RCicala wrote:
Ah, I stand corrected. It is still pretty visible, although of course the more distant perspective makes it less obvious. I guess my summary is I wouldn't be taking my wife's picture at 16mm. Of course, that's generally true of any ultrawide.
I was hoping it would be fairly distortion free, like the 14-24.
I noticed the barrel distortion at 16mm too but it can be corrected easily.
Is your 14-24 distortion free? Mine is certainly not. I went to take some shots of high buildings in Brussels last weekend with it and the buildings are almost falling out of the picture at 14mm because of the distortion. My former Sigma 12-24 had much less distortion than the 14-24 (but was less sharp, not so nice colours..) The Sigma is the best wideangle concerning distortion I've had up to now. And I've had a few (Nikon 12-24/4, Sigma 12-24 for Canon, Canon 16-35/2.8 II, Nikon 14-24, Nikon 16-35/4 VR )
roadrunner wrote:
I noticed the barrel distortion at 16mm too but it can be corrected easily.
Is your 14-24 distortion free? Mine is certainly not. I went to take some shots of high buildings in Brussels last weekend with it and the buildings are almost falling out of the picture at 14mm because of the distortion. My former Sigma 12-24 had much less distortion than the 14-24 (but was less sharp, not so nice colours..) The Sigma is the best wideangle concerning distortion I've had up to now. And I've had a few (Nikon 12-24/4, Sigma 12-24 for Canon, Canon 16-35/2.8 II, Nikon 14-24, Nikon 16-35/4 VR ) ...Show more →
Are you confusing perspective distortion which every non-shift lens has and is more noticeable on UWA lenses or actual barrel/pincushion distortion?
Jammy: This shot was taken with the 17-35 at 17mm (on my D700). No correction applied and I can't detect any obvious distortion. Maybe others will have more success.
this distortion could be a huge issue. For you guys saying it's an easy fix in post, yeah it is, but try doing that to every single image you shoot? Also, when you do that you loose a good bit of the width. The 14-24mm had distortion issues which is why I sold it and moved to the 16-35VR. I haven't tested anything myself yet, but I'm a bit scared right now seeing these other test shots. As mentioned, the sigma 12-24mm is pretty good distortion wise, I might have to switch back to that. Ugh.
Feb 24, 2010 at 11:12 AM
Andre Labonte Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Andre Labonte wrote:
For the price, having that kind of distortion is NOT good. One is better off getting a 17-35 f/2.8 if that's the case.
All super wide angles I have used have distortion, so this lens is no diffrent. Also I could really care less about some distortion, its there and nothing you can do about it unless you mess around in PS with it. I had the 17-35 Nikon and it was really no better and had distortion.
Where do people get the idea that the 17-35 had no distortion? At 17mm it has barrel distortion just like this new lens.
I'm sure PT Lens will be updated with this new lens after he gets some samples to calibrate the lens for the database. If the distortion is that much of a concern spend $25 on a copy of PT Lens.
jacobsen1 wrote:
this distortion could be a huge issue. For you guys saying it's an easy fix in post, yeah it is, but try doing that to every single image you shoot? Also, when you do that you loose a good bit of the width. The 14-24mm had distortion issues which is why I sold it and moved to the 16-35VR. I haven't tested anything myself yet, but I'm a bit scared right now seeing these other test shots. As mentioned, the sigma 12-24mm is pretty good distortion wise, I might have to switch back to that. Ugh.
You are confusing lens distortion with perspective. Barrel distortion correction does not cause a large loss of image width. You are thinking of perspective correction. You are going to have to perform perspective correction for all wide angle lenses when shooting close subjects (unless you are using a PC lens to adjust for the perspective corection).
Feb 24, 2010 at 12:05 PM
Andre Labonte Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
davidnholtjr wrote:
All super wide angles I have used have distortion, so this lens is no diffrent. Also I could really care less about some distortion, its there and nothing you can do about it unless you mess around in PS with it. I had the 17-35 Nikon and it was really no better and had distortion.
Yes, I'm fully aware that ALL WA lenses have some level of distortion (for that matter, all lenses do). My point is that my 17-55 is not nearly that bad, and from what I have seen, the 17-35 has about the same level of distortion at 17mm as my 17-55. We have luminosity's example for the 17-35 for instance ... granted we don't have close subject matter throughout the frame in that example. What we see in the 16-35 example above seems excessive.
However, you are correct, without a side-by-side test of the two lenses in a variety of conditions, it's all hyperboli.
I only noticed the distortion when taking a picture of a subject which is very close. Anyway, also in NX2 this can be fixed in no time. For me it's not a big deal. Sharpness, nice colours and contrast, VR doing a great job...all that is more important and the 16-35 shines in these areas.
Feb 24, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Andre Labonte Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
roadrunner wrote:
I only noticed the distortion when taking a picture of a subject which is very close. Anyway, also in NX2 this can be fixed in no time. For me it's not a big deal. Sharpness, nice colours and contrast, VR doing a great job...all that is more important and the 16-35 shines in these areas.
I was wondering if that was the case, as close-focus with any WA (including my 17-55 for instance) produces lots of distortion. Again, I'd like to see side by side tests under identical conditions.
gman1339 wrote:
You are confusing lens distortion with perspective. Barrel distortion correction does not cause a large loss of image width. You are thinking of perspective correction. You are going to have to perform perspective correction for all wide angle lenses when shooting close subjects (unless you are using a PC lens to adjust for the perspective corection).
no, I'm not confusing the two, I know both quite well in fact. Barrel distortion is when straight lines CURVE. Perspective is when they LEAN. I've owned every canon TS-E lens until the 17, 17-40s three times, a 16-35, 16-35II, three 12-24s (two canon one nikon), rented a 17-35, owned the 14-24mm, and now I have the 16-35mm. I know them all pretty well and I know for a fact the 14-24mm had BARREL distortion.
Straight lines at the edge of the frame taken with a camera that was level curve with a 14-24mm at 14mm. You have to go into the distortion adjustments in PS to fix this and you get little crescents taken out of the sides of all your images. Once you crop the image back to a rectangle you get a smaller images similar to what you would have gotten with a less wide lens.
Now if you don't, or can't level your camera, then yes, you'll ALSO see perspective distortion and yes, that does take even more out of the width of the lens. But that's an error in shooting, barrel distortion is an error with the design of the lens and you really can't do anything about it except find another lens or fix it in post. But if it's a big issue it means the lens won't be all that wide effectively once fixed in post.
luminosity wrote:
Jammy: This shot was taken with the 17-35 at 17mm (on my D700). No correction applied and I can't detect any obvious distortion. Maybe others will have more success.
That's because there's very little in that image to show barrel distortion. Horizontal lines across the middle of the frame are only going to show it at the extreme edges (where you can see on your shot they bend down). To really see barrel distortion you'll need a shot with vertical lines near the left or right edges or horizontal lines near the top or the bottom of the frame.
If you look at the test shots from 16-9.net I linked to you'll see what I mean.
Or here are some examples I pulled from flickriver of the 17-35, it's not extreme and it's easy to fix in post. From the window example posted earlier the 16-35 might be worse, it's hard to tell.
Steve Perry wrote:
OK, here's my first test - someone had to post a cat, might as well be me. Before anyone says anything, I'm not trying to win any awards with this shot, it was just a quick snap of my kitten on my chair @ 16mm wide open f/4. D3x was the camera at ISO 100, bounce flash.
First is an overall shot, second is 100% unaltered crop, last is with a touch of sharpening to the raw file (included since that's part of my normal workflow).
In my opinion, this lens looks promising (and I have a really cute kitty)
Smiert Spionam wrote:
Thanks for the info & pics, Steve. This lens is looking mighty tempting.
What were your sharpening settings on that shot, btw?
I just used Nik software's Raw Presharpener. I actually turned it down 50% from default. Most of the time it works good, but I think a regular unsharp mask (or maybe high pass) would have been better in this case (her fur looks a bit off to me). Didn't care enough to mess with it though
Of course, that's generally true of any ultrawide. 
