Hail the king of 24mm

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Jman13
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p.3 #1 · Hail the king of 24mm

PetKal wrote:
Paolo, you gonna get me into lottsa hot water.

Haven't used either of those two lenses. Therefore, I've got only some impressions based on what I've seen published on them.
* the 24 f/1.4 II seems to present a very minor improvement in some areas of performance, if at all, for a major increase in price.
* the TS-E 24 f/3.5 II seems obscenely overpriced for a manual and slow (f/3.5) lens. Unless it has that Leica build quality. Unless it redefines and sets a new standard for IQ of wide lenses.

PetKal - have you used a tilt-shift before? It offers capabilities that no other class of lenses can offer. The maximum aperture is really not a big deal at all, considering the other things it can do. I have the 24 Mark I, and it's a very expensive lens (though still half of what the new one costs)...and it's not even very sharp when shifted (it's quite sharp unshifted). Why do I still love it? Because it still offers capabilities beyond anything else I own. The new 24 is very expensive, and I'm still thinking about possibly selling a bunch of my kit in order to upgrade...it just looks that good. I have to tell myself, though, that I'm not a professional architecture photographer, and until I can make some money with it, I'm OK with the mark I.

Another test type shot showing the extreme DOF you can get (I was inches from the bricks), as well as correcting the perspective in this shot, which would have had splaying buildings at the top due to having to tilt the camera down...but I didn't and used about -10mm shift on this shot, with about 3-4 degree tilt down:

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Jul 04, 2009 at 02:36 PM

brucemuir
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p.3 #2 · Hail the king of 24mm

Pixel Perfect wrote:
Roslev wrote:
Pixel Perfect wrote:
How can you choose ISO 12233, mine only goes to 3200

ISO 12233 is the name of the test-chart in the images >_^

Gotcha

ISO stands for International Standards Organization (what us yanks used to call ASA). We tend to relate it to light sensitivities but it really is just a standard across nations. Your hot shoe also has an ISO number if you aren't shooting Sony or Minolta.

My old professor once tested Zeiss and lot of other glass here in DC for the NBS (National Bureau of Standards) in Gaithersburg. Pixel Peeping before there were pixels unless they scanned the images, don't remember the details.

Sorry for the drift off topic guys but I was feeling trivial.

Jul 04, 2009 at 02:51 PM

kewlcanon
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p.3 #3 · Hail the king of 24mm

I've never owned a TS-E what else can it do ?. BIF ? Portrait ? Macro

Jul 04, 2009 at 02:58 PM

alundeb
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p.3 #4 · Hail the king of 24mm

kewlcanon wrote:
I've never owned a TS-E what else can it do ?. BIF ? Portrait ? Macro

Sure

With a magnification of 0.34 at 0.21m MFD, you can get some very interesting macro perspectives with this new king.

Jul 04, 2009 at 03:20 PM

epuja
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p.3 #5 · Hail the king of 24mm

Jman13 wrote:
PetKal wrote:
Paolo, you gonna get me into lottsa hot water.

Some day, though, I will own the new 24, or the 17 TS-E.

As far as the max aperture goes, with tilt, you can get around a lot of that...in fact, you can isolate subjects more with a tilt shift than with a fast lens. The 24 f/1.4 wouldn't really produce a lot of background blur unless you're quite close to the subject. Here's an example of my 24 TS-E wide open. Don't mind the crappy subject, but I was just testing the ability to get the bench and such very sharp (which it is) and everything else to blur away. I also did perspective correction so that the buildings in the background are straight:

Another test type shot showing the extreme DOF you can get (I was inches from the bricks), as well as correcting the perspective in this shot, which would have had splaying buildings at the top due to having to tilt the camera down...but I didn't and used about -10mm shift on this shot, with about 3-4 degree tilt down:

Very nice examples - Thank you!!

Jul 04, 2009 at 03:35 PM

PetKal
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p.3 #6 · Hail the king of 24mm

epuja wrote:
Very nice examples - Thank you!!

Ditto.

Jul 04, 2009 at 03:39 PM

globalkiwi
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p.3 #7 · Hail the king of 24mm

The tilt-shift obviously gives this lens capabilities the "regular" 24 can't offer - & I haven't had the chance to use the 24 TS-E II - but both II models are *significantly* more expensive than their predecessors. In the case of the EF 24L II I simply wasn't convinced that the additional expense was justified by the performance improvements (& here I agree with Petkal, they seemed relatively minor). Time will tell whether this is true for the TS-E II's, but I really hope this isn't the beginning of a trend in Canon's replacement program.

Jul 04, 2009 at 03:44 PM

epuja
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p.3 #8 · Hail the king of 24mm

PetKal wrote:
epuja wrote:
Very nice examples - Thank you!!

Ditto.

Jordan - I hope you dont mind (ill remove this if u do)

Peter - Just imagine - this could be u

I can almost hear the 24TSE II calling out your name.

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Jul 04, 2009 at 03:50 PM

PetKal
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p.3 #9 · Hail the king of 24mm

He he, great photoshop, Epuja......everything is in focus from the duck to infinity.

Jul 04, 2009 at 04:09 PM

skibum5
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p.3 #10 · Hail the king of 24mm

PetKal wrote:
Paolo, you gonna get me into lottsa hot water.

Haven't used either of those two lenses. Therefore, I've got only some impressions based on what I've seen published on them.
* the TS-E 24 f/3.5 II seems obscenely overpriced for a manual and slow (f/3.5) lens. Unless it has that Leica build quality. Unless it redefines and sets a new standard for IQ of wide lenses.

It certainly appears to be setting new standards for wide angle IQ,it looks better than both the Zeiss 21mm and the Nikon 14-24mm from samples I've been seeing.

And who cares about f/3.5 when you have been taking your landscapes at f/8-f/11??

And with the tilt you can turn f/3.5, in certain ways, into something even less than f/2.8 or f/2 at times, or in other cases, turn the f/5 into DOF that seems like f/22.

People used to pay more the Zeiss 21mm than the admittedly high price of this new TS-E and that was MF too and didn't have any T&S controls, so why which lens is the one with the outrageous price?

Not that it is not unfortunate that all teh new canon lenses have had a big bump in price, even the new 85mm which actually used almost the same build and optical design as the old one..... I guess they feel they need to account for inflation since the many, many years ago these lenses were originally introduced (although hte new 85mm does seem a tad surprising since the design is so similar you wouldn't think it would've taken much new design costs compared to any of the other new lenses).

FWIW, some of the 24mm 1.4 I vs II tests also appeared to show a quite noticeable improvement in IQ.

Jul 04, 2009 at 05:17 PM

globalkiwi
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p.3 #11 · Hail the king of 24mm

Not sure about the sweeping comparisons w/- the Zeiss 21mm. I haven't seem many samples from the ZE version as it's not in stores yet & AFFAIK, mint copies of the CZ version go for less than $1700 (which is still a lot but less than the new TS-E). I think the jury is still out on the ZE 21 vs. TS-E 24 II - for me at least.

Jul 04, 2009 at 05:26 PM

thedigitalbean
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p.3 #12 · Hail the king of 24mm

globalkiwi wrote:
I think the jury is still out on the ZE 21 vs. TS-E 24 II - for me at least.

Without a doubt. As you said I don't think the ZE 21 is even available yet. I suspect that whatever difference will be minor at f/5.6 or smaller. What will be interesting is to see what the distortion looks like.

Jul 04, 2009 at 05:35 PM

Yakim Peled
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p.3 #13 · Hail the king of 24mm

kewlcanon wrote:
I've never owned a TS-E what else can it do ?. BIF ? Portrait ? Macro

Jul 05, 2009 at 06:44 AM

epuja
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p.3 #14 · Hail the king of 24mm

Yakim Peled wrote:
kewlcanon wrote:
I've never owned a TS-E what else can it do ?. BIF ? Portrait ? Macro

TS is great for macro.

http://www.aobild.se/externalcontent/ts-e/guitar/tsdemo.htm

Actually, I was so impressed that I went through some ordeal to get it.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/743122/

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Yakim - Great examples on that first link.
I still don't understand how u get so much DOF with the tilt+wide open, thats really cool!

Jul 05, 2009 at 07:51 AM

Yakim Peled
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p.3 #15 · Hail the king of 24mm

Me neither but I intend to find out. Finally I have all the equipment I need. Now I need to find enough time to experiment.

Happy shooting,
Yakim.

Jul 05, 2009 at 08:05 AM

SKumar25
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p.3 #16 · Hail the king of 24mm

In non tilted mode, imagine the plane of focus a couple of metres away is like a 1 foot wall, perpendicular to the direction of the guitar. So all within the wall is in focus, hence in this mode you will only get a small part of the guitar in focus.

With the tilt function, this wall of focus can be tilted, even such that it is in the same plane as the guitar. Hence the whole guitar is in focus.

Neat eh!!!

At least this is how it works. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Jul 05, 2009 at 11:41 AM

Jman13
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p.3 #17 · Hail the king of 24mm

Tilt swings the focus plane. You get that DOF by exactly aligning the focus plane with the ground. It creates a 'wedge' of focus when laid on its side, and everything from near to infinity is now IN the focus plane. You can't do this too much if you have tall objects close to you when are laying the focus plane flat, because the tops will be outside the focus plane. The wedge expands as you get further away, so you can get taller objects further away still in focus.

Example shot...I was about 4 inches from the leaves, and it's sharp all the way to the buildings. This was at f/6.3. (24 TS-E Mark I) Note the top of the branches that are close are a bit OOF due to the laying of the focus plane:

Very useful link for how tilt works (there's also another link for how shift works in that article)
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/tilt-shift-lenses2.htm

Jul 05, 2009 at 11:42 AM

Pixel Perfect
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p.3 #18 · Hail the king of 24mm

Jman13 wrote:
Tilt swings the focus plane. You get that DOF by exactly aligning the focus plane with the ground. It creates a 'wedge' of focus when laid on its side, and everything from near to infinity is now IN the focus plane. You can't do this too much if you have tall objects close to you when are laying the focus plane flat, because the tops will be outside the focus plane. The wedge expands as you get further away, so you can get taller objects further away still in focus.

Example shot...I was about 4 inches from the leaves, and it's sharp all the way to the buildings. This was at f/6.3. (24 TS-E Mark I) Note the top of the branches that are close are a bit OOF due to the laying of the focus plane:

I guess if you had stopped down to say f/11, the wedge would have enlarged enough to get the branches in sharp(ish) too?

Jul 05, 2009 at 12:14 PM

Jman13
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p.3 #19 · Hail the king of 24mm

It would have enlarged, and would have likely gotten the tree about 40 feet away all the way in focus, but the branches are likely too close to get them tack sharp when the focus plane was tilted this much (I was at max tilt).

Jul 05, 2009 at 12:47 PM

Pixel Perfect
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p.3 #20 · Hail the king of 24mm

Jman13 wrote:
It would have enlarged, and would have likely gotten the tree about 40 feet away all the way in focus, but the branches are likely too close to get them tack sharp when the focus plane was tilted this much (I was at max tilt).

Did you also tilt the camera at all as I think that would also help. The buildings are far enough away that converging verticals shouldn't be an issue.

Jul 05, 2009 at 01:02 PM

n0b0
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p.3 #21 · Hail the king of 24mm

Speaking of which, why did you pick the 45 TSE Whayne? why not the 24?

Jul 05, 2009 at 01:06 PM

Pixel Perfect
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p.3 #22 · Hail the king of 24mm

n0b0 wrote:
Speaking of which, why did you pick the 45 TSE Whayne? why not the 24?

Ah, that's because I'd heard a lot of negative comments on the 24 and the 45 seemed to be better regarded. Also I quite often prefer a longer lens for landscape and on FF I find 45mm quite wide and I can use shift to get a nice pano. I knew it wouldn't be wide enough for a lot of architectural type work though. My experience is the 45 is an excellent lens and mine's even pretty sharp wide open and the corners are excellent for landscape.

I'm am now wondering though whether to get the new 24 or 17, as both look superb

Jul 05, 2009 at 02:29 PM

n0b0
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p.3 #23 · Hail the king of 24mm

Same here Whayne, that's why I'm asking you why you got that one.

Anyway, those tilt shift lenses have to be THE landscape lenses to get... well, one of them anyway, can't afford all of them.

Jul 05, 2009 at 03:06 PM

ILOVECANONL
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p.3 #24 · Hail the king of 24mm

garyvot wrote:
ILOVECANONL wrote:
i'd grab the 14-24mm anyday for a wedding

the new 24L II and 24TSE II looks sweet for weddings too.

16-35, 17-40 not so.

I don't own the 17-40, but the 16-35 II is an outstanding zoom in my experience, and seems to be commonly used for weddings. It's only significant weakness is some softness in the extreme corners at wide apertures, but this almost never detracts from candid photography, and is resolved when stopping down.

For candid shooting, I don't have the patience for adapters, stopped down metering or manual focus, so the Nikkor and the 24 TS-E are simply not options for me. The 24L II is a fantastic lens, but a zoom is often more practical for event work.

16-35 would be a practical solution but for $1600 I rather spend a bit more on a 24L II or 24TS-E II. Or seriously, save that money and go for a 24L I.

I don't have the time to wait for a 16-9 adaptor but for razor sharp extreme corners I'd gladly sacrifice stopped down metering or manual focus. Manual focus isn't that big of a deal at 24mm and F3.5. Focus confirmation works.

Jul 05, 2009 at 04:19 PM

ILOVECANONL
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p.3 #25 · Hail the king of 24mm

SKumar25 wrote:
ILOVECANONL wrote:
i'd grab the 14-24mm anyday for a wedding

the new 24L II and 24TSE II looks sweet for weddings too.

16-35, 17-40 not so.

Really, the 14-24mm (I assume on a Canon), and a 24TSE for weddings!?! What sort of wedding photos would you take with these?

The 24LII would be awesome for weddings, and I've seen some excellent samples.

The 16-35 is prime like across much of the frame on FF, coupled with a very versatile zoom range. It makes for an excellent PJ lens. The 2.8 L zooms are the the mainstay of many a wedding photographer's kit.

14-24G on a nikon or canon would slaughter any wedding. 24TS-E would make for interesting blur effects. I'd use the new 24TSE wide open for photojournalist wedding photos, portraits, landscapes, formals, etc. The list goes on and on.

The 16-35 is a popular lens for many pros and wedding photographers, but that doesn't mean it's a masterpiece. You didn't have much choice between this and the 17-40 for wide angle back in the day. Now that there is a wide variety of better choices, why use the same tools as everyone else?

Jul 05, 2009 at 04:24 PM


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