27Jun Canon 40mm f2.8 STM – First impressions
The Canon 40mm f2.8 STM lens showed up on my door step this afternoon. The box is much larger then it needs to be for this tiny little lens and because of that, the lens is swaddled in bubble wrap. The box is so light that it almost feels empty.
The first thing you’ll notice when you remove the lens from the package is that it feels very plastic and light weight. On the other hand the focus wring has very smooth travel and feels slightly rubberized. The Auto focus switch is very firm. Surprisingly the Canon 40mm f2.8 STM lens has full time manual focus, meaning you can adjust the focus ring will in AF mode. I’ll have to test out the ergonomics of that feature.
Its nice to see that the EF mount is metal instead of plastic, but again note how small the glass element is. It will also be interesting to see how fast the STM motor can move those nickle sized lens elements. I haven’t had a chance to test it yet, but from what I’ve read so far it sounds like the STM system is slower but almost silent.
Over all it’s an interesting looking lens and the smallest in Canon’s lineup. With an f-stop of 2.8, a 40mm focal length, and minimum focus distance of .98feet the lens is a strange combination, but it’s size makes it a lens that will probably double as a body cap. Hopefully the Canon 40mm f2.8 STM lens will turn out to be more useful then that. I’m going to take it out tonight for some test shots, and get a feel for how it preforms. I’ll keep you posted.
Update: Just finished shooting a few test shots, the lens doesn’t have full time manual focus on the 5d mark III. Also when you are using manual focus the lens ring is controlling the motor to focus the lens. With that style of control over the lenses focus motor it might be possible that the lens has full time manual focus with the proper firmware installed on the camera. I’m currently running firmware version 1.1.3 on the 5d mark III which is supposed to provide support for this lens.
June 27th, 2012 at 6:37 pm
You don’t have a 650D (T4i?) to test the new LV-autofocus with the STM-lenses, do you? I think it sounds like a promising alternative to Sony’s very good (relative) autofocus..
June 27th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Ok, I just found a test video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGB4KOmvohc) – it;s certainly faster the autofocus during video with my 550D, but I woud still pull the focus manually..
June 28th, 2012 at 8:11 am
It does have manual focus override, just not in the usual way.
After you half-press the shutter button to auto-focus and start metering, you can manually override the focus and turn the ring at that point.
June 28th, 2012 at 8:51 am
Thanks for the heads up! I’ll have to give that a try. I wonder why they didn’t set it up the traditional way.