Why I Put a Stealth Lens on the Loudest Camera I Own

Most likely, this won't matter to many people, but I'm writing it and proposing it anyway, also because I'm convinced that there's only one person who will be interested in this piece about an antiquated setup that, in my opinion, still works great today. At least it works for me.

So I finally bought a lens that I really wanted: the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM. 

Yes, this pancake, the one everybody on forums calls a "perfect walkaround for your mirrorless kit." I don't have a mirrorless kit (I have one, but it is the Canon M dead system), and I don't need an adapter to mount it on my camera, because I mounted it on my Canon 5D Mark II, a camera that is, by any modern definition, a fossil. Big mirror box, loud shutter, no flip screen, no silent mode, nothing quiet or discreet about it at all. I put a lens designed for people who want to disappear on a body that makes disappearing impossible.

I did it on purpose, and a few weeks in, I think I need to talk about it. 

First of all, I consider myself a pancake lens photographer. I love them. I love the pancake lens. I became a professional photographer with the 17mm pancake lens on the first Olympus Pen. I loved seeing a Bessa R in Los Angeles with a tiny lens mounted on it. That is my way. As a photographer, I don't like proboscises coming out from a camera. 

Here's the thing about 40mm that took me way too long to admit: it's the focal length I actually see in. Not 35, which I shot for years and always felt like I was dragging one extra motorcycle or one extra market stall into the frame that didn't need to be there. Not 50, which flattens the street into a series of isolated portraits when what I want is the whole mess of it, held together. 40 sits right in the middle and just... works for my kind of vision, in a way that's hard to explain. It's close to how a human actually scans a scene. Wide enough to hold context, tight enough that you have to commit to a subject instead of hiding behind everything around it. Respectful of people, who even at close range appear beautiful!

Everyone in street photography right now is chasing invisibility. Small mirrorless bodies, electronic shutters, the whole "nobody even knew I was there" school of thought, and look, I get it, I've been tempted by it plenty of times myself. But a 5D Mark II will never let you disappear. This camera requires a photographer to accept that presence is part of the game. It's a black, heavy brick with a grip and a prism hump and a shutter that sounds like a door slamming three feet from someone's face. In Centro, in Mexico City, on a corner like 5ª Calle de San Jerónimo where I made the photo I want to talk about, that sound carries down the block. People clock you. Vendors look up before you've even brought the camera to your eye. And yet... I was able to make this photograph:

OK, now you see the photograph, and I could stop writing here, because this is exactly what street photography is. It is a keeper. It is a photograph I can show to explain what street photography is. Foreground, middle ground, background. In some way, everything is connected.

Back to the 5D issue... instead of fighting that bulky camera, I've started leaning into it. Guys, you can't steal a moment with a camera like this, not really, so you stop trying. You start negotiating instead: a look, a half-beat of eye contact, the simple confidence of not flinching when somebody stares straight down your lens. It's slower. It's more exposed. It also feels, gloriously, honest. I'm not pretending to be invisible in someone's neighborhood. I'm a guy with an obvious camera, and the street knows it, and somehow that's fine.

The photo that made me want to write this piece is here for all of you. Four, maybe five depths of information in one 40mm frame, and none of it turns into mush, because the lens doesn't compress or distort any of it into two flat planes the way a longer lens would. Foreground stall, midground crossing, background facade. My idea of the 40mm focal length is that I wanted a lens that could hold all of it without flattening it, and this magical pancake does it.

So how is the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM doing on the 5D? It's not making me faster. Quite the opposite, indeed. 

What it's actually doing is giving me a frame that matches how close I want to stand to people, mounted on a body that won't let me pretend I'm not standing there. That combination shouldn't work, according to the tutorials, manuals, and workshops out there, but here I am with a photo I am proud of. On the street, it looks like it is working better than almost anything else I've shot with in years.

So, how is this Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM doing on my Canon 5D? Ask me again in three months. I might feel completely different and maybe embrace, like almost all street photographers, the 28mm glory. But right now, I'm not going back. If you want to try the setup yourself, the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM pairs beautifully with the Canon 5D Mark II.