Dan Tidswell's photostream  

After a couple of years of denial and the opportunity to borrow practically the entire Canon lens portfolio I've finally decided to rejig my collection to suit my photographic style. It's been a painful process, selling my unused or sub par lenses to put the money towards my dream team. I think I'm there now, I love all of these lenses and don't think I'll be easily separated from them.

In order from top left:

Samyang 14mm f/2.8 prime - it's fully manual, has some moustache distortion (fixed automatically in Lightroom) and costs next to nothing in lens terms. But the image quality is amazing, sharps as can be with practically no CA and excellent contrast. I'd take this over the £2000 Canon 14mm anytime. I use it for landscape, architecture and the ocasional crazy portrait. I also tried a Canon 14mm (too expensive with very little advantage) and Sigma 12-24mm, great lens but the image quality is poor by comparison and the CA is terrible.

Canon 24mm f/1.4 L - It's really wide and shoots in the dark whilst returning tac sharp images. I use it mostly for event photography but it's also good in the studio if used carefully.

Canon 35mm f/1/4 L - This has become a go-to lens for me. It's a classic length and shoots super sharp images in the dark. It's also fantastic for full body portraits in tight places and a must for weddings.

Canon 50mm f/1.4 - It's an old design and sure isn't built like an L lens but it's distortion free and shoots portraits in the dark (with some occasional manual focusing).

Sigma 85mm f/1.4 - I tried to love the Canon 85mm f/1.2 I really did but the weight and crappy focussing turned me to this awesome f/1.4 by Sigma, I use this more than any other lens I own. It's distortion free, sharp as a tack and has the nicest bokeh of any lens I own.

Canon 17-40mm f/4 L - I don't much like zoom leses but this one takes proper 100mm filters, at f/13 it's nice and sharp (as it should be) and lets me shoot great land/sea scapes. I only use it at 17-23mm, I'll switch to a prime if I need 24mm or above.

Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L - Sometimes it's hard to say goodbye. I've loved my 24-70 for a long time, it's served me well at events and weddings with an approx 7 out of 10 keeper ratio. The fact is that it's really quite soft compared the the primes above, and I only keep it because I'm worried that it might be needed in a fast moving situation. In reality I've not used it once since I moved to the primes above.

Canon 100-400 f/4.5 - 5.6 L - This lens lets me reach places that I probably shouldn't be. The focal range is great, it's sharp almost all the way to 400mm and has an awesome IS system. I use this for street photography and candids at weddings, you can keep you distance and isolate your subject with ease.

Lens choice is a surprisingly emotive subject! I'd love to know what you guys think.

Model: Victoria
MakeUp and Hair: Elisa

We had lots of fun shooting portfolio images last weekend in our studio. Victoria and Elisa were both awesome and we managed to shoot 5 wardrobes in 4 hours.

Strobist: Canon 5D Mark II 1/125th sec ISO 200 / Sigma 85mm f/1.4@f4.5 / 0.4m x 0.4m softbox camera right / 1.5m silver reflector camera left. Flash fire via Pocket Wizard TT5’s

I like my gherkins how I like my wasps, squashed!

Sometimes I catch the train to London and shoot whatever takes my fancy, in this case 30 St Mary Axe. There is always a fun discussion with the security guards whom seem to think they have some sort of authority on public roads and footpaths (they don't), they usually threaten to call the police when I ignore them but they never do.

Shot with the improbably wide Sigma 12-24 lens on a full fram Canon 5D Mark II. Lens correction and CA courtesy of the very impressive Adobe Lightroom 4 beta.

Model: Victoria
MakeUp and Hair: Elisa

We had lots of fun shooting portfolio images last weekend in our studio. Victoria and Elisa were both awesome and we managed to shoot 5 wardrobes in 4 hours.

Strobist: Canon 5D Mark II 1/125th sec ISO 200 / Canon 50mm f/1.4@f4.5 / 1m x 1m softbox camera right / 1.5m silver reflector camera left. Flash fire via Pocket Wizard TT5’s

Oh yeah she's cute now but wait till you see the nappy :-)
--
Shot in available light with my favorite lens, the Sigma 85mm f/1.4. This was snapped at f/1.8 ISO-1600 1/125sec.