I went on a photo walk at a beautiful Japanese styled garden with a Canon EOS M6 Mark II and the Sigma 16mm f1.4 lens. It's worth noting that this equipment is now discontinued, but you can likely find it used. Sadly, the EF-M mount has been phased out. This photo walk was recorded in 2022 and has been on my work drive since then so I wanted to do something with it.
Check out the video on YouTube:
Check out the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 lens through my links:
- B&H: https://bhpho.to/49zTsm6
- Amazon: https://amzn.to/4nAlBgc
- Adorama: https://prf.hn/l/75YNWOx/
- KEH used: https://tidd.ly/4hKLGIf
- ebay: https://ebay.us/SzMH8O
As an affiliate of these shops, I earn from qualifying purchases!
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| The silver Canon EOS M6 Mark II & Sigma 16mm lens. |
I was using the silver version of the M6 Mark II. I won't go into a ton of detail about the camera itself in this article, but I will focus more on the lens.
Camera Settings
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| I also had two Canon M50 cameras at the time which worked well with the Sigma lens. |
For this photo walk, I used aperture priority with a minimum shutter speed of 1/60th of a second and a maximum ISO of 3200. I also had video stabilization on for the few clips I recorded (they are in the linked video). Since this camera doesn't have sensor-based stabilization, it uses a digital crop in video mode.
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| Canon's Digital Photo Professional 4 software |
I did minimal processing on the photos, using Canon's Digital Photo Professional 4 with the CR3 RAW files. I adjusted the brightness on quite a few of them, as the exposure consistency was a bit off for some reason. However, with RAW photos, it was easy to make adjustments. I set the picture profile to automatic and exported the RAWs as full-size JPEGs for the video.
Weather and Gear
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| A path in the Japanese garden with beautiful autumn colors. |
Bad weather can often be great for photography. In this case, it started drizzling pretty heavily, but I decided to continue with the photography. I had a microfiber cloth with me, which helped, but it was still a little concerning. Everything was fine afterward, I just made sure to wipe off and air out the equipment.
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| POV GoPro frame showing the cloth on the lens. |
The Sigma 16mm f1.4 Contemporary lens for the EF-M mount is a unique combination. It's relatively large, but it gives you a decently wide field of view. It's important to note that the Canon EF-M version of this lens does not have a gasket on the back mount, unlike other versions of this lens. I'm not sure why this is the case, perhaps a physical limitation. So, if you're looking for a weather-resistant gasket on an EF-M lens, this one doesn't have it.
Aperture and Image Quality
Throughout the photo walk, I took pictures at different apertures to see the difference. I didn't shoot a ton at f1.4, but I did use f2 and f4 quite a bit. Since I was hand-holding the camera, that will be a large factor in the image quality. The ISO and shutter speed also changed with the different apertures, so this isn't a scientific test of image quality.
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| The camera at f/4 and f/2 aperture. |
Color and Atmosphere
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| Leaves and a pumpkin jack-o-lantern event. |
This photo walk took place in late October. There was still a lot of color, which I enjoy for outdoor photography. I'm in northern Illinois, so I get the benefit of beautiful oranges and other colors from the leaves. The rainy atmosphere combined with the fall colors worked out really well.
More Lens Talk
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| A close up of yellow and orange leaves. |
Considering this camera has an APS-C sensor, the 16mm lens provides a field of view of 79.9 degrees, which is still relatively wide. You can also focus pretty close with this lens. The minimum focus distance is 25 cm or 9.8 inches, and the reproduction ratio is 1 to 9.9, which is not bad for a wide-angle lens. The lens has nine aperture blades and a range from f1.4 to f16. The wide aperture gives you a lot of artistic options, but it can be challenging to use with a wide-angle lens. I tend to get closer to my subjects with this lens, which is great for this style of photography. When you get up close, you can still get nicely blurred backgrounds.
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| Close up with berries in the frame. |
I found that f1.4 could be a little too extreme when you're very close to a subject, so I often used f2 or f2.8 to keep a decent amount in focus. I have a lot of examples of this from the photo walk, with beautiful, colorful leaves and a nice amount of detail. I'll zoom in on some of them so you can see what they look like up close. Keep in mind that shutter speeds could be a factor in the image quality, so it won't be perfect.
I also want to note that this Canon camera has a lot of resolution for its sensor size, so I wouldn't be too harsh on the image quality of the lens.
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| A little path at the garden. |
While I enjoy getting up close with this lens, it's also very good for standard landscape photography. I tried to do some of that at the garden, and I think it worked out okay, but I had some challenges keeping things straight. In situations where you can use a tripod, I'd recommend it. It's not possible at this garden, but I still think I got some decent traditional landscape pictures.
This lens is surprisingly versatile for a prime lens. It might be an interesting option for astrophotography, but I haven't tried that and I no longer have the equipment.
Final Thoughts
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| A beautiful waterfall at the garden. |
I love going out and doing simple photography like this, just walking around and taking photos. This combination of the Canon EOS M6 Mark II and the Sigma 16mm f1.4 worked great for my personal style. It was a really enjoyable experience. The calm atmosphere and the act of taking pictures is a great facilitator for getting some exercise and enjoying the time. It's a nice, compact, and functional combination of gear. I like Sigma lenses and I wish I could use more of them. I'm currently using a lot of Nikon gear, and unfortunately, Sigma full-frame lenses are not available for the system. Hopefully, that will change in the future.
I hope you enjoyed this photo walk of a beautiful Japanese style garden in late October with the Canon EOS M6 Mark II camera and the Sigma 16mm f1.4 contemporary lens!