THE CLAPP COLUMN
Île Vierge, Brittany, France. 15:46pm. 10 September 2018
How using a Canon crop-sensor camera trounced full-frame in every respect when shooting a lighthouse staircase in Brittany
Are you of the opinion that Canon’s APS-C sensor cameras are for beginners or perhaps for wildlife photographers who need the extra reach? At the time when I bought my original EOS 5D (vintage digital fondly known as the ‘classic’) the concept of leaving full-frame film photography for a crop-sensor EOS 10D did very little to ignite my passions. The reason was simply to do with wide-angle lenses. I had saved hard to buy an EF 17-40mm f/4L lens, so the idea of tumbling back to a 28-64mm (equivalent of 17-40 x 1.6) was a severe back step. I was young, in love with putting rocks in the foreground of landscapes, a depth of field trend that was taking off in photography magazines.
Moving on to 2016, I was asked by Canon to create an in-depth review of the new Canon EOS M3, a 1.6x crop sensor body with a very small footprint. I was given three small Canon EF-M lenses with the package – 11-22mm, 18-55mm and 55-200mm zooms. I bought a charity shop camera bag, threw in a few filters and some cleaning kit, and to my surprise the whole lot weighed just under a kilo and a half! It became my ultimate travel set-up for many years.
Now let us fast forward to 2018, and I am in the Île Vierge lighthouse off the coast of Brittany. We step off the boat and marvel at the impossible height of the largest traditional lighthouse in the world. Standing at 82m, it has an incredible blue tiled interior with a spiral staircase which can be shot from the base.
The hoards of phone photographers prompt me to climb to the top. When they go up, I will go back down. The circular view from the lantern room balcony is amazing and I realise how treacherous the seas are around this coastline.
On my return to the bottom, I see a photographer struggling. He has a full-frame camera on a tripod, the camera facing vertically upwards with a wideangle lens. He is crouched underneath (no Vari-Angle screen), neck crunched, unable to align everything. We chat about the technical issue – depth of field. The full-fram
