The Canon 40mm f2.8 pancake lens has very nice sharpness and clarity—better than my 24-70mm f2.8L @ 40mm. It has a slight vignette when wide open, but nothing to worry about. I’ve noticed it disappears at around f/4.5. It’s also sharpest at the center and drops off slightly towards the edges. You won’t notice this as much on a cropped sensor.
Focus isn’t super fast, but it’s also not super slow. You cannot manually focus when it’s set to auto-focus.
Ultimately, I’ll use it as my walk-around lens because of its size and weight.
Canon 40mm Test Shots – Sample Photos
I thought the local exotic bird store would be a great place to test a 40mm focal length lens. Parrots are not only very colorful but also have detailed feathers.
Because this lens is 40mm, it also makes a decent landscape for my full-frame 5Dmkii. I’ve posted some of those as well.
I didn’t crop or correct any barrel distortion or vignette. You only see color corrections, some grain removal, and sharpness added. All the photos were taken on the Canon 5Dmkii. Also, one other disclaimer. I shot most of these handhelds using a slow shutter, 1/30. I have very steady hands compared to most people, but some motion blurs affect sharpness slightly since I am moving, and birds rarely hold still. I figured it’s better to test the lens in a real-life situation that people can relate to rather than show a bunch of charts and brick walls that normal people will not understand.
Blue Macaw – f/3.5 1/30sec ISO 640
Peach Front Conure – f/4.0 1/30 sec ISO 400
Peach Front Conure Sleeping – f/2.8 1/30sec ISO 250
Below – same shot but 100% crop.
Green Parrot (I don’t know what he is) – f/4.5 1/30sec ISO 1600
Baby Crab with Cheap Circular Polarizer – f/8.0 1/180sec ISO 400
Below – 100% crop – some sharpness and grain removal added
And of course, one no longer shows lens tests without paying homage to the HDR gods.
Below are three shots bracketed -+2 exposure combined and edited with Photomatix and Lightroom 4
Laguna Beach – f/19 ISO 200 0.9 ND Filter + Polarizer + Light Weight Tripod + Remote Timer / Shutter
Long Beach Bridge -f/16 ISO 200 somewhere around a 10-30 second shutter bracket.
It’s a very impressive lens. Its color and sharpness are incredible across the aperture range and from the center to the edge of the glass.
A little better than my 24-70mm f2.8L @ 40mm. If you don’t have a lens in this range or are looking for a smaller compact lens that will give you professional-quality photos, I can’t see any reason not to buy it.
There is even going to be a rumored adaptor for this lens to fit it to future mirrorless Canon cameras, making the lens future-proof. It’s also the first of Canon’s lenses to feature STM, which allows the lens to continuously and smoothly focus while in video mode. (Currently only the T4i)
I am very happy with this lens. It’s great for pros and armatures.
If you liked this review, please “like” or “+1” it below. Also, feel free to comment if you want to see any specific tests, raws, etc., and I will update this post.
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