading them.
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NOTE: Full Sized image (6000 pixels wide).An untouched image straight from the camera. Check out the viewing platform for the tourists way down at the bottom of the cliff face on the lower right.  The colors almost looks like Autumn hues. Iron Oxide on the cliff walls and magenta leaves on the trees make this image less appealing than the one below...

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Several issues were at play with photographing the landscape scenes at Katoomba and Blackheath yesterday: Using a quality Circular Polarizer (which was essential in daylight with an f/1.4 lens for some wide-open shots) generates more color intensity and increases color saturation and contrast (see my original comments in the Original Post under 'Notes'). As you can see from the image above (which is unedited and straight from the camera without resizing), the colors of the bush here look 'unnatural' because of the ongoing Drought and because of recent Fires that were lit to reduce fire-hazard during our approaching summer. The rocks themselves are yellow sandstone stained with iron oxides ... which give them a pink hue. Red shale is also dominant in the region on the topmost layers, something that Charles Darwin commented on when he visited these sites on the 18th of January, 1836. The camera sensor is correctly interpreting the scene colors based on the wavelengths permitted by the PLC filter and on the White Balance setting used (which was set to 'AUTO' on this occasion). As noted, the native plants and vegetation were exhibiting warm reds instead of cooler greens.
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Canon PowerShot G1X - More pleasing colors - from when the valley was lush and the greens had less magenta. But it has been heavily color-tweaked.  I took this shot after waiting for the weather and sun position to be ideal - Jan 2014. Note that this image has been heavily Photoshopped as it was to be used in a book. As such, I didn't bother to upload it to my gallery until just now. - This image is actually quite soft when viewed at 100% and was taken at f/5 @ 28mm.  The rocks were slightly desaturated here.

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You can see an image above that I took with a Canon G1X that has much more pleasing colors, even though a CPL was used and the angle of light was similar. I even selected a day where there would be random clouds in the sky to impact more with the CPL and to give a better sense of scale. I desaturated some of the pink hues from the sandstone to enhance the appeal of the image. You won't notice it but the trees in the distance were smears because the sensor wasn't capable of resolving the sort of details that the EOS M cameras can with their larger sensors. The G1X camera has a decent sized 1.5 inch sensor that was fantastic for its time. I just used it a couple of hours ago to photograph my M6 camera for the image I used to lead this thread with.
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Processing...
When the camera images are processing inside the camera, the resulting image is accurate, based on the nature of the light striking the sensor. In the instances above, you can see a remarkable amount of detail has been captured by the M6 shot (top). Reducing it to a JPEG results in losing a lot of that fine detail when making the image smaller - in the same way that reducing a portrait eliminates pores and subtle details in the skin. Then we have some additional compression taking place on the DPreview server (which annoyed another 32mm lens owner last week because he said detail was lacking after posting).
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Below are two images taken from the same region during winter time and at sunset. The lens used here was the EF-M 11-22mm f.4-5.6 IS STM lens - which is reputed for its sharpness.
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EOS M6 + EF-M 11-22mm lens - Sunset - no filters. JPEG from camera.

EOS M6 + EF-M 11-22mm lens - Sunrise- this was processed as a HDR image

iPhone 6S - taking the shot above (just before I swapped lenses on the EOSM)

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One of the advantages of shooting with RAW is that contrast, color enhancement, contrast adjustment, noise reduction and sharpening are not added by the camera. Skies are un-banded until you reduce and then compress the image into an 8-Bit JPEG for posting online. Complex backgrounds are squeezed down in size so that details are essentially replaced by color patches.
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With the shots I took of the valley regions yesterday, the in-camera processing was offset by the odd color hues that were present in the scene at the time. In lifting shadows slightly and altering color hues to tone down their abnormal color state due to present conditions in the valley, the resulting images might not register as ideal to the human eye. And yet the natural colors were quite strange as a result of all the magenta. i will be returning to the site again when the week's rain has subsided and will hopefully capture better lighting conditions and more greenery.
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In retrospect, I think the M6 and the 32mm lens performed as expected with yesterday's shoot - although I do with the color differences had not been present. I could have processed the image to match the one of the G1X above... but that really would be cheating.

Raanani wrote:

Marco,

Re the ISO problem - same here. I bought an M6 (largely due to your response to my question on this forum) some 2 moths ago. It happened to me twice that I switched from ISO100 to auto ISO, which ruined my photos. It is jus too easy due to M6's responsive touch screen.

+1

robbert100 wrote:

Great series of pictures Marco!! They really show what this lens is capable of. I under scribe your remark about the lens not having IS. Yesterday my EF-M32 1.4 arrived and making some test shots I noticed a little bit of shake showing at the display of my trusty M1. It’s amazing how quick one got used to IS

Thanks Robert... It's still kind of early days for me with this lens.  I'm just trying to get samples out early enough that it helps others to decide if they need it or not and to give people an idea of what I'm getting from mine so they know what to expect from their own.  The early Canon samples didn't capitalize on the bokeh this lens produces.  I've tried to explore this.  As for low-light shots, I haven't dome much of that yet.  But Canon offered up a few of those so I can assume my own lens can handle it well.

Something I do when using any lens without ISO is to work out the minimum handheld speed and then increase the shutter speed above this to a "safe zone".  A wider lens won't show blur with slight movement but a stronger zoom certainly will.  Most of the time when I carry a lens around, I have it set to Tv mode (Shutter Priority).  if I suddenly need greater DOF, I'll then either switch to M or Av mode and crank open the lens.  If you are used to only using IS lenses then it's very easy to forget shutter speeds.  With a fast lens, you rarely ever need to worry about camera shake if you keep your shots over a certain speed and each lens has a different requirement.  They say the human hand can handhold a camera for 1/13th second with a wide lens and 1/30th second with a longer lens.  Image stabilization can enhance this... but most subjects don't magically freeze so having a faster lens is more important since you can speed up the shutter to freeze the action with less light to be sacrificed.
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EF-M 22mm f/2 lens - usually I carry this lens at 1/250+ second in daylight and 1/60 second in lowlight.  Otherwise I leave it in Tv Mode and have never had any blurred shots from it.
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EF-M 11-22mm IS lens - usually I carry this lens at 1/100 second or higher.  The day I bought this lens, I took what I thought was a careful shot of the interior of a dome inside a building with decent light at 1/80 second and the image was slightly blurred from movement.  This was at 11mm which is strange.  I later returned and took the same shot at 1/80 with f/4 and ISO 1600.  The result was razor sharp. But I can only presume that the Image Stabilizer was automatically disengaged because I was pointing the camera STRAIGHT UP at the time.
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EF-M 32mm f/1.4 lens - usually I carry this lens at 1/100 second or higher, regardless of the aperture.  The only complication occurred when I was shooting panoramas... I was taking a shot, turning slightly and then taking another shot.  One or two shots were slightly blurred at 1/60 sec and that's because I was still moving.  I even caught myself jerking the camera slightly to take one picture since it was in Burst Mode and I only wanted a single shot at the time.
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EF-M 28mm f/3.5 IS Macro lens - I think I usually carry this one at 1/100 second.  I adjust the shutter speed as needed.  With some macro shots I need to drop to 1/30 sec but I'm usually bracing the camera on the ground when shooting like that.
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https://www.bettertravelphotos.com/blog/item/shutter-speed-vs-focal-length-rule-for-razor-sharp-photos
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There's a recipe for calculating a safe shutter speed (which many here will be familiar with) where you need to match the focal length of your lens with a specific shutter speed minimum in order to avoid shake....  So a 100mm lens needs a 1/100 sec exposure or it will likely blur with something lower (eg 1/80 sec).  An 85mm lens needs at least 1/85 second (hence 1/90+). But that calculation applies to Full Frame... with APS-C the recipe changes to 2x the focal length.
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With the 32mm lens, it's mounted on an APS-C body with the EOS M cameras and that equates to 51mm (equiv). With 2x, this becomes around + 1/60th second.   So the safe zone for this lens is ABOVE 1/60 second.  I think that the safe zone for this lens will be about 1/80 and above.  If you can remember to set your lens to 1/80 second or higher, you ought not to have any issues at all.  Hence I choose to carry this lens at 1/100+  You can certainly take shots slower than 1/60 but you'll need to be careful.  Leaning against a table, a pole or a beverage glass will allow even lower speeds like 1/13 sec.  I'm certainly going to use this lens wide open with lower-than 1/80 second.  For general use I expect to shoot a little faster and the bright glass ought to allow it.
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I noticed that ALL the shots taken at f/1,4 with this lens in the dark museum I was in were automatically defaulting the M6 to 1/60 second.  All of them.   And when using the CPL filter with my ISO set to Auto or ISO 100 I found that my camera again defaulted to 1/60 second in daylight.
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I note that I have turned my Auto Lighting Optimizer OFF since purchase.
I also note that I have turned Highlight Tone Priority OFF since purchase.
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I'm wondering if I ought to have enabled these for yesterday's shoot in the mountains.  But I generally used P-Mode for most of my shots to see what the results might be.  Normally this is rather foolproof.

John TF wrote:

Raanani wrote:

Marco,

Re the ISO problem - same here. I bought an M6 (largely due to your response to my question on this forum) some 2 moths ago. It happened to me twice that I switched from ISO100 to auto ISO, which ruined my photos. It is jus too easy due to M6's responsive touch screen.

+1

Alrighty... I just looked into this with my own M6 and i believe I can see what's happening.  The ISO feature can be activated by touching the ISO button or the ISO icon on the touchscreen.
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When I grip the camera from the rear and am lowering as I turn it off, I notice that i can hit the ISO button with the lower portion of my thumb... or I can quite easily hit the ISO icon on the LCD.  The ISO window then opens and if my thumb (the lower thumb area that connects to your palm) is still in contact with the LCD screen, it tends to be moving slightly.  This movement slides the ISO to either 100 or all the way to 25000.  This explains why I've had this happen yesterday and once before in the city a year ago.
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It's not easy to do unless you rest your hand on the lower right corner of the screen.  But then, if the camera is still turned on, you can inadvertently alter the ISO and it will most easily slide to either 100 or (if pressed the other way) to 25000.
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The most LIKELY way that it occurred with me is by lowering the camera and pressing accidentally against the scroll wheel before it was turned OFF.  The continued pressure on the wheel then alters the ISO setting.  The direction goes up or down depending on the direction of movement from your hand.
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To be fair, it's essential to have access to an ISO switch on the back of the camera.  But if you grip your M6 (and presumably some other models) by allowing your hand to come in contact with the ISO switch, the odds are fantastically high that you can change your ISO setting accidentally.  I wouldn't call this a design flaw... because so many other cameras have the same ISO switch on the same portion of the camera.  But it's more likely to be hit if you use your M6 without a camera strap or use a hip mounting plate (like the ones from PeakDesign).  If you don't use the strap you'll tend to cling more securely to the camera.  If you use a hip mounting plate like I do, you can press this button as you go to holster the camera.  If the camera is still switched ON, then you might end up altering your ISO by accident.

Marco Nero wrote:

32mm f/1.4 - 'The trees and leaves were an off-green with a lot of green mixed with magenta tones. This was taken under the bright sun just before midday.'

1/800 is a relatively slow shutterspeed for a shot in bright sun @ f/1.4  Without any filters you could easily need 1/16000 or even shorter.

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EOS M6 + EF-M 11-22mm lens - Sunrise- this was processed as a HDR image

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I like this shot a lot. Very nice.

Thank you so much for your outstanding, comprehensive explanation; super!!

thunder storm wrote:

Marco Nero wrote:

32mm f/1.4 - 'The trees and leaves were an off-green with a lot of green mixed with magenta tones. This was taken under the bright sun just before midday.'

1/800 is a relatively slow shutterspeed for a shot in bright sun @ f/1.4 Without any filters you could easily need 1/16000 or even shorter.

* 1/350 is suitable for freezing people in mid-run without motion blur.
* 1/500 is ideal for freezing sport action like surfers.
* 1/1000 is suitable for freezing an exploding lance from a charging knight on a horse.
* What kind of fool would shoot a perfectly still plant at 1/16000 second?
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I shot the image above in Av-Mode so the camera determined the shutter speed based on the Circular Polarizer on the lens and the amount of light that was available with the ISO set to 100.  Still, it's a shame the M6 only has a maximum shutter speed of 1/4000 sec.  If only there was a camera that offered 1/16,000 sec that costs under a quarter of a million dollars that wasn't made by Sony.
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I'm not replying to the poster above.  I'm replying to cement the comment so that others might understand why I no longer communicate directly with this member of the forum.  The comment above was trollworthy, even if an accidental 'Typo' was included. 
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*This is why I added this person to my blacklist on 09.09.2018 at 3:29am.

Thanks, Marco.

Looks like a keeper to me.

I have the 16-35mm L F4 attached to my M50. Bulky and heavy. I noticed I tend to use the 28-35 range a lot and often at F4 or 5.6. I take pictures of kids and people, nowadays.

Given your range of equipment and picture expertise, would you consider the 32mm replacing the 16-35?

Being on fence regarding FF cameras (my 6D is begging replacement.. to what?) , I am using the m50 all the time now. Thus I am hesitating between saving the cost of a new M lens versus saving it for an R with kit lens, which looks like a nice upgrade from the 6D.

On the other end, I wonder how "better" would be such an R combination compared to the 50 M + 32 mm lens.

This conundrum reminds me of buying EF-S lenses when there was a possibility than I would go up from APS-C to FF (which I did). And there were a few S lenses which are pretty good... not L, but close, like the 32mm here. (Is there an M to R adapter on the horizon?)

You missed my point. The settings - whether choosen by your camera or not - are telling it was not in bright sunlight unless a filter was used. Otherwise the picture would have been overexposed while it is not.

thunder storm wrote:

You missed my point. The settings - whether choosen by your camera or not - are telling it was not in bright sunlight unless a filter was used. Otherwise the picture would have been overexposed while it is not.

Marco did used a circular polarfilter for this picture, resulting in 2 stops reduction of exposure. Without filter the shutterspeed would be in the region of 1/3200 sec.

robbert100 wrote:

thunder storm wrote:

You missed my point. The settings - whether choosen by your camera or not - are telling it was not in bright sunlight unless a filter was used. Otherwise the picture would have been overexposed while it is not.

Marco did used a circular polarfilter for this picture, resulting in 2 stops reduction of exposure. Without filter the shutterspeed would be in the region of 1/3200 sec.

Ah o.k., i missed that. Explains everything. Thank you!

jboyer wrote:

Thanks, Marco.

Looks like a keeper to me.

I'm thinking so myself.  I don't intend to return it or retire it but I think so far that it's a keeper.  There's no other lens like it for the EOS M system.

I have the 16-35mm L F4 attached to my M50. Bulky and heavy. I noticed I tend to use the 28-35 range a lot and often at F4 or 5.6. I take pictures of kids and people, nowadays.

I remember using that lens briefly on my original EOS M before returning it to a DSLR.  It was great on a tripod or with a flash but in lowlight it seemed a little ordinary, perhaps due to the aperture.  I bought this lens for my wife to use on an APS-C DSLR and she never bothered to use it. Both the f/2.8L and f/4L versions of the 16-35mm lens are great, the f/4L version was the sharpest and I bought the f/2,8 version for lowlight work.  If I need sharp, wide pictures today I tend to reach for the EF-M 11-22mm lens.

Given your range of equipment and picture expertise, would you consider the 32mm replacing the 16-35?

The 16-35mm lens is a beautiful lens on the Full Frame cameras but it's clearly matched by the 11-22mm lens from the EF-M range.  In fact this lens works out to be around 18-25mm when you factor in the APS-C crop.  There's a benefit to using a more light-sensitive Full Frame sensor... but I think that this is more beneficial with faster lenses in lowlight.

Being on fence regarding FF cameras (my 6D is begging replacement.. to what?) , I am using the m50 all the time now. Thus I am hesitating between saving the cost of a new M lens versus saving it for an R with kit lens, which looks like a nice upgrade from the 6D.

Like you, I consider the R to be the logical upgrade from the 6D.  I have spoken with quite a few people who have handled both the R and the new lenses and the weight and size is considerably much larger and heavier than the M system.  Not to mention the high cost of the new lenses.  But the 32mm f/1.4 is a sharp lens that might offer an alternative to the RF 50mm f1.2.

On the other end, I wonder how "better" would be such an R combination compared to the 50 M + 32 mm lens.

The R will produce excellent images.  It's a brilliant design and it's spectacular.  But the ultimate question will be "can it take significantly better pictures" than the 6D.  I think that with the new lenses it certainly can. But the price of those new lenses is quite high.  And if you can get a very similar shot with your M50, then the need to upgrade from your 6D should be taken cautiously.

This conundrum reminds me of buying EF-S lenses when there was a possibility than I would go up from APS-C to FF (which I did). And there were a few S lenses which are pretty good... not L, but close, like the 32mm here. (Is there an M to R adapter on the horizon?)

I'd doubt we'll see Canon produce any adapters to allow R lenses on an M body or M lenses on an R body.  But Canon occasionally experiment with their products. And like you, I've been enticed by some EF-S lenses but chose not to buy them since I couldn't use them practically on a FF DSLR.  You're right though: There's some very sharp EF-S lenses that were versatile.

Marco Nero wrote:

Boss of Sony wrote:

What do you think of the M6? I want to get one.

It's an excellent camera. I highly recommend it.

Your landscape images have a bit of a pkasticky look. Is that because of the noise reduction? I thought canon jpeg processing would be better than that.

It's nothing to do with noise reduction although I may have lifted the shadows slightly in one of the image (Three Sisters Image) due to the effect of the CPL filter on shadowed areas. I wouldn't have done this to excess though. If you want to see how clean the Canon JPEGs are from the EOS M6, you'll really need to take a look at the untouched image directly below...

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EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 - an example of Canon color and detail from the M6. This is an unedited JPEG from the camera that has not been resized or edited in any way whatsoever. It doesn't really get any better than this.

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The Australian outback (bushland but not so much desert scenes) consists of details that don't compress well, especially when certain hues are involved. The colors here include hues that even Sony's color-processing struggled to accurately reproduce (specifically Magenta and Cyan tones) and I think most camera processors struggle to resolve the details captured by the most recent generations of lenses. I'm not taunting you over your forum name, I'm just commenting on observations. I haven't looked at the latest generation of Sony processors but I remember how their image processors were incapable of accurately reproducing intensely-detailed scenery (leaves on trees and grass) without smearing the details with the automatic noise reduction that was applied ...and whilst I'm sure they've allowed users to modify this behavior, it's important to remember that when larger files with intense detail are reduced, they end up creating an artificial look to any image. The only thing I would have liked to have done yesterday is to have used a Daylight White Balance. I might try that next time. Canon used to use Sony sensors on quite a few of their PowerShots so I'm surprised the issues didn't carry across at the time. Looking at the tourists and their clothing in my shots from the M6 (in the original post on this thread), you can see that the colors are slightly warmer but are still quite accurate.
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32mm f/1.4 - 'The trees and leaves were an off-green with a lot of green mixed with magenta tones. This was taken under the bright sun just before midday.'

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I generally prefer not to add artificial colors to a shot unless it's absolutely necessary to do so. I try to frame my shots as needed rather than crop the images later. The only thing I don't mind doing is turning down the Noise Reduction on the camera and then using it as needed when processing any images after downloading them.
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NOTE: Full Sized image (6000 pixels wide).An untouched image straight from the camera. Check out the viewing platform for the tourists way down at the bottom of the cliff face on the lower right. The colors almost looks like Autumn hues. Iron Oxide on the cliff walls and magenta leaves on the trees make this image less appealing than the one below...

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Several issues were at play with photographing the landscape scenes at Katoomba and Blackheath yesterday: Using a quality Circular Polarizer (which was essential in daylight with an f/1.4 lens for some wide-open shots) generates more color intensity and increases color saturation and contrast (see my original comments in the Original Post under 'Notes'). As you can see from the image above (which is unedited and straight from the camera without resizing), the colors of the bush here look 'unnatural' because of the ongoing Drought and because of recent Fires that were lit to reduce fire-hazard during our approaching summer. The rocks themselves are yellow sandstone stained with iron oxides ... which give them a pink hue. Red shale is also dominant in the region on the topmost layers, something that Charles Darwin commented on when he visited these sites on the 18th of January, 1836. The camera sensor is correctly interpreting the scene colors based on the wavelengths permitted by the PLC filter and on the White Balance setting used (which was set to 'AUTO' on this occasion). As noted, the native plants and vegetation were exhibiting warm reds instead of cooler greens.
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Canon PowerShot G1X - More pleasing colors - from when the valley was lush and the greens had less magenta. But it has been heavily color-tweaked. I took this shot after waiting for the weather and sun position to be ideal - Jan 2014. Note that this image has been heavily Photoshopped as it was to be used in a book. As such, I didn't bother to upload it to my gallery until just now. - This image is actually quite soft when viewed at 100% and was taken at f/5 @ 28mm. The rocks were slightly desaturated here.

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You can see an image above that I took with a Canon G1X that has much more pleasing colors, even though a CPL was used and the angle of light was similar. I even selected a day where there would be random clouds in the sky to impact more with the CPL and to give a better sense of scale. I desaturated some of the pink hues from the sandstone to enhance the appeal of the image. You won't notice it but the trees in the distance were smears because the sensor wasn't capable of resolving the sort of details that the EOS M cameras can with their larger sensors. The G1X camera has a decent sized 1.5 inch sensor that was fantastic for its time. I just used it a couple of hours ago to photograph my M6 camera for the image I used to lead this thread with.
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Processing...
When the camera images are processing inside the camera, the resulting image is accurate, based on the nature of the light striking the sensor. In the instances above, you can see a remarkable amount of detail has been captured by the M6 shot (top). Reducing it to a JPEG results in losing a lot of that fine detail when making the image smaller - in the same way that reducing a portrait eliminates pores and subtle details in the skin. Then we have some additional compression taking place on the DPreview server (which annoyed another 32mm lens owner last week because he said detail was lacking after posting).
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Below are two images taken from the same region during winter time and at sunset. The lens used here was the EF-M 11-22mm f.4-5.6 IS STM lens - which is reputed for its sharpness.
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EOS M6 + EF-M 11-22mm lens - Sunset - no filters. JPEG from camera.

EOS M6 + EF-M 11-22mm lens - Sunrise- this was processed as a HDR image

iPhone 6S - taking the shot above (just before I swapped lenses on the EOSM)

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One of the advantages of shooting with RAW is that contrast, color enhancement, contrast adjustment, noise reduction and sharpening are not added by the camera. Skies are un-banded until you reduce and then compress the image into an 8-Bit JPEG for posting online. Complex backgrounds are squeezed down in size so that details are essentially replaced by color patches.
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With the shots I took of the valley regions yesterday, the in-camera processing was offset by the odd color hues that were present in the scene at the time. In lifting shadows slightly and altering color hues to tone down their abnormal color state due to present conditions in the valley, the resulting images might not register as ideal to the human eye. And yet the natural colors were quite strange as a result of all the magenta. i will be returning to the site again when the week's rain has subsided and will hopefully capture better lighting conditions and more greenery.
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In retrospect, I think the M6 and the 32mm lens performed as expected with yesterday's shoot - although I do with the color differences had not been present. I could have processed the image to match the one of the G1X above... but that really would be cheating.

I agree, those full-sized images are pretty good.

What do you think of the 15-45mm lens? I might get an m6 with that lens on it.

Boss of Sony wrote:

I agree, those full-sized images are pretty good.

Normally I try not to "pixel-peep" but the full sized images from this lens are really quite sharp and detailed.  It has surprised me as I did not expect it from this lens.

What do you think of the 15-45mm lens? I might get an m6 with that lens on it.

It's a 'kit' lens - which I normally avoid because I know Canon like to use low-cost lenses for their kits. I bought the original EOS M body-only and originally just used EF lenses on it via the adapter.  I later upgraded to the M6 when the technology for AF speed was improved. In recent years I bought several EF-M lenses and they are very nice (22mm, 28mm Macro, 11-22mm and 32mm.)  But whilst I've used the 15-45mm lens, I chose not to buy one because there appears to be both good and bad copies of this lens.  Quite a few other members here have ended up replacing theirs because they weren't happy with the first one.  I think that the focal length is very nice although there's an indication that Canon are possibly looking to redesign this lens and may produce a 15-45mm II lens in the following year (unconfirmed but quite likely).  But if you do get this lens and you get a decent copy, the images I've seen posted here by other members are really beautiful.  If you're thinking about a particular lens, just create a thread asking the members here if they could post some of their favorite photographs from that lens and they will.  You'd be surprised at the results.
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A lot of people get the 15-45mm lens because it's sold as a kit with the M6 in a lot of places.  It's possibly the weakest lens in terms of sharpness across a detailed scene with excessive corner softness showing up in SOME (but NOT all) models of the lens.  As an alternative:  If you could obtain the VERY affordable EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens instead you'd probably find it incredibly useful and very sharp with decent lowlight performance. A few of us marvel at how the 22mm lens is possibly Canon's cheapest lens yet produces some astounding results in day-to-day use.
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A few members here have actively sought out GOOD copies of the 15-45mm lens and I know of one member who likes it enough to have bought two (one is a reserve in case he loses or damages the other).  It's a bit of a holy-grail in some ways.  If you want razor sharp, the 11-22mm lens is an incredibly sharp lens... as is the 28mm Macro.  If you need a little bokeh or lowlight performance the 22mm f/2 is the best value lens on the market today, regardless of camera brand.    If you bought an M6 and they "threw in the lens" as part of a deal, it's a bit hard to turn it down.
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The new 32mm f/1.4 lens is the newest of the EF-M lenses and offers enhanced bokeh and lowlight performance - but at a narrower FOV (@ 51mm equiv).  The price of this lens is still a but steep for most people.  But its performance is closer to that of an L-series lens so it's still acceptable to many.
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* If anyone is reading this reply who also owns/uses the 15-45mm lens, feel free to reply to this comment with a few examples for Boss of Sony.  I think there's some excellent shots here that might be useful to see.