Ontario Place in IR

Ontario Place -- IR Modified Canon 20D & Pentax-M 20mm f4. Larger Picture.

Went to the Ontario Place on Saturday, I think it was the opening day and what a mistake! The place was jam packed with people. I guess the $5 play all day pass was too much to resists for most people, including us. The wait for the ride could be more than an hour. The kids just went to Soak City and play with the water instead. Good thing it was a nice sunny day, but not hot enough. Perfect to take pictures.

I took the Rebel 550D with kit lens and the 35L, 50L and 135L, and the IR 20D with the Pentax-M 20mm. In reality, I really only used the kit lens with the 550D and the 20mm lens on the 20D. Next time I will know better.

I must say I am very impressed with the optical performance of the 18-55mm IS kit lens. It's very sharp and produced pictures indistinguishable from L lenses when shot at the sweet spot of f8 to f11. With a polarizing filter on a sunny day, the colours are excellent as well. Also, I have grown very fond of the Pentax-M 20mm f4. It's just so perfect on the 20D and Rebel, giving a mini wide angle of 32mm, close to my favourite focal length of 35mm. This lens works especially well on the Infrared 20D because I almost always set the focus at infinity and left it there. I am glad I have kept it, after a couple years of sitting on the shelf (because it didn't work on my 5D/1D III).

Surprisingly, I have not used the IR 20D as much as I had anticipated. I think the weirdness of IR wears away after a little while, but when used occasionally, I enjoy it, very much.