Thanks for taking your time to do this interesting test. Could you post the center section at 100%? That allows comparison of micro-contrast and color rendering when the details are sharp.
The difference is quite marked. Reading Lloyd Chambers on the Nikon 24, he does note that in his experience it is likely a sharper, more corrected lens than the Canon; that's the comparison I'm eager to see. I have mixed feeling about the Nikkor; results at ƒ1.4 aren't as striking as I'd bargained for and mis-focus at ƒ2 still results in many lost images, as I recently experienced on an assignment I shot just last week.
Thank you, Jorge. Post it on the Canon forum, then stand well back. That is a $1500 lens that just got owned....very comprehensively. Dull, flat and lifeless come to mind as accurate descriptions.
philip_pj wrote:
Thank you, Jorge. Post it on the Canon forum, then stand well back. That is a $1500 lens that just got owned....very comprehensively. Dull, flat and lifeless come to mind as accurate descriptions.
Focus? This came up in the other thread, but that boat won't float, I'm afraid, the images the Canon turns out will not magically assume what the CZ provides! I do concede you can achieve well-focused, drab and lifeless images, however. For $1500...brand loyalty rules OK, I guess.
That Canon is terribly front focused -- you can see that in the first shot where the cars are sharp and the house is blurring -- the opposite with the Zeiss. Sorry to say, but until you get the two to focus the same, the test results are useless.
I agree that if the focus isn't accurate, the test is no good. I'm afraid that in order to accurately focus such a test, you'll have to use live view(yechh...it's ugly).
If these shots were accurately focused, then it's evident that the Canon lens you used is a typical Canon wide angle: good, but not very good.
Actually if you look at the writing on the car roof thing, both the Zeiss and Canon are OOF. If you look at the Canon shot, that can't be on focus on the car considering there's sharp CA there even at F5.6
If you look at the car in the mid distance between the roof deck car and the house, the focus isn't there either. The Canon is just bad.
Gunzorro wrote:
That Canon is terribly front focused -- you can see that in the first shot where the cars are sharp and the house is blurring -- the opposite with the Zeiss. Sorry to say, but until you get the two to focus the same, the test results are useless.
Yup, I'm not drawing any conclusions from this test. DOF field won't make up for missed focus when looking at 100% crops. Was autofocus used on the canon? I'm always amused how many "soft" lenses turn out to just be misfocusing.
FlyPenFly wrote:
Even at F2, the Zeiss shows less CA and is slightly sharper. There's CA everywhere on the canon.
CA and vignetting are definitely the Canon's weak points. Vignetting in general seems to be a very low priority for Canon's engineers, which is frustrating as hell, since you just can't correct (or even moderate) a 4 stop vignette in an ISO 1600 shot without the file falling apart.
That does look much better focused (note the canon appears to be sharper at f/2 than f/2.8 ). I still would not be positive about perfect focus, but despite being wide open the zeiss does appear to perform better too.
I dont know why the Canon guys are getting so bent out of shape.
ok, youre lying to yourself anyway if you think your lens is the best when true wideangles are out there. do you convince yourself that your 24L II can outperform the ZM 25 or the Leica 24 Elmarit too?
anyway the OP never said it was that great of a test. for something more useful compare your best 24L II shots against the best samples you can find of the ZE 25/2 and you might get something useful out of the exercise.
the 24L II is fast, and decent stopped down. that alone makes it a good lens
I'm staying out of this.