Sam Bennett wrote:
Well, in my limited shooting around the house, I can't honestly say I'm bowled over by the image quality of this lens yet. It is pretty soft at f/1.2, as would be expected but it also suffers pretty significant CA wider than f/2.8. The real test will be this weekend shooting a RollerGirls bout, but I'm pretty dubious at this point.
Sure seems like canon did the "half-maesure" build with this lens.
On the plus side, the focusing appears to be really, really consistent. Unfortunately it appears to be consistently backfocusing a bit. Something I first noticed shooting around the house with my dogs, and is being confirmed in more objective tests. HOWEVER: Still determining if it's my test, or what.
Well, I'm pretty disappointed at this point. It seems pretty clear to me that this 50/1.2L is less sharp than my 85/1.8 around f/1.8, although the 50L does have much more neutral and pleasing color reproduction. I'm going to hold off on my final judgement until I put it through some real world testing this weekend, but so far...
Sam Bennett wrote:
Well, I'm pretty disappointed at this point. It seems pretty clear to me that this 50/1.2L is less sharp than my 85/1.8 around f/1.8, although the 50L does have much more neutral and pleasing color reproduction. I'm going to hold off on my final judgement until I put it through some real world testing this weekend, but so far...
Lets get a serial number thing going for bad lenses and good lenses...
Mine is being repaired so I cant post it now.
Canons quality sure is going down hill fast. Might as well buy my lenses at Walmart. At least cheap Chinese lenses you expect to be bad.
joecirca79 wrote:
Hey Sam...just out of curiosity, do you find your shots wide open significantly softer than gary's samples?
Yes, but it's hard to know conclusively since we're shooting different subjects, different distances, etc. Again, I'm going to reserve judgement on mine until I shoot with it in real situations this weekend.
I'm going to refrain from posting the serial number until I'm sure I really have a "problem" lens.
Sam Bennett wrote:
Well, I'm pretty disappointed at this point. It seems pretty clear to me that this 50/1.2L is less sharp than my 85/1.8 around f/1.8, although the 50L does have much more neutral and pleasing color reproduction.
When you compare neutrality and color, make sure you're manually setting the color balance to the same setting for both, not AWB, whether in-camera or in post-processing. I have found that comparing lenses of vastly different apertures often causes the AWB to select different color temperature values for each lens. Shooting RAW and manually selecting the same setting in PP is probably the easiest method, and will give an accurate comparison of the tint and color of the two lenses.
moondigger wrote:
When you compare neutrality and color, make sure you're manually setting the color balance to the same setting for both, not AWB, whether in-camera or in post-processing. I have found that comparing lenses of vastly different apertures often causes the AWB to select different color temperature values for each lens. Shooting RAW and manually selecting the same setting in PP is probably the easiest method, and will give an accurate comparison of the tint and color of the two lenses.
I have found that any time I start using a new lens or camera, that my first few sessions with it are learning, and results are sometimes well below the capability of it until it's quirks become 2nd nature to me.
That said, I am curious if anyone has compared the 50L 1.2 with the 35L 1.4
I am very satisfied with my 35L, generally manual focus under f2.8 where possible, but af is not bad on my 5D.
I have located a couple of 50L's, and my order finger is twitching.
Harvey Moore wrote:
I have found that any time I start using a new lens or camera, that my first few sessions with it are learning, and results are sometimes well below the capability of it until it's quirks become 2nd nature to me.
I tend to agree with you Harvey in most cases, but in this case we've got someone [madmax (michaelkdickson)] who knows how to use his gear. Have you seen his galleries? If he says the lens isn't right, the lens probably isn't right.
I'd really hate to think that Canon is producing bad copies of this new lens.
You know what else? The unexpected delay in getting this lens released to market also gives rise to suspicions that there may be something not quite right.
I also think it is interesting that the lens is out there in such limited quantities. Looks like a few relatively small dealers got a few copies in, but the big boys are still waiting. I wonder if there is anything to that.
I took a look in madmax galleries, did not see any obvious 50L tests.
In my recent experiences, I have purchased 2 zooms, 24-70L and 16-35L in the midst of a lot of very negative posts about each, and my copies turned out to be excellent. I sold the 16-35L due to my low usage and need to fund the 35L purchase. I have read many posts re quality on the 35L and the need to have it calibrated. Again, mine was excellent out of the box.
I have been in and out of photography since the early 60's, both professionally and as a hobby. Started with Leica M3, M4, added Nikon and Hasselblad, wound up selling that gear after 15 years when my day job and family pressures over took photography. Back then, never had a quality problem with hardware, and the same experience applies with my Canon gear starting with 20D and the stuff in my sig line.
I am not saying others have not had problems with hardware, simply expressing my experiences.
I would like to obtain a raw file sample of the 50L. Web posts demonstrate more of the post process ability of the poster than the lens/body capability.
Harvey Moore wrote:
I would like to obtain a raw file sample of the 50L. Web posts demonstrate more of the post process ability of the poster than the lens/body capability.
Agreed there! Even if the posts are not actually sharpened, adjusting the "Blacks" slider in Adobe Camera Raw, or adjusting Contrast can make images appear more or less sharp without actually using a sharpen filter.
CMOS wrote:
Agreed there! Even if the posts are not actually sharpened, adjusting the "Blacks" slider in Adobe Camera Raw, or adjusting Contrast can make images appear more or less sharp without actually using a sharpen filter.
I'm well aware of the factors RAW processing can introduce. Beyond that you also have variables within testing - levelness of the camera in relationship to the subject, consistency of light, consistency of camera settings, focus point chosen on subject, normal variation in focusing accuracy and so on. But ultimately I find the best thing to do is to always test relative to other lenses which minimizes problems by comparing things in as similar conditions as possible. So when I say the 50/1.2L is less sharp than the 85/1.8 I'm not speaking generally, I'm referring to an actual test using precisely the same conditions and processing, etc. So even if the sharpening/wb/black levels are tweaked - as long as they're tweaked identically for each test you still have a relative measurement between lenses.
In any case, objective testing aside the thing that spurred me to get down to the nitty gritty of focus tests is the experiences I had shooting normally around the house. My impression of softness and backfocusing I saw in "normal" photos has unfortunately only been reinforced by the more objective "testing" I did later. If I was getting consistently sharp photos shooting around the house, I would have left it at that.
I'll try to upload some RAW files for those curious about making their own determinations later tonight.
Edited by Sam Bennett on Dec 05, 2006 at 04:08 PM GMT
My 50L is not quite as sharp (perhaps 90%) as the 85L II wide open, though it seems to match the longer lens stopped down to F/8.
Honestly I wasn't expecting this lens to be as sharp as the 85L wide open since neither was the Leica 50 1.0 Noctilux, Nikon 85 1.4, or Leica 80 1.4.
HOWEVER: Still determining if it's my test, or what.
