For some bizarre reason I’ve signed myself up for a 12 mile walk in the lakes this summer with a bunch of nutters from Clare’s other job.

The chap organising it decided to stretch our legs with a practice 12 mile walk round where he lives in Scisset, near Hudderfield.

I saw it as a chance to stretch the legs of a new lens I’ve acquired for the upcoming wedding season, Canon’s 24mm f1.4 prime lens.

I shall call him ‘The Wideboy’

It’s strength is it’s low light, fast f-stop performance, but one of the things I like about it is it’s ability to show depth of field in wide angle images.

You just can’t get this look on the f2.8 wide-angle zooms, like the 16-35mm & 24-70mm

If your car says it’ll do 160mph on the speedo, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever get that kind of performance out of it.  But you expect results close to it.

So I find with most prime lenses, that their lowest rated f-stops are generally a bit rubbish, but one click down and you’re seeing the performance.

What I’m saying is that with my canon 50mm f1.4 lens, is that it’s a bit ropey at f1.4, but truely shines at f1.6.

So I decided to shoot all the images in this post at either f1.4 or f1.6, to compare the performance.

As you can see it was a beautiful day for it, and here’s Clare showing that you can actually shoot a cool wide-angle portrait at f1.6

And at f1.4 focussed on infinity, it all looks crispy sharp (especially shrunk down to a web-res image!)

Mmmm, bokeh.

The inclement precipitation also proved a great op to test out Canon’s L-Series weather sealing.

Fortunately it passed.

Ansel Adams‘d turn in his grave if he saw I was shooting landscapes at f1.4

I liked the lines and panoramic crop of this one.

Here’s Steve at Thunder Bridge, pretending to know which direction we were headed.

I like this snap of one of the directors sons, who joined us for the stroll.

As little fun as it is getting up at 7am to go walk 12 miles on a Saturday, it certainly is nice to be out once you are.

I appreciate signs like these in the countryside, cos ol’ Jane has literally led me up garden paths to locked gates more than once…

I like the silhouettey vibe of this one.

Again, check the wide-angle depth of field!  Nice.

A little mossy detail

And a little Shetland friend we made on the way.

A fine pile of bricks we passed.

We walked past Emley Mast, the tallest free-standing building in the UK at 330m high.

Not that we could really see it in the fog.

A few fun 24mm f1.4 portraits.

Check out the Yorkshire Llamas!  I’ve still got a lovely pair of Llama slippers I brought back from Peru.

Most of us were more than happy to return to Steves…

Where his wife Karen had baked fresh hot cross buns… which went down a treat!

Unfortunately, although this walk was in fact 12 miles, it in no way scaled the mile ascent & descent we’ll be doing in the Lakes in the summer…