It’s no secret that I love the Peak District. It’s my nearest National Park and it’s a stunning area of natural beauty that’s just fantastic to spend time in. It also has a wealth of photographic opportunities too.
One area I’m always drawn to are the gritstone edges that stretch from Baslow to Hathersage. Curbar Edge is probably my favourite and the one I visit the most. It’s a gritstone edge located above the village of Curbar close to Baslow. It’s easily accessible as it has a National Trust car park located near the road. Baslow Edge is accessible on the opposite side of the road. You can often find the very photographic Highland Cows on Baslow Edge.
Over the years I’ve found I struggle with Peak District Edge photography. Sadly I don’t live close enough to properly play the percentages of visiting often enough to capture great conditions, but it’s not only that. I’ve often struggled getting the right compositions. I’ve often found my widest focal length of 24mm just isn’t wide enough to comfortably capture the vista in front of me. At 24mm the images I’ve captured generally seem to be too enclosed and lacking the space of the vast gritstone edges.
One cold February Monday morning in 2018 when I’d stayed overnight at the local Premier Inn (Chesterfield West) I was able to capture what is probably the best photo I’ve captured of Curbar Edge. The mist and frost really made a difference to these images.
Whilst these were more in line with what I’ve been trying to capture over the years they really don’t capture the vastness of the gritstone edges.
Trying out the Canon RF 14-35mm f4
I’ve always felt 24mm was too short on the gritstone edges. When I took the opportunity to ‘test drive’ the Canon RF 14-35mm f4 lens I knew there was only one place I’d like to visit to try it out.
After moving to the Canon RF system, and having added the RF 24-105mm f4 and RF 70-200mm f4, when Canon released details of the RF 14-35mm f4 it intrigued me as it would be the perfect lens to complete the ‘f4 trinity’ lens set I’d started to collect. CameraSize.com shows how compact these three lenses would be which is a bonus from a landscape point of view. Adding an ultra wide angle lens could potentially solve my edge photography composition issue too.
Weight and Cost Saving of f4 trinity set
The f4 trinity lens set is surprisingly light. The three lenses together weight 1935g, add in the R6 (598g) and it’s a total of 2533g which is great for landscapes. I still remember a time when I used to carry the Nikon D810, 24-70 f2.8 VR G and 70-200 f2.8 VR II for landscape. Whilst being great combination they used to weigh nearly 3.5kg and that’s without the f2.8 ultra wide lens (Nikon 14-24 f2.8), which would have added an extra 970g and took the overall weight to nearly 4.5kg had I added one at the time.
A few years ago I saw the light (pardon the pun) regarding f4 lenses for landscapes due to the weight of the Nikon f2.8 kit I was carrying at the time. Moving forward to mirrorless, when comparing the Canon RF f2.8 and f4 it’s clear to see the benefits of the f4 trinity if you don’t need f2.8 aperture (f4 trinity lens set weighs 875g less and costs £2640 less than the f2.8 trinity lens set)
When comparing the canon RF f4 trinity set to the older canon EF DSLR trinity set the newer RF trinity set still manages to make an additional 10% weight saving whilst being 10% more expensive.
A lot is often said about the additional cost of canon’s mirrorless system, a 10% cost increase doesn’t feel too bad for the redesigned and newer RF lens that are lighter and more compact. The 70-200 f4 is stunningly compact compared to its older EF counterpart using the RF to EF adapter (camerasize.com comparison). I think a large part of the high cost issue is there isn’t yet a good used RF lens market to lower the cost of investment into the RF mount, whereas EF lenses have a huge established used market.
Reading Reviews
It would be a while before the 14-35 f4 was available on ‘Test Drive’ so in the meantime I started looking for reviews. One reviewer I always go back to is Dustin Abbott. Dustin Abbot’s Canon RF 14-35mm f4 review was very favourable especially regarding sharpness. According to Dustin the RF 14-35 f4mm beats the RF 15-35mm f2.8 for overall sharpness which is quite impressive for a lower cost lens. Dustin did raise the issue of mechanical vignetting in the corners at 14mm. Thankfully this is easily corrected in post with a lens profile in Lightroom so isn’t really a concern.
Using filters
One concern regarding vignetting was the potential when using filters. I’ve recently changed to the Kase magnetic system due to their compact size and low weight. I use their 77mm size which fits the RF 24-105mm f4 and RF 70-200mm f4 perfectly. The RF 14-35mm f4 has the same 77mm filter size as the other two lenses. My tests found there was some corner vignetting at 14mm when stacking two filters (polariser and ND filter) but this disappeared when dropping back to 16mm. To be honest this was something I was expecting as 14mm is very wide, and it’s a worst case scenario as I had combined the polariser, which is thickest filter of the set, and a second ND filter. It’s also a bit unfair as polarisers shouldn’t be used with ultra wide lens as they caused uneven polarisation of the sky at ultra wide focal lengths. There probably won’t be many times I’d like to stack two filters at 14mm. I could probably resolve this issue by purchasing the slightly larger 82mm filter set, but this would mean not being able to use the lens hood with the filters.
How wide is 14mm?
One of the most intriguing points of the RF 14-35mm f4 lens is that it goes to 14mm. That feels insanely wide for a full frame lens. For gritstone edges the ultra wide focal range would give a bit more leeway to capture the wider vista I’ve been missing. The photos below were taken on Stanage Edge near sunset and show the difference between 14mm and 24mm focal lengths. It’s surprising until you see it how much wider 14mm is than 24mm!
For gritstone edges it felt like a 18mm to 20mm focal length was probably the sweet spot to capture the vast vista.
Sunrise Photography
As I’d stayed over I went out for sunrise even though the forecast of cloud wasn’t very favourable for photography. Sadly it meant there wasn’t any good light but it was still nice to try out a few compositions to which I could revisit in more favourable conditions. Being the end of August the Heather wasn’t at its best.
Canon Test Drive
The Canon Test Drive promotion is something I’ve used a couple of times now. It’s a great promotion as it lets you try canon cameras and lenses on a short 2 day hire for free. You can only try each item once , which is understandable, but it gives you enough time to properly try them out. The whole process from start to finish is excellent and very professional. You select a date that’s right for you on their website and they send it out to you securely packed in a Peli hard case which gives excellent protection for its journey through the post. You repack it at the end of hire and it’s collected from your door on the prearranged collection date. I’d say it’s as good as hiring from lensesforhire.co.uk, who I’ve found to be excellent.
Last summer (2021) I tried the Canon R6 and RF 24-105mm on the Test Drive as I was thinking of moving across to Canons mirrorless system. It gave me a chance to try out the camera and lens in situations I’d used it in, and at no cost to me. That’s much better than a few minutes trying it out in a camera shop or a trade show. If it wasn’t for the Test Drive promotion I probably wouldn’t have moved to Canon mirrorless. There’s just something about being able to properly try out a camera system rather than just rely on reviews you read.
My Final Thoughts
I’d say the RF 14-35mm f4 lens lived up to my expectations. It felt like a fantastic lens, both in size and performance. I definitely didn’t get the best from it in such a short time but I could clearly feel it’s very likely the best ultra wide angle lens I’ve ever used (not that I’ve used many as my only other experience was the Nikon 16-35mm f4 several years ago). The ultra wide focal lengths beyond 24mm opened up new potential compositions for gritstone edges which was something I wanted to find out.
Is it a lens I will add to my collection?
That really depends on a number of things. Whilst it’s a fantastic lens it felt like quite a niche lens for me due to the ultra wide focal lengths. For me personally there are likely to be limited situations where I could get the best from it. If I lived closer to the Peak District it would definitely be very high up on my potential lens list. Cost is another. There’s no getting away from modern mirrorless lenses are generally on the more expensive side (I put this partly down to mirrorless being new technology and there being limited availability on the second hand market, but also because photography is a niche hobby now most are happy to use mobile phone cameras). It’s currently £1749 new which for me is quite a lot for a lens that I’d probably use in limited situations.
There are cheaper options I should probably consider too. The recently announced Canon RF 15-30mm f4.5-6.3 IS STM lens is one. It may not go as wide or perform as well, but at £669 its definitely a cheaper option than the Canon RF 14-35mm f4 lens. It’s also slightly smaller and lighter according to the camerasize.com comparison but sadly lacks weather sealing. I will need to wait for the reviews and it becoming available on Canon Test Drive until I can really consider whether it’s a viable option.
Another option would be adapting the Canon EF 16-35mm f4 lens to RF mirrorless. This lens was supposedly a great performer on DSLR’s and has only just been beaten by the Canon RF 14-35mm f4 on RF mirrorless cameras. I could potentially pick one up on the second hand market but the issue for me here is getting my head around investing in an EF mount lens when I’ve gone straight into the Canon RF mirrorless system. I’m sure it would serve me well and 16mm would likely be plenty for my needs, but for me it seems a bit counterintuitive investing in an EF mount lens when I only have an RF mirrorless camera. The EF mount probably isn’t the best long term lens investment when everything is currently moving towards mirrorless, and EF support will likely dwindle in the coming years.
A potential solution to lower upgrade cost would be to part exchange my Canon RF 24-105mm f4 towards the Canon RF 14-35mm f4. I’d still cover either end of the 24-105mm range between a combination of 14-35mm and 70-200mm lenses, but there would be a gap between 35mm to 70mm. I find 35mm to 50mm is a fantastic range for woodland photography which I would possibly miss.
The ‘Canon test drive’ has definitely opened my eyes to the benefit of an ultra wide angle lens for landscape photography in the Peak District. It’s definitely an avenue id like to explore on the gritstone edges of the Peak District.
For me personally it’s just trying to workout a justifiable way to add an ultra wide lens to my collection, especially in current times when it feels very frivolous to even consider spending such amounts on what is potentially a ‘nice to have’ lens rather than a ‘must have/need’ lens.