Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens Sample Pictures

Moving in close provides a unique perspective of a ski boat and its tow vehicle. A circular polarizer filter was used to cut some of the reflections.

Sometimes the leaves on the ground are more important than the leaves still on the trees. Such is the case in this mostly rock landscape. The 40' B. Reynolds Falls is located deep in the Glen Leigh side of the falls trails in Ricketts Glen State Park near Benton, PA. A B+W MRC Circular Polarizer Filter was used to cut the glare in this image - increasing color saturation.

The Portland Head Lighthouse is an iconic and heavily photographed subject. For good reason of course. It is beautiful, the scenery around it is beautiful - and it is very accessible.
 
I had a stop-over in South Portland, ME planned on a recent trip to the northern-most section of the Maine North Woods. While there are many great coast scenes to shoot in the South Portland and Cape Elizabeth areas, I had only one late evening and early morning available - and chose to point my lenses at the Portland Head Light.
 
Arriving too late to catch the sun on the lighthouse, I was fortunate to have a thunderstorm being lit by the setting sun in the background. Two Canon EOS 5D Mark III-mounted Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens exposures merged in Photoshop provided the above image.
 
I was not nearly as fortunate the next morning as the apparently-wildly-popular "Beach to Beacon 10k" run was coincidentally scheduled (note made to self). I opted to avoid battling the road closures, lack of parking, huge crowds and thousands of competitors.
 
My time in Maine did give me chance to use the Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens with high frequency, and along with shooting locally, I have developed a very positive opinion of it.

While you will want to capture the standard, beautiful waterfalls shots, look for ways to vary your compositions. One way to do this is to place the main falls in the background of your image. This of course requires that an interesting foreground subject be found. The main falls in this example are the 13' Oneida Falls in Ricketts Glen State Park.
 
As with a significant percentage of my landscape images, a high quality B+W MRC CP filter was used for this picture. You also need to know that this is an HDR image. The background falls were in stronger light, so images with three different exposures were captured and overlayed in Photoshop. Parts of the brighter upper layers were erased (very soft brush setting) to allow the darker images to show through. This easy process yields a natural-appearing image.

Using a 24mm lens on a full frame camera? This is the view you are going to see when shooting from a moderately-large church's balcony. If shooting from a near-centered position with a near-level camera, you are going to want to take the extra steps needed to shoot from dead center with a completely level camera. I needed to crop a few pixels from one side to finish squaring off this image.

The small and light Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens is a great option for traveling light - such as on this hike over and around Deboullie Mountain in Maine. The rock slide along Deboullie Pond is a prominent feature of this area.

This shot explores the minimum depth of field possible with the Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens on a full frame body. With a near minimum focus distance on the ski boat and a wide open aperture, the tow vehicle and distant landscape become increasingly blurred as the distance increases. A circular polarizer filter was used for this shot - to decrease reflections/increase color saturation.

This is where I learned that my name brand waterproof boots were not as advertised. For this shot, I very carefully waded into the shallow water above a high waterfall to photograph this small, unnamed falls at a close distance. A circular polarizer filter was used to cut reflections on the water and an 8 second exposure provided plenty of motion blur. When exposures reach longer durations, I turn on long exposure noise reduction in the camera.

Not a typical team picture, but a picture of the word team. The wide open aperture combined with a short focus distance creates a shallow DOF along with natural lens vignetting to focus the viewer's attention.

Water drops 15' over Wyandot Falls in Ricketts Glen State Park, framed by a large tree and the rocky foreground. This is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) image composited from two exposures. A CP filter was also used.

The view from Deboullie Mountain fire tower is incredible. The climb up the tower is rather exciting itself. Especially when your camera gear begins to not fit through the narrowing stairs near the top.

Marine embroidery up close and wide open shows the effects of shallow depth of field.

More accurately, this is half of Cayuga Falls. Since I'm usually shooting waterfalls under cloud cover or after the sun sets, I typically get a slightly cool white balance from the camera (slightly favoring blue). I can often get a good custom white balance by using the water itself. After selecting the custom white balance tool, I click on a near-blown white area in the image. I usually try to find a point that has one channel (R, G or B - usually B) that is just below 255 with the other channels having lower values. A CP filter was used for this shot.