Canon EF-M 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Sample Pictures

This picture was taken late in the day at the northwest end of Bryant Park in Manhattan, New York City. At this time of the day, a setting sun is casting a warm light on one building that is reflecting on the cool-toned shaded side of another building. By shooting upward, I avoid all poles, wires, cars and people for a very clean image.

The sand at Island Beach State Park, especially after being refreshed by Hurricane Sandy, was very white. Color enters this picture via a late day sun reflecting off of a bleached wooden sand fence. The shadow tones, lacking direct sunlight, take on a much cooler tone. Another photography benefit of the sand fence is that it prevents people from disturbing the sand on the other side, leaving only photogenic wind ripples.

The waterfountain at 1251 6th Avenue in New York City has hosted these huge Christmas balls annually. They are always a favorite photo subject for me. Here I used the dark water below the fountain as a frame for the brighter elements of the composition.

St Patricks Cathedral on 5th Avenue in Manhattan has spectacular architecture. But, it is very dark inside and tripods were not permitted (my last visit at least). Capturing a perfect handheld shot of this masterpiece is a big challenge. Thanks to image stabilization, I was able to capture a sharp .5 second exposure that is nearly squared with the building's structure despite a with-barrel-distortion focal length selected.

Grand Central Station in New York City is beautiful, but it is a cave in terms of brightness level. To capture this photo, I leaned on a handrail to stabilize myself and the camera. As 18mm on an APS-C camera body is not a wide enough angle to take in this whole scene, I created this image as a panorama using 2-shots.

The natural pattern of wind-blown sand is irresistable for landscape photographers. These never-the-same natural patterns scream out to us. For a variation, I located sand ripples that were being directly-lit (at an angle) for a white tone, shaded for a blue tone and lit by the reflection of a sand fence for an orange/red tone. The result was a rainbow of colors - with the requisite rippled texture present.

What are you doing during your commercial flight? Keep a small camera at your seat and keep an eye on what is going by outside. Note that circular polarizer filters do not work as you want them to when shooting through these airplane windows.

The Rockefeller Center in New York City is a crazy-busy tourist attraction during the Christmas season. Getting to this specific vantage point was not easy, but a light show across the street provided the break I needed to get centered on this scene. Scenes like this one seriously test my HLDS (Horizon Level Deficiency Syndrome). Those straight building lines combined with perspective distortion and some lens distortion challenge me. I did crop and rotate this image slightly to finish off the balance I wanted. The 1/8 second handheld shutter speed was another challenge faced with this photo capture.

Do you have a counter or other stable high location you can shoot from? Shooting from such a location will give you a different perspective of your subject(s).

Yes, you could have taken this picture with your smartphone and its camera's tiny imaging sensor, but the image quality you would have is far inferior to what this big-sensored, tiny-sized EOS M camera will give you. ISO 1000 results look very nice. Image stabilization is another great benefit the EF-M 18-55mm IS STM Lens adds to the equation.

Zooming in to this lens' near-max focal length fills a high percentage of the frame with the 6th Ave Christmas balls and their bright color. Bright lights in the background and the reflections in the water consume most of the remaining portion of the frame. The falling water creates a consistent bottom border and lines intersecting the balance of the frame border have been minimalized.

Angled sunlight creates a pattern of shadows in the wind-driven waves of sand in this picture. Depth of field is a concern in such a photo. While f/11.0 is a very narrow aperture for an APS-C-sized sensor, the 32mm focal length uses up the DOF it creates in this photo.