New and Old Lenses for the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Back before there was the pandemic that has turned everything upside down, Holly and I took a long walk on a pleasant late-February Sunday to stretch our legs and take some pictures.

I brought my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with two lenses, one new and one old. I’m not exactly sure which one was which. I recently bought a Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 refurbished lens so it was new to me but an older lens. I also brought my Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0 lens which I’ve had longer than the 80mm but it was made more recently.

So which one is the old one and which one is the new one depends on how you interpret things. Not that it matters one way or the other.

I wanted to bring along the 85mm because I hadn’t used it much since getting it and wanted to give it a good test.

I wanted to bring along the 17-40mm because I hadn’t shot with it for a while and was considering bringing it with me on our trip to Solvang CA which was supposed to happen this week but has since been canceled. It’s amazing how quickly things have been changing. It wasn’t so long ago that we were debating whether or not to cancel but that quickly became an obvious decision.

I was interested in the 85mm because I didn’t have any prime lenses in that range. I have 50mm lenses for several of my cameras and a couple of 135mm ones. I’ve had some good experiences with one of the longer zoom lenses, although using them is not (yet?) in my comfort zone.

I realize 85mm is a good focal length for portraits which may be lost on me because I haven’t gotten into any portrait photography.

We walked north to Benjamin Franklin Parkway and then up into the Fairmount section of the city. I used the 85mm exclusively along the Parkway and then switched to the 17-40mm after we took a break in Matthias Baldwin Park.

I was mostly pleased with how these photos turned out. I may have been too enamored with the wide aperture and wasn’t happy with the depth of field of some of the shots.

One of the reasons I wanted to break out my wide angle lens, in addition to testing out for our now defunct Solvang trip, is that I have been wondering whether or not I want to hold on to it.

The other lens I originally bought when I bought the Canon is the 24-105mm f/4.0. Which basically means that the uniqueness of the wide angle is from 17-23mm. So I wanted to go out and get a feel for how often I would really shoot in that range.

I tried to not over-think my picture taking nor force the issue of shooting wide. I tried to compose the shots to my liking.

Of the following 21 pictures, only these 4 were wider than 24mm.

The rest were all within the 24-40mm range which my other lens would have captured.

For a lot of reasons, it’s a shame that our Solvang trip got canceled, but I would have liked to have taken the wide angle lens on vacation to try it again in a different setting.

I did use it during our first trip to Carmel-by-the-Sea CA shortly after I bought it along with the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.

I do have some pictures from Solvang which I took back in March 2017 during a quick visit. These were taken with my Canon EOS Rebel T3 which I gave away once I got the new Canon.

With all that’s going on, making a decision about my wide angle lens is a low priority so I’ll hold onto it for now. But as my collection of cameras and lenses grows, I may need to start thinking about culling what I have.

Here’s hoping that everyone stays healthy and things return to something akin to normal before too long.