7D Mark II and 17-40mm f/4L

I'll be spending next weekend in Ogunquit on the coast of Maine and the forecast is for clouds and intermittent rain. The next best thing to a trip to a great photographic location is planning for a trip to a great photographic location.

So I've been thinking about what camera body and lens combination I'd use if I was going to be out when it's actually raining. I ended up deciding that in inclement weather I'd choose my crop sensor 7D Mark II body which is excellently weather sealed. Here's what Roger Cicala says about the 7DII:

This is, by dissection at least, the most thoroughly weather-sealed camera I’ve ever run across. (I would point out that I don’t take apart every camera so please don’t change my wording to say it’s the most weather sealed camera. I don’t know that.) But this isn’t just market-speak weather sealing. It’s a thorough and complete attempt to seal every possible crack and crevice the camera has.

You can read Roger's whole blog post here.

As for a lens to use, there are two choices between my two Canon weather sealed lenses, the 17-40mm f/4L USM and the 24-105mm f/4L IS USM. The two major differences between the two lenses are the focal length and image stabilization, or lack thereof.

The 17-40mm lens has the field of view of 27-64mm on the 7DII and the 24-105mm lens the field of view of 38-168mm. The stabilizing feature on the longer zoom is nice but with the 10 frames per second of the 7DII, handheld bracketing is possible without stabilization.

The deciding factor for me was the possibility of being out in rain. While both zooms are "weather sealed" the 24-105mm zoom extends with zooming. I find it hard to believe that no water can get in between where the lens barrel moves in and out. By contrast, the barrel of the 17-40mm lens moves entirely inside of the filter threads so if I use a UV filter, which I would to keep moisture off the front element anyway, the lens is entirely sealed up.

So, this morning I decided to take the 7D Mark II and 17-40mm lens out on a walk over to Waterford to see if the image quality would be good enough to use in Maine. Here are a bunch of the results, all hand held 5 file HDR composites.