As I've shown, my sample does not exhibit the problem but Lloyd has some examples on his blog.
Luckily, pixel peeping with a series of controlled shots is usually sufficient for amateurs to determine if a lens is of acceptable sharpness for him/her. Of course, this is not the same as knowing whether the lens is within specification.
Yes, unless it's something really weird like this that the lens misbehaves at a certain focus distance and aperture.
Thanks for the link, denoir; I didn't know that he posted new images today.
BTW, I went back to look at the-digital-picture.com's images and indeed F8 looks slightly softer than F4 in the center! Look closely at the circular lines to see the problem. This looks to be common across all 3 samples.
BTW, my samples on a previous page indicates that F8 is very slightly softer than F2.8 for me at the center. What I didn't show was that corner sharpness improves F8 vs F2.8.
The silver lining is that even with the relatively softer F8 it's still acceptable to me. If this is a design tradeoff to optimize sharpness at F2.8 and F4.0...maybe it was worth it? From what I have seen here and my own tests I think this gives a more "normalized" performance across different F-stops whereas we used to accept that stopping down was the only way to get sharp images with zooms, and now the mark II is able to deliver from the get go wide open.
I am tempted to sign up for the DAP site now, but not just for this article.
I think not many are aware that Olympus' 4/3rd lenses are almost always optimized for wide open performance. See here for example. Performance peaks at about f/4 or f/5.6.
Lens design plays a more important part than diffraction effects (between 4/3rd and APS-C) in this case.
ironically,since most of my shooting takes place between 28-4.0 if the lens was indeed optimized for those apertures i would actually be happy about that as opposed to the norm whereby you need to stop down in order to achieve peak sharpness....when i tested the lens at 2.8 as i normally do with a new lens i was knocked out by the sharpness wide open and as i said did not see any decrease in sharpness as i stopped down...that said,i suppose it is possible that i missed it.....in truth i would rather peak sharpness be 2.8-4.0 if that was the case although i am dubious as to whether or not that is the case here
With a f/2.8 lens you can expect sharpness to peak at f/5.6. I did a quick and dirty test with the MKII versus the MKI and indeed the MKII is much sharper than the MKI at f/2.8, and the MKII is clearly aharper at f/5.6 than it is at f/2.8. I didn't check f/8, but I have what I wanted. I was shooting at 200mm, near MFD.
From my experience with several 70-200L's (all versions) on the 5D Mark II, all are getting better if you stop down 1-2 f/stops. In general, the f/2,8 zooms have their peak at f/5,6 with the non-IS being contrastier and more resolving than the IS version at almost all f/stops. F/8 on the non-IS is a little bit worse compared to f/5,6 and almost the same with f/4. From the samples at the-digital-picture, it is obvious that the new lens it's better at f/2,8 compared to the previous versions and has its peak at f/4 in the center and f/5,6 at the corners, which is not bad at all, except for the cases were is needed to stop down the lens in order to achieve a special effect like the motion blur of a helicopter rotor under daylight. For my usage (airplanes, landscapes and portraits) it seems to be ok, because I rarely stop down more than f/5,6. The only thing that concerns me a little is the vigneting at f/4 (which is easily corrected from DPP - I shoot raw) and the corner to corner sharpness at all focal lengths, at far distances, which seems fine.
Just tried the Canon 2X vs a stacked 1.4 Canon and Kenko 1.4 teleplus pro. No contest, the 2X blows the two 1.4s out of the water in every facet: IQ, AF speed and contrast, not even close on my setup.
droopy1592 wrote:
I've never seen a sharp MKI on a crop body. I've tried tons of them and looked at tons of shots. MKII I'll be when the price is around $600 less
You haven't looked much then. My 70-200 f/2.8 IS is absolutely sharp. If I were to upgrade it would be for the IS only. The IQ on my lens is just perfect. I see no reason to upgrade until the parts run out and then I will buy the Mark II lens.
Here's a shot with the 70-200L if you want to see:
Some images with the 7D + 1.4 extender. The 70-200/II and 7D auto focus are a match made in heaven. When you put the 1.4 extender..not so any more. The auto focus becomes noticeably sluggish and is far from ideal for BIF photos. Slower or more stationary targets would be OK though.
Just some seagulls shot from my balcony:
http://peltarion.eu/img/seagull/seagull-1.jpg
http://peltarion.eu/img/seagull/seagull-2.jpg
http://peltarion.eu/img/seagull/seagull-3.jpg
http://peltarion.eu/img/seagull/seagull-4.jpg
The 5D2 with the extender is a lost cause. Its auto focus system is slow to begin with but when you put on the extender it becomes so sluggish that the fastest things you can photograph are geological formations. Plants typically grow faster than that combination focuses
Mine is displaying regions of out of focus areas at F8, but not at F2.8... I think that the IS is throwing the plane of focus out of whack somehow. Anyway, it is going back today for replacement no questions asked. Glad I dealt with my local supplier
Anybody else getting a lot of vignetting at 100mm/F8??
The 5D2 with the extender is a lost cause. Its auto focus system is slow to begin with but when you put on the extender it becomes so sluggish that the fastest things you can photograph are geological formations.
Nice pictures, but not quite comparable. The coyote does not change focal plane by much during the leap . A fast bird that isn't going flying around you in a concentric circle is. What is more the bird is fast enough for you not to be able to track it using the center point only. Your coyote takes up most of the frame. Finally with its lower fps the 5D2 has twice the time to make focus corrections compared to the 7D.
I have both the 7D and the 5D2 and love them both. They do serve different purposes and if I need to take action shots I'll always choose it over the 5D2 as it is in a completely different class. That doesn't mean that you can't use the 5D2 for action shots just like you can use the 7D to take great portraits. It's just that those two cameras maximize their potential when performing different tasks.
