Great sculpture shot - it blends in well with the snow & gray light day. Have you ever used that lens at 17mm f2.8? It vignettes a bit but can be composed into the image nicely.
17mm is probably the most challenging range for this lens given the vignetting and some barrel distortion. A polarizer really plays havoc with the sky at the wide end. I find myself in the 21 to 35 range most of the time and stopped 2.8 to 5.6. This lens finds more on body time than most of my other pieces of glass. It is a vey reliable producer of nice images.
Cool, this is exactly what I wanted to see as I am wanting to get some extra DOF in my landscapes like this to make them look more like MF by stitching and also using the shift to alter the ratio between sky and foreground.Did you stitch any T/S 90 landscape shots together?The other way is to focus stack, I guess but I would still want some shift ability.
This shot here is a perfect opportunity for tilt as that would emphasize the texture pattern more from front to back and since there is not much sky detail you wouldn't lose any sky detail with the tilt.
Wayne,
I didn't shot to stitch any 90's and kicking myself for not doing so. Some of the 90 shots were pretty good - it really brings out the detail and stitching would have worked very well for some. I'm not much of a photo magazine enthusiast - however there is a good article in the March "Outdoor Photographer" featuring Jack Dykinga and his transformation from 4x5 LF to using longer focal length 35mm T/S lenses and stitching for landscape presentations. I'm wishing Canon will release a new "L" version of the 45 TS-E soon. For shooting mineral and desert foreground features the TS-E's rock!
mMontag wrote:
Wayne,
I didn't shot to stitch any 90's and kicking myself for not doing so. Some of the 90 shots were pretty good - it really brings out the detail and stitching would have worked very well for some. I'm not much of a photo magazine enthusiast - however there is a good article in the March "Outdoor Photographer" featuring Jack Dykinga and his transformation from 4x5 LF to using longer focal length T/S lenses and stitching for landscape presentations. I'm wishing Canon will release a new "L" version of the 45 TS-E soon. For shooting mineral and desert foreground features the TS-E's rock!...Show more →
Yep, right in sync with you, as I read that issue too. Of course the issue didn't go into detail with examples from each T/S lens focal length so I could get a sense of which one to get next. Also the shots were small crops so it is hard to get a sense of it. I am looking for some compression effect to bring background and foreground together like LF/MF for more distant landscape shots. So I am thinking TS-E 90 instead of 45 for distant landscape scene and then tilting and stitching several across with the three shift values(min,max and none) with camera in vertical portrait orientation. Does the TS-E 90 have good IQ for far (infinity) distance landscape shooting?
Other option is to take my C/Y 100/2 Planar and use pano-head and stitch and also do focus bracketing and some Helicon focus post-processing to due the focus stacking. This approach gives you the Zeiss microcontrast and color for the trees etc.
I had the 45 and sold it - it's pretty good - just not good enough. Too bad as that FL is great for composite stitching. The 90 is very sharp and I say has good micro contrast that I'm sure others will challenge. One nice feature of the 90 is it's close minimum distance (12-13") for it's FL. I use it more for product and nature close-up (it's a good ext. tube lens) but also for landscape - very good landscape rendition at infinity. There is a C/Y 100 over on B&S that I'm trying not to buy right now - my main excuse is already having the 90 TS-E.
I had the 45 and sold it - it's pretty good - just not good enough. Too bad as that FL is great for composite stitching. The 90 is very sharp and I say has good micro contrast that I'm sure others will challenge. One nice feature of the 90 is it's close minimum distance (12-13") for it's FL. I use it more for product and nature close-up (it's a good ext. tube lens) but also for landscape - very good landscape rendition at infinity. There is a C/Y 100 over on B&S that I'm trying not to buy right now - my main excuse is already having the 90 TS-E....Show more →
Thanks for the info on the 45's IQ and am thinking about the TS-E 90 but maybe Canon will update them with their new T/S design from the new 17 and 24, where you can tilt and shift in different directions easily.
Funny you have the TS-E 90 and trying not to buy the C/Y 100, opposite of me.
At least the C/Y 100/2 is roughly half the price of a new ZE 100/2 MP!
What is the market price for converted Contax N 85/1.4? I have never seen one for sale, but based on the price of unconverted ones plus the cost of conversion it should be in the $2500 range. Is it THAT good?
Great shot Lotus!
Thanks for posting a N85 shot. I am looking forward to shooting with mine when it comes back from Conurus.
Pls. post more!
Ataboy,
The price for conversion of the 85 went up alot after March 1st and along with the scarce supply make this a super pricey lens. Not to mention getting a lens hood for it. I got mine into Conurus at end of Feb just in time.
Thanks. Not a shot that I would ordinarily use the N 85 for, but that what I happened to have with me, and it acquitted itself nicely.
I agree with Andi that $2500 would seem to be a lot for a converted N 85. But as Wayne points out the price of conversion for that particular lens went up a lot. I was surprised to see it when I checked. Given that, $2000 or more is a price we might see, but $2500 is really hard to see (and I'm a big fan of the lens). Too bad I didn't hold on to the other copy I had.
As for the hood, I've been using the hood for the 24-85 on the N 85. I got a copy of this for about $60, which is a lot better than waiting a long time to find the right hood for $200. Not ideal, but it fits, is a lot better than using nothing and it doesn't appear to vignette. I might fill in some of the sides of the hood's tulip shape with black gaffer's tape for a little extra protection.
Well, I've seen the unconverted N 85/1.4 that apparently went for $1800 on the Conurus forum, and I think there was another on eBay that sold for over $1500. Add $800 for conversion and shipping both ways and you get the final cost that is more than that for 17-35 that are being sold of around $2500 every now and then.
With the cost to purchase and convert the 17-35 & 85mm's - it would be nice to make a few extra dollars for the time and trouble to go through the effort - chances are you'll probably lose a few hundred - better use those lenses while you have them and get the most out of them. The converted sale of the 24-85's doesn't seem as large of a loss.
Oh and The Pogues is my favorite band!