If 1/3 the people who bash the 24mm ts-e had one it might be canon's most popular lens. and i doubt some of the people who've used it really knew how to use it and blamed operator error on the equipment.
how soft is soft anyway? at what magnification? anyone serious about it wouldn't shoot it wide open anyway.
mine is way more than acceptably sharp, i shoot stopped down to 8 usually and at 8 it is very sharp
it is not a pixel peepers lens and software cannot duplicate the results. CS2 has some correction but introduces a myriad of other problems.
to be honest i haven't taken mine in the field use it primarily for architecture and there are no other lenses that will do the job (excepting other t-s lenses of course).
and as for the 24 being the softest, DUH all retrofocus wide angles are less sharp than medium and short to medium telephoto lenses.
ever wonder why the 85L, 135L and 200L are touted as the best lenses canon makes? no maker touts their wides as the absolute best, too many design compromises and other complications.
Verdi wrote:
Whatever focal lengths you decide for be prepared that it will take some time until you can master a TS-E lens.
Especially if you have never used a view camera before it can be very helpful to google for 'scheimpflug rule' for understanding what a lens tilt is actually doing.
Agreed, manual focussing can be tricky, especially with a smaller viewscreen, an anglefinder C helps a bit. I'm hoping my new EcB split screen will help too. The amount of tilt is very sensitive to the focal length.
I was able to get the table for tilt angles from my friend who did the calculations, thanks Andy!
These calculations (via Scheimpflug) assume the center of the sensor distance above the ground (first column), and the required tilt angle to keep the ground plane in focus for the 24mm, 45mm and 90mm Canon T/S lenses. First table is in mm above the ground, the second inches. As you can see at normal tripod heights, the 24 mm uses less than 1 degree of tilt while the 90mm lens uses 3 degrees. I initally found surprising the relatively small amount of tilt required by the 24mm TS while the 90 runs out of tilt capability 2 feet from the ground. . Swing angles would also be the same, assuming an imaginary vertical plane, which you want to maintain in focus.
Stephen, great shots! I wonder if you ever experienced parallax problems when doing the stitching. I ran into this article on the web that recommends shifting the camera to the opposite direction of the lens shift, so that the lens remains relatively in a stationary position, to avoid parallax.
andregold wrote:
Stephen, great shots! I wonder if you ever experienced parallax problems when doing the stitching. I ran into this article on the web that recommends shifting the camera to the opposite direction of the lens shift, so that the lens remains relatively in a stationary position, to avoid parallax.
Yes, I did run into the parallax problem until I found those articles regarding camera shifting to compensate. I used the simple method of marking my camera plate (in 11mm interval) and shifting the camera in the oppositie direction of the lens shift. It works great an cannot be any easier. The process may sound very confusing at first. But, if you just set up the camera and do a few 'dry runs' following the instruction, it makes sense after a few trys.
andregold wrote:
Stephen, great shots! I wonder if you ever experienced parallax problems when doing the stitching. I ran into this article on the web that recommends shifting the camera to the opposite direction of the lens shift, so that the lens remains relatively in a stationary position, to avoid parallax.
Yes, I did run into the parallax problem until I found those articles regarding camera shifting to compensate. I used the simple method of marking my camera plate (in 11mm interval) and shifting the camera in the oppositie direction of the lens shift. It works great and cannot be any easier. The process may sound very confusing at first. But, if you just set up the camera and do a few 'dry runs' following the instruction, it makes sense after a few trys.
The 24 works fine for me. It's always on a tripod and stopped down to F8 or so.
I don't think these products were designed for hand held available light photography.
Thanks for your reply. Another quick question, do you find it useful to set the camera in the vertical position for panoramic shots with the TSE lenses?
Thanks for your reply. Another quick question, do you find it useful to set the camera in the vertical position for panoramic shots with the TSE lenses?
Actually you get the most gain (in pixel MP) when you shoot in vertical format for pano. The final stitched pano shot is 4992 X 3511, or 18 MP with my 1DMk2. With my 1DMk2 and 24TS-E, I really need three (left, center, right shift) shots to complete the pano if I shoot in vertical format (18 MP), while I need only two (left & right shift) shots if I shoot in landscape format (14 MP). I hope the above makes sense. If you miss my post above, this is the link to my pano using the 24TS-E in portrait format: http://www.pbase.com/stephenl/image/34474332
In other words, if I only shoot static object like product or table top, and be careful about my lens/camera alignment, my 1DMk2 with 24TS-E can give me better resolution or file size than from a 1DsMk2, or an image taken with a sensor actually bigger than the 1DsMk2's.
