I too am perfectly happy with the mark I f/1.4 (once I quiet down the "newer is better" envy monster). One of my buddies raves about the TSE mII, but he's the first to admit that his copy of the mI sucked, so a sharper mI might've elicited the same reaction.
A decent 17 prime has been on my wish list for a while. The fact that Canon not only granted that wish but also made it a TSE put a smile on my face. I haven't laid out the cash for a brand new lens in almost six years, but that one makes me reconsider my stance on that. It doesn't pass my "will it pay for itself" litmus test, but some things you do just to make yourself happy, right?
xrayvision wrote:
Unfortunately the Nikon 14 - 24mm f2.8 beats all lenses Canon offer at 14mm and 24mm in image quality even when shot wide open. So if the term King is to be used Canon is the King of nothing with in a focal length under 35. Truly, the Canon 35L is the King of 35's though .
Can you back this up?
I think the 17 TSE and the 2 24mm L primes would hold their own against the Nikkor.
To my eye it looks stronger (ever so slightly) at equivalent f stops. But yes, it does not do f/1.4 and does not have AF.
Now the hard part of deciding which one ot buy!
yeah it very clearly looks better at all apertures (once again proving the point that ANY lens does not perform perfectly at f/8 if even the great 24mm 1.4 is still noticeably worse than this other lens even at f/8)
if i ever get the money.... 24mm TS-E MkII all the way for me. At wide T&S means more to me than 1.4 as does every last bit of IQ
PetKal wrote:
Heck, lads, it seems that Canon has you by the short and curly.
Checked the prices of 24L II and TS 24L II lately ?
Yup, I am very happy with my 24L MkI. Canon can stick up that incrementally "improved' and majorly overpriced 24L II where the sun doesn't shine.
Thankfully, I ain't into manual lenses, especially not at $2k +.
how can you of the 10 200 1.8's and 30 50 1.0's
find the new ts-e too pricey?
it blows anything else away
xrayvision wrote:
Unfortunately the Nikon 14 - 24mm f2.8 beats all lenses Canon offer at 14mm and 24mm in image quality even when shot wide open. So if the term King is to be used Canon is the King of nothing with in a focal length under 35. Truly, the Canon 35L is the King of 35's though .
Mine 24mm TSE II is coming tomorrow. I know that Leslie at Pictureline has one in stock . You can call him and tell him Mark sent you as he offered it to me today but i found one yesterday
Yes and as I said that 14-24 is not very good. I'm sure the 24 TS-E II is better, but the 14-24 has been shown to be sharp wide open, even in the corners on a 1Ds III. Go to www.16-9.net for comparisons. Only the Zeiss distagon 21 f/2.8 beat it up until now.
epuja wrote:
thats an interesting comment, quite humorous though. i would tend to agree on the 14mm end, although the 14L II is a fine lens.
IMO the 14L2 has a couple of advantages over the Nikkor at 14mm. It is _very_ rectilinear which is a very welcome quality in a lens this wide. The NIkkor has quite strong distortion at 14mm. Also the 14L2 is compatible with the Canon 5D2 without a lens adaptor. If you want to put a camera with that kind of image quality on the 14-24 you need to shell out for a D3x. There are many ways in which EOS compatibility is still a valuable feature.
At 24mm the Nikkor may not be better than the new 24 L's for image quality, and while it competes on versatility and price, it can neither shift, nor open up to f1.4. It really doesn't make much sense to worry about the infinitessimal differences in performance of these 4 superb lenses when each one of them has very different strengths and applications.
While the Nikkor is a superb all-rounder, the question is how many photographers can afford to buy or carry all three of the Canon's? And does that matter when most photographers specialise in specific areas of photography? And if you're looking for a general use UWA, can you put up with the totally inadequate 16-35L2 and 17-40L? Currently the 24L f1.4 and 17-40 are the lenses for my kind of work, and Nikon can't match either of those lenses at any price. I would not prefer a 14-24 over a 17-40 because I depend on the 40mm end. The Nikkor 14-24 is big, heavy and vulnerable and the Nikkor 17-35 is quite distorted at the 35mm end. Today, Canon's excellent wideangle offerings are a reason for switching. To Canon.
A lot of what Richard (brainiac) has said resonates with me. In terms of bang for buck and versatility the 14-24 is hard to beat. However I've found that in the 6 months I've had the lens, I've never mounted it on the camera for the range, but always for the wide end.
If I want to shoot at 24, I find myself reaching for the 24 f/1.4 II and now if I want to go wide, I'll opt for the 17 TS-E (I'm finding that the ability to shift compensates for the 3mm advantage of the 14-24 for what I shoot). This combo is absolutely NOT cheap and understandably not everyone will be able or want to spend that much money.
In the end there's a place for all these superb lenses, it just depends on the subject and shooting style of the photographer.
brainiac wrote:
IMO the 14L2 has a couple of advantages over the Nikkor at 14mm. It is _very_ rectilinear which is a very welcome quality in a lens this wide. The NIkkor has quite strong distortion at 14mm. Also the 14L2 is compatible with the Canon 5D2 without a lens adaptor. If you want to put a camera with that kind of image quality on the 14-24 you need to shell out for a D3x. There are many ways in which EOS compatibility is still a valuable feature.
At 24mm the Nikkor may not be better than the new 24 L's for image quality, and while it competes on versatility and price, it can neither shift, nor open up to f1.4. It really doesn't make much sense to worry about the infinitessimal differences in performance of these 4 superb lenses when each one of them has very different strengths and applications.
While the Nikkor is a superb all-rounder, the question is how many photographers can afford to buy or carry all three of the Canon's? And does that matter when most photographers specialise in specific areas of photography? And if you're looking for a general use UWA, can you put up with the totally inadequate 16-35L2 and 17-40L? Currently the 24L f1.4 and 17-40 are the lenses for my kind of work, and Nikon can't match either of those lenses at any price. I would not prefer a 14-24 over a 17-40 because I depend on the 40mm end. The Nikkor 14-24 is big, heavy and vulnerable and the Nikkor 17-35 is quite distorted at the 35mm end. Today, Canon's excellent wideangle offerings are a reason for switching. To Canon....Show more →
i completely agree with what u have said..they are my thoughts exactly. On a Canon camera, I would not recommended using the 14-24 with an adapter, considering Canon's own lineup of wide primes leaves little to be desired..
Pixel Perfect wrote:
Yes and as I said that 14-24 is not very good. I'm sure the 24 TS-E II is better, but the 14-24 has been shown to be sharp wide open, even in the corners on a 1Ds III. Go to www.16-9.net for comparisons. Only the Zeiss distagon 21 f/2.8 beat it up until now.
Not sure about the Nikkor, but I can say that that 24-70 was not very good. I've done the same testing with my copy and it's not the same as this one at all.
It's unfair to compare edge performance of a normal lens against a tilt-shift wide open: the TS lens draws a much larger image circle, and so you are not really looking at its "edge".
(Existentialist thought of the day: don't people stop down their lenses anymore? Who said extreme corners should be sharp wide open?)
brainiac wrote:
IMO the 14L2 has a couple of advantages over the Nikkor at 14mm. It is _very_ rectilinear which is a very welcome quality in a lens this wide. The NIkkor has quite strong distortion at 14mm. Also the 14L2 is compatible with the Canon 5D2 without a lens adaptor. If you want to put a camera with that kind of image quality on the 14-24 you need to shell out for a D3x. There are many ways in which EOS compatibility is still a valuable feature.
At 24mm the Nikkor may not be better than the new 24 L's for image quality, and while it competes on versatility and price, it can neither shift, nor open up to f1.4. It really doesn't make much sense to worry about the infinitessimal differences in performance of these 4 superb lenses when each one of them has very different strengths and applications.
While the Nikkor is a superb all-rounder, the question is how many photographers can afford to buy or carry all three of the Canon's? And does that matter when most photographers specialise in specific areas of photography? And if you're looking for a general use UWA, can you put up with the totally inadequate 16-35L2 and 17-40L? Currently the 24L f1.4 and 17-40 are the lenses for my kind of work, and Nikon can't match either of those lenses at any price. I would not prefer a 14-24 over a 17-40 because I depend on the 40mm end. The Nikkor 14-24 is big, heavy and vulnerable and the Nikkor 17-35 is quite distorted at the 35mm end. Today, Canon's excellent wideangle offerings are a reason for switching. To Canon....Show more →
and don't forget about trying to put a polarizer onthe 14-24
garyvot wrote:
Not sure about the Nikkor, but I can say that that 24-70 was not very good. I've done the same testing with my copy and it's not the same as this one at all.
It's unfair to compare edge performance of a normal lens against a tilt-shift wide open: the TS lens draws a much larger image circle, and so you are not really looking at its "edge".
(Existentialist thought of the day: don't people stop down their lenses anymore? Who said extreme corners should be sharp wide open?)
Gary, Common now - where's that pixel-peeper spirit that keeps these forums alive ?
garyvot wrote:
It's unfair to compare edge performance of a normal lens against a tilt-shift wide open: the TS lens draws a much larger image circle, and so you are not really looking at its "edge".
?)
how is that unfair? it is what it is and that is a larger image circle lens and if you buy it you DON'T have to use it shifted. Reality is what it is, if you buy it you can use it well centered within what it can do.
the nikon 14-24 is what it is and it does not have that larger image circle projection.
you might as well say any comparison is unfair because this lens has that coating and that lens does that, etc.
Pixel Perfect wrote:
Yes and as I said that 14-24 is not very good. I'm sure the 24 TS-E II is better, but the 14-24 has been shown to be sharp wide open, even in the corners on a 1Ds III. Go to www.16-9.net for comparisons. Only the Zeiss distagon 21 f/2.8 beat it up until now.
I don't believe this. My 14-24 is, especially at 14mm, one of the sharpest lenses I ever had. For example better than my 1.2/85 and better than my Contax 3.4/35-70. Even wide open in the corners this lens is very good. Maybe all my lenses are defective, but that is improbable.
To my mind the 24TSE is just better wide open @24mm. The test at 16-9 doesn't prove anything, because there is at the moment no direct comparison to the TSE and the test object is different, so a direct comparison to my crops is very difficult.
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