Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Review

Making myself available as a photographer has meant investing in new gear. Some things I need to fill in certain gaps, like focal lengths that my 50mm and 100mm macro don't cover, and others to provide durability (or at least redundancy) that I don't currently have. It's expensive, but necessary, and as far as business start-up costs go, I think I have it pretty easy, since I don't need to worry about real estate or vehicles or anything scary-expensive like that.

The first big upgrade is the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, a wide-angle zoom. I decided to get this lens first for a couple of reasons: I don't have anything in that focal range, it's the cheapest of the lens/camera upgrades I want to make, and I can use it as a wide-standard zoom on my 40D (I think I have to put off an upgrade to the 5D II until last).

This is my first L lens, and it's pretty clearly in a different class than the other lenses I have. Rather than give the same review focusing on technical details that you can find everywhere else on the internet, I'd like to pass over the image quality and instead talk about my first experience using it on a crop body.

It feels solid in the hand, though it's not a massive lens. It balances very well with the 40D, and I imagine it would with the heavier bodies, too. The front element is huge -- it has a 77mm filter diameter while being only 97mm long -- and dark. You can see down into the body of my other lenses, this one has more of a "black box" appearance to it. I was surprised at the slight resistance and muffled click when I mounted it for the first time, until I realized that it was due to the rubber o-ring that seals the mount against water and dust.

The USM autofocus is very snappy, nearly silent, and from what I've seen so far, pretty accurate. The zoom ring and focus ring are both smooth and quiet, without the dry scratchy sound of inexpensive lenses. I will say that I've never had a zoom lens that doesn't change length while zooming, and that was a bit of a surprise, being one of the little details that had slipped my mind. It also keeps an f/4 aperture through the zoom range, as opposed to others that drop a full stop after zooming in by 1mm from wide open.

I was aware of something with this lens that I've never consciously felt before: that this is a piece of equipment that my imagery deserves, and on the flip side, it is not one that I can hide behind when a shot doesn't come out how I'd wanted. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT one to mistake quality gear for quality photography. But holding it in my hand for the first time, that was my gut response. It's definitely true, of course, but it's also true of my 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro, and probably even the 50mm f/1.8 II -- the difference is in the build quality and cosmetic design, and I have no doubt that this is exactly the impression Canon wants to give.

We had some reasonable weather the day after I got the lens, so I went out for a photowalk -- no flash, no bag, just the 17-40mm on the 40D. With the crop factor, it's acting as a 28-64mm zoom, which for me is a great focal length. It's funny that 95% of the time I've been shooting with a prime between 50mm and 100mm (both telephoto on the 40D), but I really connect with the wide/standard perspective. I like having that depth without necessarily going ultrawide.

As I said, I don't want to get too deep into the image quality side of it (this lens has been around for years and I doubt I could say anything original there) but I do think it's important to say that my initial impression, that this is a lens my images deserve, stands up once I was actually looking at the results. I would comfortable printing a 100% crop from this lens. Color is great, detail is great, contrast is great. This is a lens whose quality you can see by looking through the camera's viewfinder.

I think what I was really feeling when I pulled the lens out of its box was a sense of confidence: I can rely on this lens. It's a sense that I don't have to baby it. It's not fragile, it's not plastic, and I'm not worried that some delicate mechanism inside is about to snap if I swing it around too quickly. Obviously I'm going to be careful with it, but I don't have the nagging voice in the back of my mind that's monitoring how I'm handling it while I'm shooting. Having actually shot a bit with it, I still feel the same, and the images I'm getting from it back that up.

That's one less distraction, and to me it's the most important reason for getting pro-grade gear: if I'm going to book half my day (and possibly half of someone else's day too) to a shoot out on location, I need to have confidence that my gear won't let me down in any way. I also need to know that it's not going to spontaneously die the day after the warranty expires. That peace of mind is what you're really paying for with L glass.

Fake Landscapes: The Book

I am thrilled to announce the release of Fake Landscapes, my first photo book.  The book is a collection of macro images of fruits and vegetables, lit and shot to resemble strange terrains. No digital manipulation was used, only the very basic tweaks that any photo gets. Only lighting, perspective, and other in-camera trickery turn these potatos and avocados into scenes of various landscapes throughout the day.

Fake Landscapes is available for $35 (plus shipping) through AdoramaPix. This book looks great and feels great, and holding it my hands makes me really proud of the work inside. I wanted to publish these images in a format that I really felt they deserved, and really, they look awesome here. The pages are thick, with brilliant colors and sharp lines (the book is printed on Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper), the covers are sturdy, and the binding is strong.

You can browse through a low-resolution copy of the entire book through the ordering page, but here are a few sample images:

If these look interesting, please consider purchasing a copy -- it's a beautiful photo book, and you're supporting my work as an independent artist. And you can check out my work through my fake landscape gallery for larger viewing or prints.

Fake Landscapes: $35 plus shipping

Stepping It Up

The past week or two have been pretty big for me, in some ways.  Up until now, I've been working part time in a field I enjoy (providing animal husbandry for marine life), and treating photography as an occasionally income-generating hobby that I could take more seriously than I could if I were fully employed.  At the end of last year, I was told that my job and several others were all being consolidated into a single full-time position, and that at some point soon I'd either be hired for that or be out of work.

Fast forward to April: I did not get that position.  In the meantime, I haven't really found any other work to replace it with.  This field is tiny.  Jobs in it are rare and highly competitive even in a good economy, and I'd have to be open to moving just about anywhere -- which I'm not.  Or I could find an office job, giving all my best efforts to an organization that, if I'm lucky, I kinda like (I've tried this in the past, with very mixed success).

So, I have a background working with animals, and as an interpretive naturalist.  I know how to teach myself about the natural world and find what's most interesting or important about something to teach others.  I have a good grasp of the technical and artistic fundamentals of photography and how to apply them to nature...

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is the best opportunity I'll have to turn photography into a fulfilling career.  If taking a normal 9-to-5 job would mean sacrificing what I'm most passionate about and most interested in doing for the sake of a regular paycheck, then I honestly think it would be a mistake that I'd look back on and regret.  Even worse, it would be cowardly.  Or maybe not -- I'm not afraid of hard work, of failure, or of having to learn the marketing and business skills this will take.  But I am afraid of spending my life doing work where my only real personal interest is a paycheck and a 401k.

I still have my part-time job going, though it's liable to dry up on short notice.  It covers rent and bills, but not much else.  Hopefully this will last long enough to get some revenue coming in, and for me to really fine-tune my strategy.  I have a rough plan of what I want to do, and of the start-up costs it's going to take.

So that's my big news.  If you're in the Boston area, have need of a photographer, and want to help me get in motion, get in touch (I'll write a post later describing what I offer in more detail).  And stay tuned, because I'll be announcing my first photo book for sale in the next day or two :)

Plans for Summer 2010

I have my macro rig nearly how I want it. I've got the 430EX II on a cheap straight bracket, with an off-camera TTL cord and a DIY diffuser. I've got a replacement TTL cord coming in the mail (the current one damaged my Vivitar, leading to the 430EX II), and as soon as that comes, I'll put up some pictures of the whole thing.

I've already been out shooting, and have been pretty happy with the results. There are plenty of miner bees out and about, and I already met one of my goals for the year: shooting a miner bee, or a sweat bee, at the entrance to her nest. I've seen one or two metallic sweat bees, several carpenter bees, and one cuckoo bee. Hopefully it'll really warm up soon and more will start coming out.

Shooting a miner bee in the nest was one goal. I have a few others, in terms of subject matter and productivity.

• More bees in nests, on branches, mating and in other behaviors besides foraging.
• There's a mid-sized bluish-black bee I've seen a few times, but never have gotten close to.
• More wasps.  There are tons of them around, and I don't have much to show of them.
• Beetles, too.
• I want to re-do my series of ants farming aphids from last summer.  I feel like I got several great moments captured poorly.
• I'd like to rent the 180mm Macro and shoot Karner blue butterflies in the Albany Pine Bush.
• Same with a good wide-angle, for landscapes there.
• Build up my collection of rights-managed nature stock on Alamy.  I want to have at least 200 good images there by the end of the summer.  I've gotten 26 accepted in the last two weeks, so I'm on a good track for that.
• Put out a book of bee photos.  I'd like to focus on my favorites, the green metallic halictids, but I haven't decided how specific I want to get.  It would be a combination of images and text.