Maybe related? Difficulty with MA and adjusting in-camera sharpness apparently helped...
Actually I hope this is not related. In that thread the OP was complaining that he could not get his lens to shoot an acceptable image regardless of how much MFA he dialed in. Later he discovered that his issue was that he had not upped the sharpness level up enough to get the results he was looking for. The sharpness setting had nothing to do with the MFA only in the results the OP was looking to achieve. In other words operator error....
mogud wrote:
I went through two copies of the 50L and also gave up. About a month after, I tried again and got the same OOF issues. Rather than go through the return/test/return craziness, I sent the lens into CPS for callibration. The 50L is now spot on with all my bodies. I agree with other responders, send it in to CPS and get it callibrated.
Just filled out an online repair request at CPS and will be sending it in today. Thanks everyone. I'll report back with results in case anyone is following.
Mine seemed fine...UA serial number.(bought from BH- July) I jsut picked it up from Canon...Body and Lens...it is now sooooo much better. Little sharper than it was at 1.2....When I droped it off at Canon Irvine, took 2 days...and now perfect.
I am not a pro, don't trust my self with doing myself with software. Canon did not charge me, as it was with in 1 yr old!
I got curious how my new (UA) model would do on my tried and true 1D Mark II -- the basic non-MA camera. Shots are wide open, focused on the center or center object in the frame. I don't see how it could get any better than this. ISO 400-1250 with available window light (window facing away from sunny side). This good news for me, as I really like that camera.
I hope would everyone gets the same results, or else sends in to Canon to get adjusted. The lens should be a wonderful and reliable addition to your shooting gear.
I went through one copy. I had a UY copy that I bought from a member here. The camera I was using it on is a 5D Mark III. Overall, it's impressive. I loved it. But what killed it for me was how soft it was when using outer cross type AF points compared to center point.
I had reikan focal dial in a +5MA adjustment. Shooting everything in the center was always tack sharp. But if i used other focus points, from f1.2-1.8 it was softer. That bothered me so much to the point to where I sent my copy in to CPS to get it adjusted to factory specs AND adjusted directly to my body.
It didn't work. I noticed that when I borrowed my buddies UA version on a shoot, it was tack sharp all across the board on center point. But the issues come up from f1.2-1.8 if using any of the outer points. F2.0 and up didn't have any of these issues.
Now I know it wasn't my camera body considering my 35L was tack sharp from center point to all other outer points and my 85 1.8 (now sold) 85 sigma (now sold) and now 85LII performs the same as the 35L. The only issue I had was just with the 50L. So frustrating since I bought a 5D3 and all of the available AF points were there to eliminate focus recompose.
I found it was more of a hit and miss with the 50L compared to all three of those lenses I've shot with. Using spot AF gave a little more margin for accurate sharpness but still. This is all relating to OUTER FOCUS POINTS though. I never had an issue with it being soft center point after MA. I'm not the only other person out there that had this issue. We're all thinking it's just the lens design of the 50L. I've checked up on POTN, here and flickr and there are a few other users who can vouch for the same issues i'm talking about. I found that if i MA to +20 and used an outer focus point, the results were very very close to center point if i used +5MA.
For instance, this following shot was with a UA copy 50L at f2.0 and outer focus point.
Sharp isn't it? But this following was at f1.2
focus was at the closest eye, outer focus point and f1.2, 1/8000th. and it's soft?
what confused the heck out of me was that this last shot was at f1.2 and on the closest eye and it was tack sharp!
So it seems like at certain distances, it works when it wants to work..
I really don't get it. CPS didn't fix it even sending in with images showing different differences. They did send back a letter with it stating that they fixed it because the "optical" assembly was incorrect. Issue was corrected and now works to factory specs.
Gunzorro wrote:
I ended up with -6 on my 5D2, but occasionally I get slight inconsistent focus, seeming at different distances: MFD, close up, head and shoulder portrait, middle distance, and infinity -- not a lot, but sometimes off. Need to do more work on this.
Seems to focus pretty good on my 1Ds2 as it came.
Overall, I'm very happy!
+1, sound like my set. 1Ds2 just nails all my (variable 5D2 AFMAed) lenses everytime. I like the way 1D2 series AF firmware work...rarely non-sense 1/3 dof was there after shots. 5D2 AF is different story so i got Eg-S to help out its firmware.
I bought a used 50L. Was never quite spot on. Bought a 5D3, still not spot on. Brought it in to CPS. 2 days and $200 later it was razor sharp and is now my go to lens for sharpness, even wide open. But yeah, it cost me around $200 to get it there. Not inexpensive by any means, but now it is my most used lens as opposed to an expensive paper weight.
I am sorry for people who have problems with this lens, or any other combinations of gear. I know it happens, and there is variation in production. As I said, I'm not 100% confident on the 5D2, and will keep looking into it, but I am getting enough keepers that it is fine.
Otherwise, all my shots are center point AF, and it nails the focus. I can understand that using outer AF points, lens aberrations may have an influence on accuracy. I don't know, because I don't use them.
Still need to try my 60D, which is ordinarily spot-on for focus.
The earlier non-MA bodies are just terrific.
Regarding the lens qualities: from the above examples, I think you might see why I'm jazzed. They were shot RAW and have the LR4 minimum defaults with added sharpness 60-0.6-36 and 15 on Lum. NR, along with the lens profile and CA box selected. But no color enhancement, clarity or contrast. The images rock for color and contrast considering they are f/1.2.
I previously owned a nice Nikon AI 55/1.2 adapted to EOS, and it was very good, but couldn't come close to this L lens.
kpjsy wrote:
50L is fine for me on 5D2. How are your "real world" results?
Pretty dreamy!
I can definitely say this lens produces results that would be very difficult to achieve with another lens, and certainly not the f/1.4's I'm familiar with (Nikon AIS, Canon EF, Canon FD, Pentax M42, or Contax Zeiss).
