Okinawan beaches and a near full moon.

I was recently down in Okinawa, Japan teaching a 2 night light painting course. It was the first time to run the course so I spent the previous week fretting about what to bring. After having difficulty deciding and being overly excited about being able to shoot in such a location I ended up shipping way too much stuff by courier a few days before heading down. Upon arriving I came to the realization that being the instructor I would not be shooting anything for myself. My heart sank briefly before reminding myself that this is the path I chose and by spreading the art of light painting I will leave with more. But it still sucked being in such a beautiful place and not being able to shoot any LP!! In the end seeing my students LCD screens light up with killer shot after killer shot which in turn made them experience a feeling than only nailing a shot can bring made me feel a whole lot better.

But really, who am I kidding? There was no way I was going home with nothing. I had about 30 minutes one night and about an hour the following night to snap some long exposures and give a new 24L a test run. Keep reading to see more shots and hear my first impressions on this new lens.


5Dm2 + 15mm fisheye at f/2.8 and ISO200 for 80 seconds. Foreground lit with 500 lumen LED torch

5Dm2 + 17-40mmL at f/4 ISO200 for 150 seconds

5Dm2 + 15mm fisheye at f/2.8 and ISO200 for 80 seconds. Foreground lit with 200 lumen LED torch

5Dm2 + 15mm fisheye at f/2.8 and ISO200 for 80 seconds.

The following shots were shot with a Canon EF24mm f/1.4L II USM lens. My first impressions are nothing but positive. I pretty happy with the colors and contrast and over all sharpness of the lens. At wide apertures I can lower my ISO keeping my pics free of noise and and still tack sharp. It does have some vignetting but I see this as an attractive feature as it really is minimal. I have a feeling this will be my new go-to lens for shooting stars.