 Nancy Marie Ricketts |
Best Lens for Grand Canyon for Pans? I'm planning on a trip to the Grand Canyon in August. I will bring my Canon 5DII, and I want to know what lens should I take for panoramas. I have a Canon 14-70mm wide angle, but I want to get a new wide angle - the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM Autofocus lens. I also have a 4L 70-200 with an extender that I could do panoramics with, then stitch. Any advice?
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- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
Hi Nancy, My first choice would be the Canon 14mm L lens but it is an expensive lens. The 16-35mm and the 24-70mm will also work well. More than the glass is the angles, time of day and where the shadows are falling. A tripod and using as much DOF as your lens allows are essential, and possibly a ND or circular polarizer may help as well. It's all about the light and as Ernst Haas once said - "The most important lens you have is your legs". my .02,
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Bruce A. Dart |
You can make incredible panoramas by shooting with a not so wide lens in VERTICAL and merging them together in Photoshop. I could not often remember which images I wanted to use by the time I went to download them. One of my friends gave me a simple idea that works. Hold up your hand in front of the lens with the first one and then after you finish hold up your hand again. You can add fingers for the number of exposures unless you do more than five, LOL, but it will define the parameters.
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newjerseyphotos.net - Deborah Lewinson Contact Deborah Lewinson Deborah Lewinson's Gallery |
Hi Nancy, Great answers from Carlton and Bruce, but beware, the polarizer may change the light in the sky from frame to frame, you're safer with an ND or no filter.
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Allen M. Aisenstein |
I recommend using your wide-angle lens and shooting vertically. Take several shots overlapping about 25%. Set exposure mannualy and keep same for all shots. DOF is important. May use polarizer and grad-ND filter. Tripod, of course. Have fun!
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Nancy Marie Ricketts |
Thank you everyone for your advice. I'm taking the 4L 70-200 telephoto, the 2xII extender, and a 4/L wide angle for this trip.
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- Jane Timmerman Contact Jane Timmerman Jane Timmerman's Gallery |
Hi. I think I've heard not to use too wide of a wide-angle lens due to edge distortion... but better to use something close to a 40-50mm. Also, not to use a polarizer. Have a great time!! Jane
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Koen Van den Beld |
The 70-200 with extender will be useless if you want to do panoramas unless you are very far away. The 14-70 will be perfect. DO NOT use a polarizer or you will not be able to stitch the images properly. The sky will go a funny dark when you pan because the amount of polarization depends on the angle to the sun. Also do not use the lens on its widest setting although this is very tempting. As some people here said, shoot in portrait orientation, focal length 30 to 60mm and overlap your shots by about 25%. Use a tripod which is dead level. In principle you should rotate centered on the nodal point but PS can cope with that. If you do all this it is easy as. Happy shooting.
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Nancy Marie Ricketts |
Thank you, Koen, for your response. Actually, I'm taking the telephoto for other reasons, the wide angle is for the pan. However, the Grande Canyon isn't the only place in Arizona (road trip) that I will be seeing and all my equipment listed, including filters, will be going with me, just in case. My tripod has bubble readings, a pan head, and spike feet, so leveling is less of a problem. I first thought about buying the new F/1.4L 24mm II wide angle from Canon, but heard of several problems with the moderately expensive lens, so my 17-40 will have to do me for the near future until Canon can work out the bugs. Thanks again.
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Nancy Marie Ricketts |
Well, I decided not to wait, and purchased the Canon EF 24mm F/1.4L II USM wide angle lens from B&H photo this morning. I'll be taking it in place of the 17-40mm wide angle, to the Grand Canyon and other places on our trip. I let you know in pictures how it all comes out. Thanks, again!
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Bruce A. Dart |
Nancy, The lens you just bought should be super for lots of things , especially low light. However, unless you have to carry equipment a long ways or have other lenses to cover the range, I would not leave the other lens behind. I have the Nikon 18-200 VR and find I use it as a main lens and seldom shift to another lens. I also have the Nikon 17-35 F2.8 but since it is big and heavy I don't use it as much anymore. I find, for how I photograph, more use for the wide angle. I keep wanting a wider view, more and taller buildings and get frustrated when I don't have the wide angle. On a recent trip to Florida though, I was envious of the 400mm range lenses my friends had! Most of the time I don't need a lens in that range but this is one time I wish I had one. Just a side note: sometimes when you don't have the lens you think you might want you will get better images because you will be forced to compensate and will be more creative in the process as you think about how to get the shot! Bruce
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Lynn R. Powers |
I feel that leaving the 17-40 at home is a great mistake. You have too large a lens FOV range that will be unavailable. I do hope that you do have the 24-105 f4 lens to use and fill in the gap between 24mm and 70mm. Please remember that most of your shots taken with the 24mm f1.4 the aperture will have to be closed down to f8-f16 in order to get the most out of the lens. This applies to the 17-40mm also when set to 24mm or wider. Taking wide open f1.4 photos with a 24mm lens takes a lot of experimentation to do properly and not adviseable on a special trip to the GC. Unless you get to go there four times a year. Your 70-200mm can be used for impressive panos. Put it into the vertical position at 70mm and it will take about 12-15, depending on overlap, photos to make a pano that covers everything between your hands when you extend your arms 45degrees from your body. But you will need at least 2 gig of RAM to be able to join them all when using the 5D or 5DII Have a fun trip.
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Nancy Marie Ricketts |
Lynn: I have just purchased the Canon F/1.4L II 24mm USM wide angle lens (Canon's newer version of the 24 F/1.4L wide angle) and researched, and talked with those who should know. I am not a newbie photographer, so I know how my lenses work. I am not specifically going for the panoramas. As I told Carlton, I have used the 4L 70-200 for bracketed panoramas which turned out quite well. I will have plenty of time to get used to the 24mm before I go, but I plan to take it, along with the 17-40mm and the telephoto 70-200L. We will be going other places besides the GC and I want to have my best lenses with me. I'll also be taking an ND filter to protect the lenses. The polarizer may go for the "other places." Since I will do a lot of walking, I will not want the too heavy lenses going with me around the Canyon and we hope to be able to drive to a lot of the places. I don't think this will be my only time-it's not my trip of a lifetime, and it is not too far away from where I live. Thank you for your input and I will take it under consideration.
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Nancy Marie Ricketts |
Thank you for all your comments. If I buy another lens in the future, it may be a wide angle zoom, or ???.
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