First Press of the Shutter: York cemetery with Canon 5D2, Canon 20mm f2.8 USM, Canon 70-200 f4L and Canon 50mm f1.4 USM

I've not been out with either the Leica or the Canon kit for quite a while. I have been using the Canon kit for work but those photos are terribly boring and will never appear on this blog.

As we were enjoying a mild October weekend I thought I'd take a spin down to the old York cemetery and give this new lens a quick go.
Unfortunately for me there was a quilt exhibition in the old chapel with lots of cars parked outside so I was unable to use the 20mm for the shots I had planned.

Instead I went for a walk around and used a selection of my lenses.
Since my purchase of the Canon 70-200 f4 L in the summer I've added a Canon 20mm f2.8 USM to my kit.

I'd used one of these 20mm previously as my brother has one, and despite the rather negative reports on this lens on the internet (there are some positive ones as well, its not all bad) I rather liked it. After all Canon have been making this lens since 1992 and it is still in the current line up so it can't be that bad!

Almost all internet reviews of this 20mm lens report on the vignetting and corner softness, however according to a couple of websites this is apparently intentional as Canon designed the lens with "Intelligent Field Curvature (IFC), although Canon make no mention of this in any of their literature that I've seen, which if it was unique I'm sure they would have mentioned it somewhere? IFC is supposed to help with getting real-world wide angle subjects in focus across the frame.
Now, I have no idea if this is the case or not or even if such a thing as IFC exists. What do know is though is that in Lightroom if I apply lens correction the vignetting vanishes and the resulting images look fine. I've always liked the way very wide angles lenses render an image, and this Canon is the nicest one I've used/owned (previous favourite was the Zuiko 21mm f2.0).

I'm aware of the infinite number of internet debates about clear/UV/Skylight filters on lenses in digital photography. My use of filters is that when outside in conditions where I feel the front element might get damaged I'll use a filter to provide a bit of protection. Shooting inside I generally remove them. Having decided to use a filter we then enter into yet another debate on the best make of filter to use, Hoya, B+W, Heliopan or others. Each make has its supporters and they ague passionately for their chosen brand.
I like Kood filters. Kood are a UK company with the filters made in China or Japan. They work fine for me, I can't see any degradation to the image.