I did! Again, the stress is in the past tense . I bought it brand new when it first came out in 2007 and I was very enthusiastic about getting a better performance out of it than out of the Mark I. The ironic thing, I didn't notice the issue until later since I wasn't pixel peeping.The rage in the Nikkor 14-24mm lens later on that year made me curious and I bought a copy. Not surprising that Nikkor lens blew my 16-35mm Mark II out of the water. The center area of that lens was sharp, comparable to that of the Nikkor but the edges and we are not even talking about the corners here, are blurred, even stopped down to f/8.0. I hated that 16-35mm II lens. The Nikkor at f/2.8 delivered a better edge/corner performance. I went further by buying a D700 and several Nikkor lenses.
Fast forward to two years later and I had a chance to buy a more recent, UX date lens at a fair price and I did. Boy, the difference between the one I had and this was obvious since I know where to look for. Now, this lens gives the Nikkor a run for its money. From f/5.6 on, I couldn't tell the difference between the two. At f/2.8 and f/4.0, I still give the corner performance to the Nikkor the edge but we are nitpicking here. For landscape or cityscape where a certain depth of field is required, you will stop down to at least f/5.6 anyway. And at 14mm, the Nikkor is wider but at 35mm the Canon is longer.
What happened to the other lens I had before? Not realizing that it was out of whack, I thought it was just the way it was, I sold it in good faith on FM. I understood that the buyer ended up sending that in to Canon for calibration and it is up to par now. Here are some recent shots from the "new" lens.
I always like my 16-35L II , when it works with CPL filter, it is a great combo for landscape shooting and the bert of my travel lens. go to 35 mm ,you can took protait too.
I am glad to hear of AGeoJO's positive experiences with the second copy of the Mark 2 lens. I have been seriously considering the Mark 2 to replace the original 16-35, but have been unsure how much of an improvement there really would be. I would rather not deal with a manual focus lens, like the Nikon or Zeiss. Futhermore, it appears that the more recent versions of the Canon lens are better calibrated. One question I have is: are there one or two types of calibration? The implication from AGeoJO is that the second copy was better calibrated from the factory. Perhaps this is an internal setting done at the assembly stage? Or perhaps a better job of assembling? Or could he have calbrated his first Mark 2 lens to his camera body, assuming he could at the time? As I understand it, when a lens is calibrated to a body, it is the body that is being calibrated; nothing changes internally within the lens. He comments that the person to whom he sold his first Mark 2 had the lens calibrated at Canon; no mention was made of a body accompanying the lens, so that is why I am wondering what can be done to a lens to bring it up to par.
I also owned one and even at f8 the corners were unacceptably soft on a 1.3 crop body.
Also soft at 2.8 in the center.
At f4 and smaller, VERY sharp in the center. But the corners were never sharp...
Ilia, thanks! The first two shots were taken in New York, inside the Grand Central and near the Rockefeller Center. The 3rd is of the Walt Disney Concert Center in LA and the last one is from Lost Wages.
Hoolee, the first copy I had needed more than just a simple AF calibration. Both my camera bodies at that time had the microfocus adjustment feature and the lens calibrated fine in that respect. I believe the lens was decentered and required collimation. Definitely more serious than just a simple AF calibration that can be done to match the body to lenses and vice versa. Sorry for not being 100% clear.
Luis, my original lens and yours must have been from the same batch and were assembled after the weekend by workers that had more than one drink too many .
Oct 25, 2010 at 01:50 PM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
I bought one used off a fellow FMer and I have never been impressed with it's performance. I sent it to Canon for recalibration and while it came back marginally better, it's still not nearly what I would expect from such a lens on my 1.3 bodies.
Snopchenko wrote:
You people are kinda discouraging me from upgrading to the 16-35 II. Also what's this I heard about it not going down to 16mm actually?
First, let me tell you that I will never again buy the first batch of a newly introduced lens, which I did back then. I actually pre-ordered that one and paid full price, too. Let's face it, there will always be more slip ups with a new product in the beginning and understandably so. I believe that several months into production Canon has been able to iron out the kinks and the manufacturing process has become a routine. I bought several other newer lenses like the 70-200mm Mark II, 24mm f/1.4 Mark II and 17mm TS-E but each time I waited a few months and they all perform beautifully. The price had dropped somewhat, too as an additional benefit, if you wait a few months. I am not saying that all copies of the first batch would be bad but the chance of your finding a few bad apples in the first batch is greater than in the later batches. Second, as long as there is an authorized Canon Service Center, you may not need it but at least you know that you can count on them to get it right.
I am not a person that would insists in getting the current production year of a certain lens but I would make sure, each time I buy a new lens in the used market to get a copy that is at least 6 months into the production cycle.
I am not aware of the 16mm not being 16mm, but I don't have any means to actually measure it.
AGeoJO wrote:
First, let me tell you that I will never again buy the first batch of a newly introduced lens, .
Hi, Jashua,
These are damn good shots, good to know the 16-35/2.8L II became to your new lover..
And yes. I have to agree with what you siad regarding never but the first batch of any new lens etc.. I had the same expericence with the 50/1.2L as well, tried 3 copies, none of them work on 1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark III, but several copies of later date code ones work great...
Glad you have finally seen the light, Joshua, so that you could share those nice images with us.
I have always liked my 16-35L II a lot......my best wildlife and nature lens.
Peter, please enlighten me.
I see no pidgeon or duck on your last shot.
Where are they? I know they are there somewhere, the sneaky bastards! I just can't see them...
fraga wrote:
Peter, please elighten me.
I see no pidgeon or duck on your last shot.
Where are they? I know they are there somewhere, the sneaky bastards! I just can't see them...
Luis, you can not see them because you've been blinded by the Sun.
I had impaired sight in my right eye for 10 minutes after taking 1/2 a dozen of such shots. Certainly not a sort of image you'd wanna do with a telephoto lens.
I once placed some of my lenses under direct sunlight (to kill fungus).
Since I wanted them directly pointed them towards the sun, I took a piece of clothe (old sweatshirt) and placed in on a chair. Almost as soon as I was trying to place the 135L on the shirt (pointing directly into the sun) the shirt started burning.
It was like less than three seconds!
If someone had told me that, I wouldn't believe it...
Of course, like a little child, I started playing with the lenses and tried to reproduce the "phenomena".
interestingly, while the 85L also had some "burning" potential, the 135L was the clear winner.
So, Peter, if you use your lens mostly for wildlife and nature shots, then you won't know how well the corner or even the edge performs, correct ? I see blurry corners/edges of both your wildlife shots . Maybe even my first lens could have pulled that off, too. Just kidding..... Great shots , BTW!
AGeoJO wrote:
I did! Again, the stress is in the past tense . I bought it brand new when it first came out in 2007 and I was very enthusiastic about getting a better performance out of it than out of the Mark I. The ironic thing, I didn't notice the issue until later since I wasn't pixel peeping.The rage in the Nikkor 14-24mm lens later on that year made me curious and I bought a copy. Not surprising that Nikkor lens blew my 16-35mm Mark II out of the water. The center area of that lens was sharp, comparable to that of the Nikkor but the edges and we are not even talking about the corners here, are blurred, even stopped down to f/8.0. I hated that 16-35mm II lens. The Nikkor at f/2.8 delivered a better edge/corner performance. I went further by buying a D700 and several Nikkor lenses.
Fast forward to two years later and I had a chance to buy a more recent, UX date lens at a fair price and I did. Boy, the difference between the one I had and this was obvious since I know where to look for. Now, this lens gives the Nikkor a run for its money. From f/5.6 on, I couldn't tell the difference between the two. At f/2.8 and f/4.0, I still give the corner performance to the Nikkor the edge but we are nitpicking here. For landscape or cityscape where a certain depth of field is required, you will stop down to at least f/5.6 anyway. And at 14mm, the Nikkor is wider but at 35mm the Canon is longer.
What happened to the other lens I had before? Not realizing that it was out of whack, I thought it was just the way it was, I sold it in good faith on FM. I understood that the buyer ended up sending that in to Canon for calibration and it is up to par now. Here are some recent shots from the "new" lens. ...Show more →
Yes, my experience is comparable to yours. I started by purchasing a 14-24, but quickly became tired of the adapter/manual settings thing so I opted for a 16-35 II to test side-by-side. I guess I was fortunate to have waited - my 16-35 II is a UX as well, and like you said, it gives the Nikkor a run for its money. Maybe the Nikon has a slight edge, particularly at wide open but in the end they were outweighed by the hassles associated with the adapter. I sold the Nikon and kept the Canon.
Since we are amongst friends here doing a little 16-35L MkII October love-fest, as initiated by good offices of Joshua, let me share with you one of more challenging shots I was faced with when using the lens at 16mm. No, it ain't a BIF shot, it's a floral. Although I used 40D, there were way too many intrusive elements in the frame......at that FL the lens sucked in just about a half of the park I was shooting in.
Then, although at f/2.8, the bokeh at 16mm is unremarkable unless the background is very distant and of special texture. Then, as I wanted to shoot eye-level with the flowers, a half of the sky got sucked in.
Well, you get the picture.
. I bought it brand new when it first came out in 2007 and I was very enthusiastic about getting a better performance out of it than out of the Mark I. The ironic thing, I didn't notice the issue until later since I wasn't pixel peeping.The rage in the Nikkor 14-24mm lens later on that year made me curious and I bought a copy. Not surprising that Nikkor lens blew my 16-35mm Mark II out of the water. The center area of that lens was sharp, comparable to that of the Nikkor but the edges and we are not even talking about the corners here, are blurred, even stopped down to f/8.0. I hated that 16-35mm II lens. The Nikkor at f/2.8 delivered a better edge/corner performance. I went further by buying a D700 and several Nikkor lenses. 
.
, BTW!