Canon 500D and the Wide-Angle
LTHOUGH THE 500D is intended for use with a telephoto lens (as it says in Canon tech-spec sheets), I discovered one of my students, Donna Eaton, using it on her wide-angle lens! When Donna explained that she used it all the time on her wide-angle, I couldn’t help but ask, “Is it sharp?” And she was quick to reply, “Oh yeah!” Personally—in one of the rare occurrences of me actually following a manufacturer’s advice—I had only used the Canon 500D with my telephoto lens, but no more. The 500D in combination with a super-wide, such as Nikon’s 12–24mm lens, allows for some wonderful up-close-and-personal compositions; and, due to the wide-angle of view of that 12–24mm lens, I can tell stories that are even closer and more personal. (See here for more on wide-angle lenses.)
The one and only word of caution that I can offer when using the 500D on a wide-angle lens is this: First remove your UV or skylight filter, as the combination of the protective filter and the 500D will cause vignetting in the corners of your composition. In fact, the addition of any other filter, such as a polarizing filter, will also cause vignetting at the wider angles, such as the 12–18mm range, and that limits you to viewpoints of close-up subjects that are either frontlit, backlit, or under the umbrella of an overcast sky. (Since the best polarization effect is always found when the sun is at a 90-degree angle to you, sidelit subjects are always photographed with a polarizing filter—again, except when using the Canon 500D.)
A low tide along Oregon’s coastline is always a great excuse to shoot wide-angle close-ups—if you’re willing to create your own composition. The reason I say create your own composition is simple: The shot you see here is not one you’ll ever stumble upon when walking along the more than 350 miles of Oregon coastline. Oh sure, you’ll see your share of small rocks in the sand as low tide drifts even farther out, but a feather on any of these small rocks? Not on your life! I’ve never hesitated in arranging, or rearranging, as necessary what Mother Nature has bestowed upon us in order to convey an idea or create a shot. Placing this feather on this rock was just me doing what Mother Nature would have done in a perfect world.
Of course, I used a wide-angle lens to make this shot—but not without the aid of the Canon 500D close-up filter. My Nikkor 12–24mm lens can only focus down to 9 inches, and at the wide-angle view of 16mm, 9 inches away from this feather looks like 3 feet! With the addition of the 500D filter, I was able to focus as close as 3 inches. With my camera mounted on my tripod, and with the aperture set to f/22 and my focus at 3 inches, I had only to adjust the shutter speed until a correct exposure was indicated. I might add that in a perfect world, one would also see a lone seagull or two about 15 feet into this composition, perhaps looking back toward the camera, but until I become truly proficient in Photoshop, I will be resigned to doing most of my arranging and rearranging in-camera.
Nikkor 12–24mm lens, Canon 500D close-up filter, f/22 for 1/60 sec.