One of the nice things about getting a call from the team at Big Helping is that it’s usually something a little out of the ordinary. Last year I got to make some non-stock stock for one of their clients, interesting, different and I got to transplant my studio into theirs for a few days.
The shots were very wide and very low, Tim assured me that it would be a ‘good shoes no skirts kind of day’. This was going to be office reportage like no other.
As soon as I saw the sample images I knew that this was going to be a perfect opportunity for my Irix 11mm f/4 to shine, which is nice, because it hasn’t been out much recently.
This is one of those lenses that seemed like a good idea at the time. When I bought it I was doing a fair amount of interior work, specifically loft conversions, and bathrooms in loft conversions tend to be small, tightly packed, and inconvenient to photograph.
A 126 degree field of view means you can get into the corner and get the whole space, it can also make the basin look like a bath.
Beyond this work the lens has been out for some astro, we’ve been down a well, we’ve made a few landscapes, (although few views can stand up to such a hungry field of view) and I took a picture of my sisters’ plane coming in to land a few years ago.
On full frame 11mm eats everything, including the photographer’s shoes if they aren’t careful, and trying to fill 126 degrees with interest is challenging.
After I stopped doing loft conversion work, I kept it around, occasionally wondering whether I should part with it as a boondoggle that I was unlikely to need again. It wasn’t seeing much action, and it’s one of my few remaining EF mount lenses (and I’m ready to be adaptor free).
(My ears pricked at the recent launch of Canon’s new RF 10-20 f/4L because, sexy, convenient, autofocus, stabilised, and native…)
There were so many firsts for me on this job, lying under a desk for one, and spending so much time retouching ceilings for another.
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