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Archive 2011 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

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p.2 #1 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

The 35L is very sharp at 1.4. I almost exclusivly use it at 1.4. You should go read the test results over at photozone.de

May 20, 2011 at 12:30 PM

AGeoJO
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p.2 #2 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

My 35L was only so so wide open until it was calibrated by Canon. Now, it performs really well wide open to my delight. Prior to calibration, I didn't use it at f/1.4 and now I do, well, more often that is. Yes, it does get better at f/2.0 and at f/2.8, it is bitingly sharp.

May 20, 2011 at 12:42 PM

Lars Johnsson
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p.2 #3 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

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The 35L is very sharp at 1.4. I almost exclusivly use it at 1.4. You should go read the test results over at photozone.de

Yes I have been reading it. And the result is not that good

May 20, 2011 at 01:16 PM

M Vers
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p.2 #4 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Lars Johnsson wrote:
Yes I have been reading it. And the result is not that good

at f/1,4 he say that the center is excellent but the corners and borders are soft. He also say it has problem with bad vignetting. And the bokeh does not not convince him. It also produces quite some purple to green out-of-focus halos wide open.
The verdict is 3 stars for the Optical Quality in a scale of 1 to 5.

Lars, aren't you a huge proponent of the 50/1.2? If you think PZ's findings in regards to the 35 are "not that good" then the 50 would be considered downright terrible when rated on the same scale. Still, like the 50/1.2, the 35L is considered one of the best (if not the best) 35mm in it's class despite it's flaws.

May 20, 2011 at 01:24 PM

kapytalyst
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p.2 #5 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Lars Johnsson wrote:
Yes I have been reading it. And the result is not that good

at f/1,4 he say that the center is excellent but the corners and borders are soft. He also say it has problem with bad vignetting. And the bokeh does not not convince him. It also produces quite some purple to green out-of-focus halos wide open.
The verdict is 3 stars for the Optical Quality in a scale of 1 to 5.
He also give the 35/2 lens 3 stars

When, oh when, did the corners of f/1.4 images become the object of such scrutiny? I mean, seriously, who is putting critical image data in the corners of their images and shooting at f/1.4.

You want sharp corners, shoot f/8.....with just about anything.

The 35 f/1.4 is an astounding lens. I love the effect of some vignetting and softer corners. It makes images from that lens beautiful, in my opinion. I hope Canon NEVER designs a, ehem, better one.....

May 20, 2011 at 01:26 PM

M Vers
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p.2 #6 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

kapytalyst wrote:
...I mean, seriously, who is putting critical image data in the corners of their images and shooting at f/1.4.

I am. Speaking strictly in terms of composition I always use the left and right thirds of the frame, often times the corners as well. So while the 35L isn't quite sharp in those areas when used wide open I'd sure like them to be. That said the lens, like many others, does have room for improvement. I still think its a great lens though, I'm just not blind to it's flaws.

May 20, 2011 at 01:31 PM

Gunzorro
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p.2 #7 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

I don't mean to be confrontational, but I find claims for sharpness on fast lenses to be questionable.

I have seen "decent" center sharpness wide open, but it is with reduced contrast/resolution, and most importantly, the sharp image areas are a small fraction of the frame, in the center. That is no way to determine sharpness in my book.

I know many photographers love the look of OOF areas showing extremes of bokeh. Anything even moderately sharp as a small area in these nebulous areas will appear sharper than it actually is, than if you were to compare it within larger areas of focus. That's fine for effect (or gimmick), but not really a proof of sharpness. (love the lips photo, BTW!) It can be, likely is, that the lens aberrations and lack of focus in corners actually adds to the desired "look", even though the lens isn't as sharp as it seems.

If you take a look at the photo above of the dog, the nose and some fur is nice and sharp, but for the overall frame, it is a small percentage. And notice the magenta/green in the OOF areas in the window frame/shutters indicating the optical aberrations present.

On the bottle of "Scrubbing Bubbles" I see it is very sharp (I've gotten similar results with a 55/1.2), but the bottle directly to its right is not, even though they are the same distance from the lens. In fact, I have a hard time finding anything else truly sharp in the entire frame, other than a tiny bit of counter edge to the left of the subject and closer to camera.

I've used a few fast or relatively fast lenses, and they all suffer from the usual and normal aberrations to one degree or another, inhibiting their sharpness anywhere near wide open. I'm sure most are familiar with these optical "defects" such as vignetting/light fall-off, coma, chromatic aberrations, reduced contrast, etc. Even lenses that aren't "fast" are almost never at their best wide open, and improve dramatically by closing one or two stops.

I've never seen a mild telephoto to wide angle be sharp corner to corner wide open, or even closed two stops. There is always some residual aberration that doesn't reduce or disappear until maybe f/5.6 and beyond.

I'm anxious to see 100% enlargements from high pixel full frame cameras of at least 16MP (try 1Ds2, 5D2, or 1Ds3) to show me the error of my experience. f/2 or f/2.8 corner-to-corner sharpness is very uncommon at any focal length from my experience (super-teles being the exception). Even my macro lenses with their flat fields are lacking in the corners and overall image frame until stopped down slightly.

So, if you have a high MP camera body and can show edge-to-edge, corner-to-corner sharpness at wide apertures, bring it on, I'm sure I would not be the only one delighted to see!

May 20, 2011 at 01:49 PM

Lars Johnsson
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p.2 #8 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

kapytalyst wrote:
When, oh when, did the corners of f/1.4 images become the object of such scrutiny? I mean, seriously, who is putting critical image data in the corners of their images and shooting at f/1.4.

You want sharp corners, shoot f/8.....with just about anything.

The 35 f/1.4 is an astounding lens. I love the effect of some vignetting and softer corners. It makes images from that lens beautiful, in my opinion. I hope Canon NEVER designs a, ehem, better one.....

He wrote the lens was very sharp wide open refering to PhotoZone. And that was PhotoZones test.

And some people put critical image data both in the center and borders. And shoot at f/1,4 because it's dark.
Just because you like soft corners and vignetting it's not a plus for the lens. When I like that I do it in my PP. But I don't like to have it on every image whatever I shoot

It's a very nice lens. But it's not perfect without any fault

May 20, 2011 at 02:06 PM

wickerprints
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p.2 #9 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

I've been following this thread with more than a little bit of amusement.

Saying "is this lens sharp?" has about as much precision as saying, "is that car fast?" There's no context. A car can travel much faster than a human, but it's not as fast as a jet. You can't just say "OMG it's really sharp!!!!" nor can you say, "it's soft." Um, relative to what standard?

No, the 35L wide open isn't as sharp as a 200/2L IS wide open. Nor is it as sharp as a 24-105/4L IS @35mm wide open. They're different lenses for different purposes. If you're worried about corner sharpness then don't shoot the lens wide open. If you're asking for a flat field with no astigmatism, no spherical aberration, and no coma, with MTF > 0.95 in the image corner at 40 lp/mm, at f/1.4, then you are out of your mind and no 35mm lens is going to satisfy your definition of "sharp."

Everyone has their own idea of what is acceptably sharp. Everyone has different expectations and needs. Not a single one of you has acknowledged this, so the entire discussion has been totally pointless. All you have been doing is debating and arguing with each other over something that none of you has bothered to define in the first place.

May 20, 2011 at 02:53 PM

M Vers
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p.2 #10 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

May 20, 2011 at 04:24 PM

Gunzorro
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p.2 #11 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

M Vers (Matt?) -- Thanks for the effort. I am impressed with the center sharpness of the single box. But the test would be more telling if you had four additional boxes positioned in each of the corners!

May 20, 2011 at 06:00 PM

wickerprints
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p.2 #12 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Gunzorro wrote:
M Vers (Matt?) -- Thanks for the effort. I am impressed with the center sharpness of the single box. But the test would be more telling if you had four additional boxes positioned in each of the corners!

I can see from your corner shot that there is terrible curvature of field, allowing only a portion of the box to be in focus -- that's pretty severe. I have to interpolate what the crazy focus curves means to the overall flatness of field -- the center and corners probably can't be in "sharp focus" until f/11, if then.

I will...Show more →

The posted images do not necessarily show field curvature. The target used doesn't have the kind of features that would permit you to discern whether the field is in fact curved. In other words, there are other possible causes for soft corners besides field curvature, such as coma and spherical aberration; and especially for fast-aperture wide angle primes, they do not exist in isolation.

wicker -- I think you are carrying the analogy a little toward the absurd for your amusement. Most of us know what comparative sharpness means, just like we know a typical Ferrari is "fast" compared to the typical VW Beetle, even a modern version. Certain lenses are corrected to be as sharp as possible across the frame, others are not, either for effect, or because of expense, or maybe not even possible for some focal length and designs.

That wasn't my point at all. My point is that some of you are saying, "the lens isn't sharp until f/2;" others are saying, "the lens is sharp in the center wide open;" still others might say, "the lens isn't sharp in the corners even at f/8." Not a single one of you has bothered to acknowledge that your definition of what is "sharp" is not necessarily what someone else's criteria might be, so it's meaningless to make such broad statements. Sharp for you is not sharp for someone else, and vice versa. And then, some of you are looking at different aspects of the image, whether it is in the corner, center, stopped down, wide open; or you are using different camera bodies, different subject matter, etc.

The fundamental truth that is being repeatedly ignored in this thread is that one's expectations of what is "sharp" should be tempered by other considerations, not the least of which is the idea of what you can reasonably get in exchange for shooting under certain conditions. That is, if I choose to shoot a lens at f/1.4, it's because I need that aperture more than I need critical sharpness. It's totally unrealistic to expect that lens to perform as well as another lens that is only f/2.8, and then complain that you're getting soft corners. Sharpness, and in fact image quality in general, is not the end-all and be-all of the utility and performance of a lens.

May 20, 2011 at 06:17 PM

AGeoJO
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p.2 #13 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Gunzorro wrote:
I've heard so many soft lenses described as sharp that I feel it's a photo-1984.

Hmm, I am sure that it has, at least partly, to do with the way the images are displayed on the web, how they were resized, etc. The images I posted are quite a bit "sharper" on my monitor than displayed on FM. It is actually ironic that they look even sharper on iPad or even on my Vaio notebook than on my desktop monitor. BTW, thank you on the kind words on the last image I posted. FYI, that was taken at sunrise and not sunset. The first one was one of my test shots after that lens came back from Canon after calibration.

May 20, 2011 at 07:32 PM

michael49
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p.2 #14 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Honestly, besides astrophotography, how often do you really need sharp corners at f/1.4?

May 20, 2011 at 07:38 PM

Gunzorro
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p.2 #15 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

wicker -- My point about field curvature is regarding the photo of the box placed in the corner of the image, where only the outside edge is in focus, even though the entire box is perpendicular to the sensor plane. This indicates severe curvature, or else the entire box on that focal plan, within inches from side to side, would either be all sharp or all out of focus. That't the only concrete example I've been shown here that field curvature exists with this lens.

If there is another explanation, I will stand corrected.

The example is not much differernt than using a swing or tilt on view camera to angle a thin plane of focus. Since this lens doesn't offer swings or tilts, it is field curvature or something similar.

My other point is that perhaps this is designed in intentionally to throw the edges further out of focus for an isolating effect on central subjects.

We've been discussing recently the field curvature of the Zeiss 50mm MP (macro) lens, where the focus sweeps toward the back along the sides, providing sharper areas behind the subject on the edges. It is also well known that many Nikon retro focus lenses exhibit field curvature that swings forward along the sides of the image, leaving a "hollow" OOF area in front of the many subject of focus. I call that the "horseshoe focus effect" because it can be traced on the ground coming toward the photographer like two prongs of a horseshoe. (Particularly noticable in 28 and 35mm f/2 AI/AIS models, as well as others.)

Anyway, it's all interesting stuff and I appreciate the examples and discussion.

May 20, 2011 at 08:08 PM

jcolwell
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p.2 #16 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Gunzorro wrote:
wicker -- My point about field curvature is regarding the photo of the box placed in the corner of the image, where only the outside edge is in focus, even though the entire box is perpendicular to the sensor plane. This indicates severe curvature, or else the entire box on that focal plan, within inches from side to side, would either be all sharp or all out of focus. That't the only concrete example I've been shown here that field curvature exists with this lens.

If there is another explanation, I will stand corrected. ...

It certainly looks like the box is parallel* to the sensor, in the vertical plane. The observed OOF effect could easily be seen if the line of sight for the lens was slightly to the "left of centre", with respect to the box. It looks as if this could be the case in your example photo.

* The visible surface of the box is not perpendicular to the sensor plane, it's parallel to the sensor plane, more or less.

May 20, 2011 at 08:17 PM

Gunzorro
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p.2 #17 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Jim -- Oops! Doh!

Damned angles! You're right -- brain fade strikes again. Perpendicular to the lens axis, was my mental picture.

Yes, the plane of focus chops through the front of that box pretty nicely!

May 20, 2011 at 08:25 PM

jcolwell
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p.2 #18 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

I'm just trying to keep things straight.

May 20, 2011 at 08:41 PM

mttran
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p.2 #19 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

wickerprints wrote:
I've been following this thread with more than a little bit of amusement.

Saying "is this lens sharp?" has about as much precision as saying, "is that car fast?" There's no context. A car can travel much faster than a human, but it's not as fast as a jet. You can't just say "OMG it's really sharp!!!!" nor can you say, "it's soft." Um, relative to what standard?

No, the 35L wide open isn't as sharp as a 200/2L IS wide open. Nor is it as sharp as a 24-105/4L IS @35mm wide open. They're different lenses for different purposes. If you're...Show more →

+1, how on earth do we expect from a curve field projection of one near & far object

everylens has its own projection curve. Even from the two identical 35L

May 20, 2011 at 08:47 PM

EyeBrock
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p.2 #20 · Canon 35 L 1.4 sharpness

Typical. I bought the 35L in April. MkII en route. Ah well, I do love it so already.

May 20, 2011 at 08:52 PM

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