Canon EOS mag

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Technique EF 40mm f2.8 STM lens

Close-ups with EF 40mm lens

EF 40mm lens information There is something special about the feel of the EF 40mm lens on my EOS 5D Mark II. This is a big camera and the balance feels better to me with a light lens mounted on the front. My EF 17- 40mm f4L USM lens weighs nearly four times as much. Put the EF 40mm lens on an EOS 650D or 1100D and you nearly have a compact camera. Optical quality I pay less attention to MDF charts than I should, and I don’t usually spend much time looking at the corners of my photos, but the image quality from this lens between f4 and f16 is amazing. It’s similar to or better than the EF 17-40mm f4L USM and there is only minimal barrel distortion and chromatic aberration. I can’t fault it. Why does an inexpensive lens have such good image quality? It’s all down to the design. Pancake lenses are relatively simple to design and make. Unlike zooms, the lens only has to work at a single focal length, so there are less compromises in the design. The 40mm lens has six elements (only the discontinued EF 28mm f2.8 has less with five). Furthermore, they are tiny – the front element has a diameter of only a couple of centimetres. All this keeps the manufacturing costs down. Drawbacks No lens is perfect and the EF 40mm pancake lens is no exception. These are the drawbacks. No lens data in Lightroom, Photoshop or Digital Photo Professional (DPP). This may have changed by the time this article is published, but at the moment there is no lens data (used to correct vignetting, chromatic aberration and barrel distortion) in Canon’s DPP or Adobe Camera Raw RAW conversion software. I use Lightroom to process the images, which lets me correct aberrations (such as they are) manually, so it’s not a big deal for me. However, it does mean that at the moment you can’t use the Peripheral Illumination Correction or Chromatic Aberration Correction functions on your camera (where available), or correct these using in-camera RAW processing. This may matter if you shoot JPEG files. No distance scale on the lens barrel. I found this a bit disconcerting when shooting landscapes as the only way to tell where the camera is focused is to look through the viewfinder or use Live View. It also means that you can’t use the hyperfocal distance focusing technique with any precision. The EF 35mm f2 or (if your pocket can handle it) EF 35mm f1.4L lenses may be better options if you can’t do without a distance scale. Maximum aperture of f2.8. F2 or even f1.4 would have been nicer – but I appreciate this might not be technically possible in a pancake lens. If you really need a fast aperture for low light shooting or creative use of depth-of-field you should look at the EF 50mm f1.8, EF 50mm f1.4, EF 35mm f2 or EF 35mm f1.4L lenses.

Lens comparisons

How does the EF 40mm f2.8 lens compare to other Canon lenses in a similar price range? Let’s take a look.

EF 50mm f1.8 II The ‘nifty-fifty’ retails for less than half the price of the EF 40mm lens. In terms of image quality I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between the two (both are excellent), but you certainly will when it comes to build quality and autofocus performance. The metal body and mount of the 40mm lens is a world away from the plastic and somewhat flimsy 50mm. Another drawback of the 50mm lens is the micro-motor autofocus drive – it’s noisy and can be slow to focus. Personally I don’t like the autofocus on this lens, which is why I purchased the EF 50mm f1.4 USM lens instead. The main advantage of the EF 50mm 1.8 II lens it that the maximum aperture is nearly a stop-and-half wider, giving you more options in low light, or when using a wide aperture to blur the background. It’s also Canon’s least expensive lens and can’t be beaten in terms of value for money. EF 35mm f2 This lens retails for a little more than the 40mm lens. At only 5mm difference when it comes to focal length, I doubt you would notice much difference between the two. The 35mm lens is larger and has an arc-form autofocus drive which is slower and noisier than the stepper motor on the EF 40mm. It’s also an older design and certainly not as cool as the 40mm lens. If they were the same focal length the 40mm lens would be a new, improved version of the 35mm lens. I don’t see any reason for purchasing the 35mm lens over the 40mm, other than the wider maximum aperture.

Above and right These two photos were taken with the EF 40mm lens fitted with Canon Extension tubes EF 12 (above) and EF 25 (right). I set f2.8 for both to give the limited depth-of-field and soft background. EOS 5D Mark II, 1/1000 second at f2.8, ISO 400 (above) and EOS 5D Mark II, 1/2000 second at f2.8, ISO 800 (right).

Right I took this photo of my girlfriend’s eyelash extensions with the 40mm lens fitted to an Extension tube EF 25. This combination gets you remarkably close to your subject. EOS 5D Mark II, 1/125 second at f2.8, ISO 6400. tubes, doesn’t get you as close to the subject as a macro lens. You shouldn’t expect it to match the image quality of a macro lens either. Macro lenses are optimised to give high quality images at close focusing distances. But it is an excellent way to experiment with close-up photography and extend the versatility of this lens. The EF 40mm lens didn’t work well with my Canon 500D close-up lens – it didn’t reduce the minimum focusing distance enough to be worthwhile. But I got excellent results with Extension tubes EF 12 and EF 25. This wasn’t a complete surprise as extension tubes are generally more effective with wide-angle lenses than close-up lenses. I preferred using the Extension tube EF 12 and got some very good photos with this combination. For most things, the Extension Tube EF 25 was a little too powerful. I enjoyed playing around with the maximum aperture of f2.8 with my close-up photos. I often find it essential to use a wide aperture when taking photos of flowers to blur the background – at smaller apertures the background comes into focus and becomes a distraction. The EF 40mm lens, even with extension

40mm f2.8

50mm f1.8 II

35mm f2

Oct 1990

Jun 2012

Dec 1990

Introduced

horizontal vertical diagonal

54° 38° 63° 7/5

49° 34° 57° 6/4

40° 27° 46° 6/5

Angle-of-view

Elements/groups Diaphragm blades

5

7

5

minimum f22 maximum f2

f22

f22 f1.8 0.45

Aperture

f2.8 0.30

0.25

Closest focusing (metres) Maximum magnification Distance info for E-TTL flash

x0.23

x0.18

x0.15

–

returned

–

AFD

STM micro-motor

AF actuator

52mm 52mm 52mm 67 x 42mm 68 x 23mm 68 x 41mm

Filter diameter

Size (diameter x length)

210g E-52

130g E-52

130g E-52

Weight

lens cap

lens hood EW-65II lens pouch LP-1011

ES-52 LP811

ES-62 LP1014

Accessories

EF 12 II EF 25 II

x0.58-0.35 x0.50-0.32 x0.39-0.24 x1.00-0.77 x0.88-0.70 x0.68-0.53

Magnification with Extension tubes

not compatible

EF Extenders

£319.99

£229.99

£129.99

Price RRP (inc. VAT)

22 Reproduced from EOS magazine October-December 2012

Reproduced from EOS magazine October-December 2012 23