Will Robb Photography

Jeez that was an overly long title. Kind of gets to the point of the post though, so I’ll forgive myself.

Last month was Tokyo Girls Collection A/W collection 2011 and once again, I was very happy to be there once again for Tokyofashion.com. If you are interested in seeing all the photos from the different brands and are sad that you’ve somehow ended up in a geeky photo blog talking about lenses, best hot tail it over to the great report with all the photos and brand info here at Tokyofashion.com

Tokyo Girls Collection (TGC) is the biggest regular fashion in Japan, possibly even Asia or the world. Basically it’s held in stadiums used for major sporting events or concerts by some of the biggest bands in the world. A/W collection this year was held in Saitama Super Arena and I believe around 35′000 fans were there, so a pretty big deal compared to most runway shows where there are a few hundred invited guests. The runway for this event always forms a big “T” shape as per the photo below:

As you can probably guess from the photo, between the end of the runway and the press stands you have an area filled with the crowd, so I have to shoot over them to the models on the runway. Usually it’s about 20-25m away, so a long zoom is needed and up until now I’ve always shot on my canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L which has always done a sterling job, but I have found that with the distance of 25m or so to the runway, unless the models are actually at the very end of the runway, I have to do a lot of cropping in the image to make the model fill the frame. For fashion shows I rarely shoot with my 5D mkII as the full frame sensor keeps my lens 70-200mm, so I usually use my 7D which turns my 70-200m lens into a 112-320mm lens due to the 1.6 crop factor. However, this time I had another option at my disposal as one of my good friends and fellow Tokyofashion.com photographer Michael Steinebach loaned me his canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS lens for the day to try out. Always nice to test gear without having to pay large sums of money, being a good friend a couple of beers was the price for the loan, much appreciation to Michael for that Here’s a grainy shot of it mounted on my camera during the show, as always I am at the very back as close to the center as I could get (the press box was very dark, so an ISO 6400 shot):

I had a couple of days to get to know the lens before the show which was nice. I messed around in my local neighbourhood taking some test shots and was impressed by how sharp the lens was. Unlike other zooms I have used, this had a push-pull zoom rather than a twist which took a bit of getting used to, but soon it became quite natural and the IS was great for hand held shots. For the fashion show though, I knew I’d be mounting the lens on a tripod, so no need for the IS there. Anyway, the show came around, I got there and registered and filled out all the paperwork a I described in a previous blog about being behind the scenes at TGC, I got out to the press stands and sat and waited for the show to start. The show started and for the first time I decided to shoot with my 5DmkII and Michaels 100-400mm to see what would happen and first up I actually wasn’t too happy, nothing to do with the equipment I was using, but the lighting for the first show was so low I actually had to shoot at ISO 2500-3200 and on the runway when the models were walking I couldn’t get a shutter speed of more than 1/60th of a second which just makes for blurry unusable photos, so I had to wait for each model to get to the end of the runway, stop and rattle off as many shots as I could in the 2-3 seconds they were striking a pose> Here are a couple of shots with the EXIF data above:

Camera: Canon EOS 5DmkII
Lens: EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS @ 310mm
F6.3
Shutter speed 1/200th
ISO 2500
Ev +1/3

Camera: Canon EOS 5DmkII
Lens: EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS @ 310mm
F5.6
Shutter speed 1/160th
ISO 3200
Ev +1/3

As you can see, despite the high ISO the images were really clear, very little grain and that’s down to the 5DmkII’s amazing high ISO capability and the really sharp L series glass of the lens. Still, I was worried about having to use such a high ISO and I got a bit spooked, I got to thinking, if I was shooting the images on my full frame camera at 310mm, I could be shooting the same with my 7D and 200mm becoming 320mm, but be able to let more light in via the F2.8 capabilities, so for the next show I changed to my old faithful combination of my 7D and 70-200mm f2.8L. The difference between F5.6 and F2.8 is a pretty huge 6 stops. For example, say I am shooting at ISO 1600 at F5.6 and I get a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second, I can’t get a usable shot from 25m away, I’m going to get blur from the movement of the model and the lens (although IS could help me here a lot), however if I can get my lens down to f2.8 in the same conditions I can now get a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second which is very usable for a fashion show. With IS, I think you can get the equivalent of another 3-4 stops on the lens, which in this case would give me a shutter speed of 1/100th or 1/125th which helps enormously, but given the chance I want an extra 3-4 stops to help me get my image sharper. So for the next show, here’s a shot and EXIF data:

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 70-200 f2.8L @ 175mm (equivalent 280mm)
F3.2
Shutter speed 1/640
ISO 640
Ev 0

As you can see, even with an ISO of 640 I could get a shutter speed of 1/640 at f3.2 which allowed me to really capture the movement of what was going on. For this show, the light was much better and I know I could have actually used the 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L lens to get in even closer, so after the first two shows I would just start playing around with either lens, but always on my 7D. I found that after the first show, the light was always pretty good and no matter what lens I used, I was happy with the results. First up, some of the 70-200mm shots and then some 100-400mm shots followed by some thoughts on the uses for these lenses:

Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L shots:

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 70-200 f2.8L @ 155mm (equivalent 248mm)
F3.2
Shutter speed 1/125
ISO 640
Ev 0

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 70-200 f2.8L @ 200mm (equivalent 320mm)
F3.2
Shutter speed 1/400
ISO 640
Ev 0

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 70-200 f2.8L @ 165mm (equivalent 264mm)
F3.2
Shutter speed 1/500
ISO 640
Ev 0

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 70-200 f2.8L @ 200mm (equivalent 320mm)
F3.2
Shutter speed 1/250
ISO 640
Ev 0

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 70-200 f2.8L @ 200mm (equivalent 320mm)
F4
Shutter speed 1/1600
ISO 640
Ev 0

Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS shots:

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS @ 235mm (equivalent 376mm)
F5
Shutter speed 1/200
ISO 640
Ev 0

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS @ 210mm (equivalent 336mm)
F5
Shutter speed 1/320
ISO 800
Ev 0

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS @ 235mm (equivalent 376mm)
F5
Shutter speed 1/250
ISO 640
Ev -2/3

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS @ 250mm (equivalent 400mm)
F5
Shutter speed 1/160
ISO 640
Ev 0

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS @ 235mm (equivalent 376mm)
F5
Shutter speed 1/500
ISO 800
Ev 0

Summing up the shots from the lenses:

On the day, when the light was great, both lenses performed brilliantly, each delivered wonderfully sharp images that made sure I stayed in the good books of those who employ me.

Where the canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L excells

For the one show where the light was bad, the 5DmkII saved my bacon due to it’s high ISO sensitivity, if it hadn’t been for that the show would have been a write off using the 100-400mm lens on my 7D, so when the light is not good, I would much rather shoot with the f2.8L lens.

Where the canon EF-100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS stands out

Kind of obvious, but the extra distance offered by the extra 200mm, on the 7D this lens becomes a massive 160-640mm lens which although I didn’t get to fully test out this time, if the stage had been another 5-10m back this lens would have got used every time and my 70-200mm would have stayed in my bag.

Final thoughts

If you are going to be shooting sports/wildlife or anything at a distance outdoors, I’d go for the canon EF-100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS hands down, especially on a non full frame sensor camera where the lens becomes a massive 160-640mm lens. In daylight with IS, this lens would be an absolute killer, even inside it’s good if your camera has good ISO capabilities.

If however you do need to be nearer your subject, doing portraits, events, weddings and the likes the canon EF 70-20mm f2.8L lens is the one for you. You’ll use this lens indoors and outdoors no problem, if you go for the big bad boys with the f2.8L IS you will get greater low light capabilities, but I also think with a camera like the 5DmkII which is still great at ISO 3200, IS is a bit of a mute point for me.

Both lenses are great, whatever you’d need one for, I’m sure you wouldn’t be sorry. I do really find they work great with full frame as well as non full frame cameras, so they really are lenses for anyone to use.