Spain and my Full Frame experience - Part 3

Granada's renaissance styled cathedral was built between 1523 to 1704. Like many such buildings in Spanish Andalusia, the cathedral is built on the site formerly occupied by a mosque. This photo depicts the Capilla Mayor (Main Chapel), whose dome reaches 45m in hight. There are many gypsies in the surrounding area, and one has to be alert and careful. They will force a sprig of Rosemary herbs into your hand - and once you take it, there's no choice but to pay to have your fortune told (alas, the less money you part with, the grimmer your fortune is!). Do not stop, make eye contact or talk to them - you have been warned!

I shot this scene with the Canon EOS 5D using both the 17-40L and the 24-105L. Even while reviewing the images on the 5D's LCD (at maximum zoom), it was clear that the latter is noticable sharper than the 17-40L. However, sharpness is only half the story, and I still prefered the more dramatic sense of perspective that the ultrawide angle brings. This type of scene plays well to the strength of the 5D's full frame sensor - the level of detail is astounding at full 4386x2920 resolution (one can even recognise the biblical stories in the stained glass windows!), but there is a degree of softness in the corners (most evident at the top left and right).

Having said that, another issue that became apparent during this photo shoot was the 24-105L's image stabiliser makes it an extremely versatile lens - with a little care and technique, I was getting away with 1/6s shutterspeed, while the lowest I could handhold on the 17-40L was 1/10s. It's also a far more forgiving lens as the image stabiliser allows you between 2-4 stops buffer should you flout the 1/focal length handshake rule. I would even choose it over it's bigger brother, the more expensive 24-70L, as the extra 70-105 range and image stabiliser really make it such an excellent walk around lens. If you're getting the 5D, I fully recommend getting the 24-105L together with it (kit lens package).

This was shot in RAW format for those who are wondering. A little postprocessing was done to recover a stop's worth of blown highlights (most notably around the four arches in the lower portion of the scene). So this is another faux HDR constructed from only a single exposure.

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