Seven Days in Paris Shooting Sony 12-24mm
Going against conventional wisdom, I have concluded that an ultrawide zoom like the Sony 12-24mm is the “must have” lens for most types of travel. Many people will try to minimize lens switching and look for a “do everything” lens, like the Sony 24-240mm. (My review of the Sony 24-240mm). Not only are such lenses big and heavy with mediocre quality, such lenses miss one of the most important aspects of “do everything” — shots wider than 24mm. Many photographers never even appreciate going wider than 24mm, with the conventional wisdom that you start with a normal zoom and maybe add telephoto. In reality, I rarely need telephoto when I travel and my ultrawide never goes unused. I looked at my Lightroom catalog after a one week trip to Paris where I packed the Sony 24-105mm F/4 (See Sony 24-105mm F/4 on Amazon), Sony 55mm F/1.8 (See Sony 55mm F/1.8 on Amazon) and Sony 12-24mm F/4 (See Sony 12-24mm F/4 on Amazon). While the Sony 12-24mm was one of three lenses I brought, it accounted for 55% of my shots.
What Travel Shots Benefit from an Ultrawide zoom lens?
Many of the best vacation / travel photographs are more difficult if not impossible without a very wide angle lens. The benefits of a wide angle zoom when you travel:
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- Shooting expansive interiors like churches and museums;
- Architectural shooting;
- Close focus shooting, while also keeping background in the shot;
- Wide expansive landscapes whether urban or scenic.
This post will be follow my seven days in Paris, with the use of the 12-24mm on the Sony A7riii at major sites around Paris. I’ll include a little about shooting Paris, discuss the use of ultra wide zoom, and further discuss some of the real world strengths and weaknesses of the Sony 12-24mm F/4 G lens. Click any photo for larger.
Paris Day 1: Tuileries Gardens
After a long delayed flight from New York, my family arrived late afternoon in Paris. While we had hoped to get in earlier and get in some tourist activities, we were beat.
Not starting with our best photo, we went for an early dinner at a nearby brassiere..
With the narrow streets of Paris, this image simply would not have been possible without an ultrawide angle lens. This image was taken at 12mm. At 24mm, one would not be able to back up enough to get everything into the frame.
After dinner, walked around Tuileries Gardens a bit before sunset.As our hotel was across the street from the gardens, this was not my only time taking photographs. (For any family traveling to Paris, I highly recommend the Hotel Brighton in the First Arrondissement).
With the sun just starting to go down, the skies weren’t yet golden but we becoming a rich blue..
We next take a lesson in the strengths and weaknesses of shooting very wide angle. There is a lovely fountain in the garden. Off in the distance, you can see the Place De La Concorde. I shot it with both the Sony 12-24mm F/4 and the Sony 55mm F/1.8.
Two very different images despite similar composition of the frame, taken fairly close together. (The 55mm shot was taken about 45 minutes after the 12-24mm shot). Beyond the difference in the lighting, we see the wide angle image emphasized the sky and the “near” element, the fountain. You need a magnifying glass to even find the Concorde in the background. The 55mm image compressed the landscape a bit for more balance and brought the distant Concorde into the frame.
Both images are solid and interesting in different ways but the loss of distant objects is something of which to be conscious. Shooting in Paris, the Eiffel Tower is visible from many points in the City but it will shrink down if you’re only using a wide angle lens. (But as we will see below, wide angle also comes in very helpful for the Eiffel Tower at other times.
Paris Day 2: The Louvre
I have the same advice for those visiting the Louvre as for someone visiting Disney World: Rope Drop. Get there early, before open. Get in to see the Mona Lisa before the massive crowds. And then get to explore the rest of the museum while it’s still relatively empty. The Mona Lisa attracts the crowds, which perhaps makes it the least interesting part of the museum to visit.
Arriving shortly after sunrise, we see one of the biggest weaknesses of the Sony 12-24mm F/4 — It handles flare poorly if there is a strong light in the frame. This would be challenging for any lens but the Sony 12-24mm F/4 simply doesn’t shine. We get an ugly purple flare covering the pyramid. Getting the sun out of the frame, we can get lovely interesting images of the Louvre pyramid while we wait to enter:
We still have a strong light source with the sun reflecting off the pyramid, but it isn’t nearly as bad as the prior image. We get maybe a tiny bit of color fringing due to the high contrast but overall I’m very happy with how it came out.
The Louvre was the royal palace long before it was an art museum. The interiors have all the grandeur one would expect of one of the great European empires. Ultrawide really lets us capture those interiors:
It’s important to step up and get close when shooting ultrawide. The ability to shoot close AND bring in the background is the great thing when shooting ultrawide. Compare these two images, both taken in the same room at 12mm:
Before we leave the Louvre, let’s see another of the big attractions, Aphrodite..
Though not as bad as Mona Lisa, there was a crowd gathered around. By simply getting to the front of the crowd with an ultrawide angle lens, I was able to pull in the whole scene without the crowd.
Paris Day 2 Churches, Inside and Out
Traveling in summer of 2019, I was very disappointed I couldn’t get too close to Notre Dame or tour it…
A couple blocks from Notre Dame is a small church with some of the most beautiful stained glass you will ever see. Saint Chapelle is a little unassuming from the outside but on the inside..
Note, this was a long exposure shot essentially with a bean gag. Since it allowed low ISO, we can see just how sharp the Sony 12-24mm can be.. Let’s look at the stained glass just behind the statue at 200% magnification:
Paris Day 3: Museums and Tombs
If you only visit a single art museum in Paris, skip the Louvre which feels ancient and stuffy. Instead, go to the Musee d’Orsay, a converted train station that is open, bright, airy and filled with amazing art from the late 19th and early 20th century. Shooting ultrawide angle lets you capture the sculptures in the main hall at the same time as the architectural details of the museum interior:
I couldn’t leave out the Statue of Liberty but unfortunately, extreme backlight created some image softening ghosting. Still, overall we see the value to be captured from ultra wide in the museum setting.
You may have noticed: This was a family vacation but no shots of my family? Despite my advocating for wide angle shooting, it is not typically great for shooting people. But there are some caveats there. Some people will mistakenly say that ultrawide angle creates bad distortion of people — This is not technically true. The distortion is caused by shooting people at close distances. If you’re far enough back from your subject, you can absolutely shoot them with ultrawide angle. When traveling, this is often desirable to capture the sites around the person. Secondly, even if we avoid shooting human subjects at an ultrawide angle, by carrying a zoom like a 12-24mm or 16-35mm, we can shoot the human subject more in the “normal” 24-35mm realm:
We go from the Musee d’Orsay to Napoleon’s Tomb…. Shooting my wife in front of the Tomb, I was able to shoot very wide at 16mm and then crop a bit to play with the composition. Again, shooting people wide is perfectly acceptable if you aren’t close..
At first glance, it looks ornate, but Paris has no shortage of ornate churches. Once you enter, you discover it really is the tomb of an emperor. In comparison, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial look like tributes to small town mayors.
Shooting at ultrawide angle, you can really get a sense of the majesty of the inside of the tomb (definitely click for larger):
Personally, I like this “side tomb” of a Napoleon relative. You can’t enter the chamber fully, The architectural details, framing by the doorway, and the light spilling in to the room really make it an interesting photograph to me.
In theory, the Sony 12-24mm isn’t as sharp at the long end. But view this image taken at 22mm and F8, click and view it large. You can easily make out all the wording on the crypt.
Paris Evening 3: Eiffel Tower
If there is one sight everyone wants to photograph in Paris, it’s the Eiffel Tower. For those that want to shoot at golden hour and sunsets, a word of warning about visiting Paris in summer: Paris is at a very northern latitude. As a result, sunset during the summer is LATE. If you’re a night owl, it can work beautifully for you. If you start getting tired by 9:00 p.m., you’re going to miss sunsets. Arriving at the Eiffel Tower after 8:30 p.m. on June 30th, we were only in the earliest stages of golden hour.
This should be obvious: The Eiffel tower is huge. If you visit it and you’re close to it, you won’t be able to actually get the whole tower into the frame without a very wide angle. Shooting wide as with this image at 14mm, gives you freedom to compose artistically. Instead of just worrying about getting the Eiffel tower into the frame, you can play with the foreground or background.
As we get closer to the Eiffel Tower, within the security fence, a wide angle lens lets us make the most of the winding path towards the Tower. Now, should be very obvious: You can’t exactly photograph the exterior of the Eiffel Tower while you’re inside the Eiffel tower.
So our next shots, after spending over an hour getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower and coming back down, we get to photograph the Eiffel Tower at night, from the bottom. Essentially, almost directly below the Tower, the image could not have been taken without ultrawide:
Paris Day 4: The Opera House
Construction of the Palais Garnier Opera House began at the same time Americans were starting their Civil War. In other words, construction of this 2,000 seat opera house began at a time when the population of Los Angeles was only 4,000 people: At the time construction began, the opera house would have held half the population of Los Angeles. It allows us to appreciate how Paris was at the center of the world back when the United States was barely relevant.
You have to be careful of angles when shooting ultrawide. Without perfectly flat horizons, you will get significant distortion. But used correctly, ultrawide is necessary to shoot architecture. And sometimes a bit of ultrawide distortion can make an image a bit more interesting.
As I stated above, ultrawide shooting becomes a great tool for shooting interiors. I highly recommend a tour of the opera house. The official tour is a bit too long, but the history and beauty of the opera house is incredible. Perhaps my favorite part is the Marc Chagall ceiling added in 1964.
Let’s take a look at the sharpness of the Sony 12-24mm again… The Marc Chagall ceiling was shot at 12mm and F4. Within the inner circle, there is some small lettering. If you click the full size image, you may be able to just barely see it. If we magnify it to 300%:
Considering we are looking at 3x magnification of the image, there is an amazing amount of detail. Kudos to the Sony A7riii and to the sony 12-24mm F/4.
When shooting interiors with any lens, you need to balance between ISO and aperture. You often want wide depth of field when shooting interiors, which means smaller aperture and higher ISO if shooting handheld. One advantage of shooting very wide angle is that even at F4, you get a very wide depth of field. Let’s take a look at a similar image taken at different ISO and aperture:
Shutter speed changes in these images as well. In the first image, concentrating on keeping ISO down, we shot at F4 and ISO 800. In the second image, where we focused on getting plenty of depth of field and faster shutter speed to prevent any camera shake, ISO was way up at 12,800. At normal viewing sizes, both images look pretty similar. They both look great in my opinion. If we look closely, we can clearly see the benefit of the lower ISO.. with these crops (click for larger):
So my advice, if shooting interiors with an ultrawide lens handheld, open up the aperture. As long as you aren’t focusing at a close distance, you’ll get plenty of depth of field.
Paris Day 4: Centre Pompidou
We will end the day with an ultrawide image of the Centre Pompidou. To assist with the harsh light of mid afternoon, this is actually a 5 image HDR composite assembled in Lightroom:
Even shooting at 12mm, had to step back significantly to get this entire modern art museum into the frame. (On a footnote, I learned that my tween and teen age children are till too young to “get” modern art).
Paris Day 5: Giverny
Claude Monet is perhaps the most famous influential artist to come from France. His name is synonymous with his waterlily paintings. These paintings come from his home in the small town of Giverny, about an hour outside of Paris.
The gardens remain lucious and beautiful to this day. The estate is a haven for artists. Throughout Paris, I saw tourists taking photos with their smart phones. But Giverny was the one place where I saw an assembly of serious photographers. Several Nikon, Canon and Sony full frames. One person shooting medium format film. A time lapse project being done with a 70-200mm F/2.8 lens.
So how did the Sony 12-24mm F/4 handle the landscape possibilities of Monet’s gardens..
While strong lights can lead to bad flare with the Sony 12-24mm, this image held up quite well.
Some people claim they don’t need a wide angle lens because they can stitch together images for a panorama. I love this technique but when you stitch together ultra wide angle images, you can get an amazingly wide panorama. In order to shoot a panorama at normal printing sizes, I hold the camera in portrait orientation. I then combine a series of “portrait” orientation shots into a panorama, resulting in an approximately 16×9 image below:
An ultrawide lens like the Sony 12-24mm is not “macro” because it doesn’t provide 1:1 magnification. But it let’s you get as close to your subject as you would with a typical macro lens..
At the longer end of the Sony 12-24mm, used properly, you can get nice portraits, at my daughter Lilly among the lilies:
Claude Monet is buried in a cemetery in a small church a short distance from his home:
Day 5: Versailles
After spending the morning appreciating the artist Monet, we drove an hour and spend the afternoon appreciating the power or royalty, with a tour of of the palace at Versailles. About a year ago, I did a tour of the White House. The White House looks like a cramped studio apartment when compared to Versailles. As a tourist, note that it’s very very crowded. One shouldn’t expect to get beautiful photos of empty rooms. The more famous areas, like the Hall of Mirrors, are packed nearly shoulder to shoulder, especially during high tourist times.
Before we go into the palace, let’s take a look at the huge vistas outdoors at wide angle…
Comparing an ultrawide of the Versailles fountain with a panorama taken with ultrawide:
Not to keep beating the same drum, but where a lens like the Sony 12-24mm really comes in handy during travel, is when shooting interiors. So a collection of some shots inside Versaille Palace. Always consider looking straight up at the ceilings as well..
Day 6: High Above Paris
Returning to the City of Paris, but at the outskirts of the City high on hill, we have ancient Sacre Coeur church. For breathtaking vistas of Paris, you can climb up to the top of the power at the back of the church. Be warned, it’s an uneven spiral staircase of 300 steps. You will not want to lug up heavy camera equipment. My kids laughed at me as I ran out of breath shortly after the 200th stair.
Let’s take a look at the view from the top with the Sony 12-24mm F/4:
Note as we go from 12mm to 24mm. At the very wide end at 12mm, the effect is to create distortion that exaggerates the space and especially the sky. At 24mm, the architecture looks much more “normal.”
Also note that you can see clear to the Eiffel Tower, but at 12mm it is so small as to
be invisible. At 24mm, it’s small but you should be able to pick it out easily. Switching lenses, you can see the benefit of compression of a longer lens. At 48mm, you don’t get nearly as much into the frame but you bring the Eiffel Towel clearly into view along with the tip of the Sacre Coeur tower.
Paris Evening 6 in the First Arrondissement
After a few days in Paris, any jet lag cleared and I was ready to stay out long enough to do some true golden hour shooting.
The Louvre as the sun was starting to set:
While I love this image, we can see some ugly flare popping up. Again, flare is definitely the weakest point of the Sony 12-24mm F/4.
During the summer, Tuileries Gardens host a carnival, Fete des Tuileries. With some sort of tripod, all carnivals are fun to shoot at night. A mini gallery with the Sony 12-24 at the Fete des Tuileries:
Backing up slightly in the evening, I wasn’t planning on “street photography” but as I saw this couple strolling together, I felt it was iconic Paris. I wasn’t very close. Zooming to the “long” end of 24mm, I still had to crop a bit but thankfully the Sony A7riii has pixels to spare for the purpose. A well dressed couple strolling together, with flowers and their motorcycle helmets.
Paris Day 7: More Monet
The Musee De l’Orangerie is a bit smaller and less assuming than many of the great Paris art museums, it features impressionist art. Most critically, it is home to 8 extra large and wide Monet murals. Four of these murals are displayed in each of two oval rooms. When playing with curves, ultrawide can nicely accentuate the curves.
As you can see in the above photographs, the Monet paintings are extremely long canvases. Unless you want to shoot them from far back with people blocking your view, ultrawide angle is the only way to photograph Monet’s art here, at 12mm:
Paris Day 7: Arc De Triomphe
Another iconic Paris sight that one should not miss. You can climb the 250 stairs to the top for breathtaking views but I had enough stairs at Sacre Coeur. Shooting at ultrawide angle lets you get some angles and views of the Arc De Triumphe that stand out compared to the more typical tourist shots:
With the Sony 12-24mm, sometimes flare is fairly well controlled and sometimes is really impacts the image, as in these 2 similar images:
Paris Night 7, Final Night:
We get one final afternoon and night of shooting Paris before we say au revoir.
On our way to dinner, I handed my camera to my 12-year-old daughter. Not satisfied to click images of the streets, she aimed the camera at me and proved you can photograph people with the Sony 12-24mm F/4. Considering how rarely I’m in the photographs, I thought I’d include this.
Speaking of dinner, it’s almost impossible to have a bad meal in Paris if you step into any cafe or brassiere. For a quick “food pic,” the close focus and wide angle abilities of a lens like the Sony 12-24mm works wonderfully:
I finally stuck around late enough and long enough to shoot into the dark… As the sun sets from Tuileries Gardens with the Place de la Concorde in the distant background at 24mm:
Once it was truly dark, I was ready to shoot some night time long exposure around the Louvre area.
My final image from Paris and one of my best, an HDR composite of the Louvre Pyramid at night, shot at 12mm.
Conclusion: Sony 12-24mm F/4 in Paris
If you looked at all my images, you may have liked some and disliked others. But the value of ultrawide is clear in a location like this. There may have been some images that would have benefited from a longer angle. I can see many shooters getting more value out of something like the Sony 16-35mm F/4, Sony 16-35mm F/2.8 or the new Tamron 17-28mm F/2.8.
Even if 12mm is too wide for some, I encourage everyone to take a lens wider than 24mm when they travel. When traveling, it’s the lens I reach for more often. Maybe I use it more than I should. I previously devoted a post to the Sony 12-24mm F/4 in Universal Studios. It’s the one lens I use extensively at any location.
I previously reviewed the Sony 12-24mm F/4 in some detail. To revisit that review, we learn that the Sony 12-24mm F/4 can create gorgeous images with excellent contrast. On the positive side, the lens can produce super sharp images, even wide open. The achilles heel is flare. While there are images with strong light where it does not pose a problem, some real ugly flare can pop up occasionally. It still doesn’t stop me from loving the lens.
Please feel free to comment below… Do you travel with ultrawide?
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Thank you.
