Switching to Primes?

[Keith B]

I am, however converting to primes for indoor use, or for shallow depth of field. I just sent back my new 70-200mm f/2.8 L, it was heavy, and still too small a aperture for the very low light indoor photography I like to do.

Same here. Just sold my 70-200 2.8 IS. Hardly used it. If I was indoors, it wasn't fast enough. If I was outdoors I'd rather have the range of my 100-400. It was nice for portrait work for about ten minutes and then my arm would get tired. Even portrait work I like to work with wide apertures. At least it paid for most of my 85L.

[scalesusa]

After sending back my new 70-200mm f/2.8, I ordered a 35mmL. I had used the lightroom search function to look at my 20,000 images to see which focal lengths were most often used, (24mm or 35mm). I found that I could use the 35mm for about 70-80% of my shots in that range.





The new 35mmL arrived last night, and it seemed to me to be backfocusing with my 5D MK IIa lot. After working with it for 3 or 4 hours setting up the microfocus adjustment, a +2 made a huge difference. I was doing testing at f/1.4 to f/1.8 so I could keep a shallow DOF and find out exactly where it was focusing. i used all types of images, from test shots to real world images, and I am stil suprised that a tiny MF adjustment made such a large difference in image sharpness. I guess that thin DOF requires focus to be right-on!


Now, I'm really pleased with it. Next, I'll mf my 1D MK III to it. I've got a starting point now, I'm curious to see if the same setting works.

[Jordan]

Dude, get an EF 24mm f/1.4 L II USM and an EF 85mm f/1.8 USM! That'll run you just under $2k and keep your EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM and you'll be golden!