Great comparison shots, and beautiful church! Looking at the crops, they all seem pretty sharp to me but, the 14-24 seems to have lower contrast or color saturation than the others, am I the only one that see's this? The shifted TS-E 17 shot is awesome!
It is hard to draw firm conclusions from this series IMHO, interesting though it is, because of the differences in focal legths, tripod position, and maybe other factors. For example, the Zeiss seems to be the one that least makes the side portraits into back blotches. There are also differences on the colour of the blue drapes around the altar in the crops, except that it cannot be seen with the 24 TS/E. Which is good? Bad? I dunno.
My guess is (1) this is a lovely church, and (2) Boris knows his photography and was trying to get the most out of each lens, rather than compare them in a scientific but totally sterile and uninteresting way.
Thanks for the lovely pics.
Great shots. The 17 TS-E is impressive. Your image shows exactly what I like so much about this lens. It allows you to retake shots in a different manner that sets you apart from any other lens user. You could have shifted down and added more of the floor as well of course. Or combine even more different "shifts" by rotating.
What a lens line-up you have.
I wonder how well an image would be with the 14-24 @14mm if you would have stitched two images. One level and once tilted upwards?
Great photos. As expected very little to tell apart from one to the other. Don't you get a headache by looking at your bag and wondering which lens to use? I have the 24TSE and the 35L and I still always have to wonder which one to take out.
You could sell one of the lenses and get some gelled flashes and triggers to illuminate the interior and match color temp to whatever is coming through the windows. That will help you avoid the yellow/blue casts.
Another option would be to allow the windows to get blown out so the church itself would get a proper exposure.
philber wrote:
Boris knows his photography and was trying to get the most out of each lens, rather than compare them in a scientific but totally sterile and uninteresting way.
Thanks for the lovely pics.
dimitris77 wrote:
Don't you get a headache by looking at your bag and wondering which lens to use? I have the 24TSE and the 35L and I still always have to wonder which one to take out.
Since the church is only 10 minutes away from were i live and everything is pretty static (even the light on this overcast day), it's no problem to carry and use all these lenses.
But you are right, when I travel to foreign countries I will probably leave some of these lenses at home (most likely the 17mm).
By the way I have only two other lenses. I really love wide angles at the moment.
Sam N wrote:
You could sell one of the lenses and get some gelled flashes and triggers to illuminate the interior and match color temp to whatever is coming through the windows. That will help you avoid the yellow/blue casts.
Another option would be to allow the windows to get blown out so the church itself would get a proper exposure.
I don't like flashes and about 90% of my pictures are landscapes, were flashes are no option. But here is another picture of this church for you with blown out highlights and a different (better?) color balance.
The high contrast situation at the church windows is a good possibility to judge the CA of these lenses. You have to keep in mind, that this is really a worst case situation regarding CA (high contrast, blown out highlights, maximum shift and close to the edge). In normal situations CA is not a problem with these lenses.
Wow...I din't realise how badly the 14-24mm suffers from CA in extream situations.
Those remind me of the TS-e 24mm (MK I) for CA. It also shows hos amazing the TS-e 24IIL copes with CA...it's quite astonishingly good!
I had a go of one about 3 weeks ago and the Canon Pro-photo show in London. I pointed it at the windows and was shocked that there was no CA...a bit of LoCA...but no CA at all.
The 17 TSE does look impressive but the 21 ZE doesn't look bad either at $1000 less. The real question for me however is; How would my 16-35 2.8L Mark 1 do in this group. Probably not that bad at f/11.
As the examples in the OPs post clearly demonstrate, when stopped down (where these lenses are typically shot at for this type of work), the IQ differences are left for the gearheads to irrelevantly bicker over. However where the real differences lie are in other traits. For example the original 16-35 shows pretty bad barrel distortion. I shoot most of my architecture with my 24L TSE or 17-40 because of this. But after the distortion corrections are made, it would be nearly impossible to tell which lens took which photo, just like the examples above. Now let the irrelevant bickering continue!
Boris, your church looks like a very good example of a very tough location, with the highly lit windows and dark paintings in between, and delicate colours of the ceilings, and intricate altar. Congratulations.