I can't believe that landscape photography is so fun and so frustrating
all at the same time
After the collaboration I did with Paul G Johnson the other week someone
eagle-eyed noticed that I was using the Canon 17-40mm f/4 lens and they
asked me why I'm using that lens as if it's not very good lens they're asking
me why I'm not using the Canon 16-35 F/4 IS lens claiming it was sharper better newer
lens it just got me thinking is it I don't know
does the lens matter? does the glass you use matter? so not being wanted to turn
down a challenge I've gone ahead and I have bought the 16-35mm
partly to prove to myself whether or not it's worth it and to help you out as
well so what I want to decide today is is this 16-35mm newer lens
better than this older lens and if so how much and is it worth it so that's
what I'm going to do here today in the absolutely stunningly beautiful
Yorkshire Dales
also today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace
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Squarespace so we're still doing some landscape photography today and I am set
up for my first shot of the day the way I'm gonna do it is by like I have here
getting the camera set up on the tripod and then shoot it with one lens don't
change any settings or position or anything else
switch the lenses and then take it with the second shot so for the first shot my
composition is pretty much what I've got behind me this is Ribblehead viaduct
I've got this absolutely stunning limestone pavement down here and just
the natural lines just lead you into the viaduct and you've got the mountain over
there which is currently residing in the sunlight for this shot though what I
want is to have some of that sunlight that's currently on the mountains over
there I want that to be striking this pavement because it just lights it up and
creates a much more interesting shot without that the shot isn't gonna work
as well I'll still be able to get something to do the test but I really
want the light to hit it at the moment we've got the bank of cloud behind me I
think it is about to clear it's definitely forecast to towards the
end of the day so it should be quite exciting the reason I've come here
because for this test I wanted to have some really strong foreground interest
to really put the lens to the test across the frame from the front edge in
the corners and then to the background as well so this shot is going to do that
for me I think I'm then going to look around and try and find his second shot
so we've got two shots to compare so we know one of them wasn't a fluke yeah I
just think this is gonna be really nice shot the reason I've got the camera in
quite a precarious position on these rocks here is because I've gotten really
really wide to fill that foreground with these rocks I'm at 16 millimetres on
this one actually I've got into about 17 so it's a fair test because I want 17
millimeters for both shots and it's filling the foreground with these rocks
and they're dominating the frame and then that just leads you up really nicely to
the bridge and then to the sky above it which has some quite interesting clouds
in it as it starts to warm up towards the end of the evening settings wise I'm
an f-16 because I'm really close to these rocks I want to keep them in focus
as much as I possibly can I'm not going to
focus stack or anything that like that because it's gonna make this shot much
more complicated I want it to be straightforward there's no filters on
the front so I can just switch the lenses out really easily without
affecting anything other than the change of lens so I'm trying to make the test
as accurate as I possibly can so I think we're there now for that first shot it's
just a case of climbing up on to here and pretty much just waiting for those clouds
are clear so we can we can grab this shot
I can't believe that landscape photography is so fun and so frustrating
all at the same time the cloud was there and it eventually cleared just as the
Sun started going down behind Whernside Mountain over there and just
unbelievable I've been here for a while waiting for it and then just as it
happened I had about 10 to 20 seconds to capture the shot I think I got a bit of
light on the rocks with both lenses but it was frantic and it's now spoiled my
second shot because and I don't have any light on the pavement here but the
things I'm looking for in this test and the qualities I look for in a good lens
are sharpness firstly is the lens sharp secondly I want to know especially at
these wide angles that were dealing with today what level of distortion do we get
then I'm looking at things like chromatic aberration and lens flare the
Canon 17-40mm lens has always done me right so I'm very happy with that
lens so I really am looking to see a good improvement with this 16-35mm
so I'm set for the second shot now and without the light on these rocks it's
nowhere near gonna be as good but it still should be I'm really happy with
the composition it's still gonna be good and it's still gonna make this test very
very valid very frustrating though I don't have the light, it's the summer solstice
today longest day of the year and the light has dipped behind that mountain a lot sooner
than it does in the winter. The sun sets over there in the winter you get it a lot longer so
a bit disappointing but there we go anyway for this shot the sandstone
pavement it's a bit more solid here and these veins of rock are just fantastic
I've looked all around to find veins of rock that lead you towards the mountain
in the background there which is still bathed in that absolutely remarkable
beautiful summer solstice afternoon Sun. Very simply I've gone to about 31
32 millimetres on this one a bit further in to test it at different focal lengths
but I'm still similar to the last shot filling the foreground with this rock
and then that just leads you up towards Ingleborough in the background there so
that's what I'm going for settings wise I'm at f/16 again because the limestone
pavement is very close I am at a shutter speed of one eighth of a second I'm just
trying to keep this reedy reedy grass out of the shot because at one eighth of
a second that would show some movement so I've zoomed in a little bit as well
to get rid of that iso 100 and that's it right let's swap the lenses and see what
the 17-40 can do.
so an absolutely brilliant evening of landscape photography there. It was very
exciting you spend all the time setting up and waiting and then it happens in
such a minute amount of time it was just it was fun though anyway I've got two
good compositions in the bag I've tested both compositions with both lenses so i'm
excited to find out which one's gonna be best not even sure which are which
one I want to win. The 16-35 I'd like to think lenses can keep getting better
I've spent about £700 on that lens the Canon 17-40 you can now pick up for
about 200 pounds secondhand that's done me well for years so I kind of want that
one to win because then I can just send the Canon 16-35mm back and you'd be happy
with what I already had so either way it's exciting I love mucking around with
the gear like this and I hope you do too.
So late night last night I'm back in the
office today I put those pictures into Lightroom edited them exactly the same
for both of these lenses so we can see which one of these two is going to be
the best let's get into the computer and have a look okay so I've got the images
here in Lightroom I've got the two compositions with the two lenses the
green one is from the 16-35 the blue one is from the 17-40 so let's have a
look at the first image to start off with we can see it's a pretty decent
image and that light did eventually come around not wholly though you can see
here in this area here there is a cloud which is kind of keeping all the light
off the viaduct which is what I would really wanted to make this a top notch
shot the light on the rocks is really nice but if we spin over to the 17-40
picture you can see that light was so fleeting so if we go back to the 16 to
35 picture let's just zoom in down in on this corner and have a look at the
distortion now distortion is pretty well handled with this lens I've got to say
I'm quite impressed it's nice and sharp as well if we spin over to the 17 to 40
you can see that distortion is a little bit worse you can see that stretches
this rock here stretches out a lot more than this one does here so you can see
distortion is a little bit better on the 16 to 35 one of the big differences
have noticed with this picture is how the 16 to 35 millimeter handles
chromatic aberration much better than the 17 to 40 so 16 to 35 here barely any
chromatic aberration whatsoever which is nice and there's no correction done in
Lightroom either if we spin over to the 17-40 you can see this chromatic
aberration appears but especially this green stuff around the edge of this rock
here spin back to the 16 to 35 and that is gone
so that's quite a nice upgrade to the 16 to 35 which I'm really pleased with
let's have a look at the next picture which is a bit more of a straight up
comparison so that is the 16 to 35 millimeter that is the 17-40mm and
there is just barely any difference the processing I've done on these pictures
is exactly the same I've just done it on one and then copied it across to the
other with this picture the light was the same as well so it's a really good
comparison and you can see the first one the 16-35mm is slightly more contrasty I
think camera settings are exactly the same and it's just a little bit more
contrasty which i think is quite nice it's also got a slightly warmer tone to
it white balance is the same for both but again we're really talking small
things here let's get them close onto these rocks to have another look at the
sharpness.It's the rocks I'm really looking at because they're
completely stationary it's nice and sharp with the Canon 16-35 let's spin
over to the 17-40 and really I'm in pretty close there I can't really see
any difference whatsoever I almost forgot to mention that I printed the
second out with both lenses I have the prints here that is with the 16-35
that's with the 17-40 the differences are probably even less in the print
because prints can be very forgiving anyway and these two look very very
similar again I think the Canon 16-35 is very very slightly better
it's got slightly more contrast in again it's got a slightly warmer tone comes
through in the print so interesting to see those results so overall which one is
best almost certainly the 16-35 millimeter lens is a better lens but
it's so so marginal the build quality is the same the filter thread size is the
same the sharpness is pretty much the same you're getting better chromatic
aberration control of the 16 to 35 better distortion control as well which
is good focusing seemed to be identical on both
of them as well and it's just so marginal 600 to 700 pounds versus about
300 pounds secondhand so it's really just down to
you to decide whether the upgrade is worth it I think I'm going to keep the
16 to 35 it is a slight upgrade plus it has the image stabilization image
stabilization is important to me not in stills but I use it a lot for video so
that's the reason I'm going to hang on to that so I'll have one final look at
those images in a minute but like I said at the start this video is sponsored by
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I hope you've enjoyed the video
please subscribe if you haven't done so already I'll see you on another one very
very soon I'm Adam this is first man photography
Out!!