New Name, Same Arena

Photo of the Day

While at State Farm Arena Monday night I went up a ways to try a wide view of the stadium. I really did not need to go all the way up. In fact this was shot from the top concourse. The former Assembly Hall is a big arena that really didn’t get much use on that cold night. I liked the idea of trying out this 17-40mm lens that I am renting for a stadium view. I also made some pictures with the fisheye that look alright.

Technical Data

This is where my landscape work comes into play. I took three photos bracketed two stops apart in order to get all of the light that I could see in the arena. I ran the three photos through Photomatix to create a 32 bit HDR file. I then sent that file back into Lightroom to adjust it. I love the sliders in Lightroom, and anytime that I can use them I will. Here it was a matter of tweaking the sliders to get the look that I wanted.

Canon 17-40mm f/4 Review

This photo was made with the 17-40mmf/4 lens that I have been renting. I wanted to see how it would react in different situations. I had a couple of tests that I didn’t get to use it for, but for what I do it really performed well. This lens is the cheaper of the two L series lenses in this category. There is a 16-35 f/2.8 that is considered the better lens. From what I can tell though the extra money to get it might not be worth it for me. I don’t shoot weddings so the extra stop really wouldn’t come into play. When I put this lens on my 60D it acts as if I had my 24-70mm on my 5D Mark III. The lens on my 5D gives me a lens much like the Tamron 10-20mm lens that I have made many pictures with. I think that I will wait until Canon shows their hand on what wide angle lens they will release this year. This 17-40mm lens is getting fairly old. Rumors are swirling about a 11-24mm lens to rival the 14-24mm lens that Nikon users have had for years. If that is true I think that it would be worth a shot to at least try out. More on that to come later.