Had something weird happen to me yesterday, focus about 15 yards away, recompose to far edge of frame. Everything from 10 yards or so was OOF (this was @ 16mm), everything closer was sharp. Is this due to lens curvature of something?
Beni,
Did it happen to you just that one time or is it repeatable? Maybe, just maybe, the focusing got tricked by who knows what for that shot. I would try to mimick the condition again. If push comes to shove, you can use Liveview to focus to rule out any AF irregularities. Being an UWA zoom, it doesn't surprise me that the lens does have some field curvature alright but it should not be that bad from what I could gather.
I agree that the 16-35 is very useful on the 1.3x crop (20-45mm equivalent). But you don't need to pay up for the Mk II since the APS H sensor only has a 15mm circle that crops off the fuzzy edges.
A lot of these pictures are being in the right place at the right time-such as Mr. Ong's lovely picture of the "Saint Chapelle" in Paris' Ile de Cite. That said, however, I would argue for the use of the 17 or 24mm TSEs the sharpest WAs in Canon's line up. That goes double for the architectural shots.
Mine works very well on both my 1Ds2 and my 1D2. It does not work well on my 20D which has been converted to IR (on that one my 50 f/1.8 and my 10-22 work well).
I do try to keep people toward the middle of the frame when using it on the wider end...
no, i never hated my 1635 II, but after 1.5 years and with the time, i love it more and more due to its quality, reliability and versatiliy. its a joker lens.
AGeoJO wrote:
Beni,
Did it happen to you just that one time or is it repeatable? Maybe, just maybe, the focusing got tricked by who knows what for that shot. I would try to mimick the condition again. If push comes to shove, you can use Liveview to focus to rule out any AF irregularities. Being an UWA zoom, it doesn't surprise me that the lens does have some field curvature alright but it should not be that bad from what I could gather.
Hope this helps,
Joshua
Happened again last night, I'm playing with the idea of being boring and testing for a misaligned element or something. It's weird as I haven't noticed it at all close up shooting.
As is often the case, various copies of the 16-35 II vary in quality. Sometimes you have to go through two or three to get a good copy. Happens with Nikon too, I know. Not so much with Zeiss, which I prefer.
Beni wrote:
Had something weird happen to me yesterday, focus about 15 yards away, recompose to far edge of frame. Everything from 10 yards or so was OOF (this was @ 16mm), everything closer was sharp. Is this due to lens curvature of something?
That sounds an awful lot like my mkI 16-35 was out of the box. It was a mess, every time.
After a trip to Canon and some serious tweaking on their end it worked much much better.
Have to ask, but has the lens taken a tumble recently? Even something like falling in a bag could still throw it out of whack.
An L lens can get thrown out of whack from a simple tumble in a bag? Rather pathetic isn't it. Not that I know of and now I've worked out that if I focus on the same plane of focus without the recompose then the edge subjects are sharp, it's just the focus recompose on the edge which throws it way out even at 16mm. Again I've not done any official testing yet, just what I've noticed shooting events with it.
As far as good copy, bad copy, can't any copy be bought up to snuff by Canon? Should the retailer take the brunt with repeated service to replace it, rather than Canon's responsibility to make the product right, in which case similar time is spent on the part of the photographer, but the fix is accomplished in one service transaction?
Savas, I agree with you. Yes, Canon should be responsible to take care of the issue; the burden is supposed to be on them rather than on the retailer/photographer. My old 16-35mm Mark II was the only real bad copy I encountered out of 8 lenses or so in the last 6-7 years. I had a brand new 85mm f/1.2L Mark II adjusted by Canon; it was backfocusing slightly at wide open but that was before the introduction of the micro-focus adjustment. I had another lens that slid out, fell from the height of a chair and hit my hardwood floor; it got out of whacked. Canon repaired it and since it was definitely my fault, I paid for the repair and it came back even better than before. Canon repaired the assembly/ring of the lenshood of my 24-70 f/2.8; it became loose and they did some adjustment under warranty. That's about the extent of Canon lens repair history with me.
I know some folks order 3-5 lenses at the same time. They cherry-pick the best and return the rest. That's definitely not my method of addressing that. I would rather send a lens that gives me a fit to Canon and let them fix the problem. Don't even think that Nikon doesn't have any similar issues . I know two wrongs will not make one right and yes, it is a hassle but what else can we do?
Wow blast from the past, I remember seeing this thread too!
I've been doing some research on grabbing a used MKI. Seems other than corner performance, at least early MKII copies were not overly better than the MKI. Seems that MKII copies after UX date code were better. These price hikes though are never fun!
While the range of the lens is fun, I have NEVER been impressed by it's IQ, especially towards the corners where it can look downright awful on a full frame sensor or even a 1.3 sensor. Perhaps I expect to much but for the price of the lens and for it being an L II series, I expected much more.
That being said, I have got some great shots with it, but I've never been close to fully satisfied with it and I drool over the idea that hopefully Canon will at some point in the future create a 12-24 that will replace the 16-35 II in my bag.
Starting to get the hang of this lens by taking it out and using for what it's designed for - on the move ultra wide angle zoom of useful range handling diverse light conditions. These are hurriedly taken handheld shots.
Hey Joshua ... it's not that I "hate" the 16-35 Mk II ... it's just that I like my Nikon 14-24G as it's very sharp across the frame, even at f2.8, with very low distortion and the colors are terrific. Sure, there are exceptions and there are good and bad things about each lens, but on the whole the Nikon is significantly better than the Canon - to me. YMMV as always. Having said that, I will not own any other Nikon lens - don't need to, as Canon is generally better than Nikon from 24mm up.
Canon has not really improved on their wide-angle lenses with the exception of the TS-E lenses. Maybe that's the reason why they have not released an ultra-w/a zoom lens to compete the the Nikon - they couldn't make one that is better. But it's good to know that they are making a 200-400L ... and I am willing to bet it will be better than the Nikon version.
AGeoJO wrote:
Revived from the vault for Bobby . In addition, maybe there are others now that will share their experience or post their images taken with that lens.
At the next opportunity, we can do a side-by-side comparison of the two lenses. The reason I brought this back up because you referred to a test that used an "early" copy of the 16-35mm II. Granted, it was Canon's fault for creating that wide copy-to-copy variation, especially in the beginning but I am convinced, well, almost at least, that the new, current copies of this will give the Nikkor a run for its money and that without any adapter but with AF. Take your poison !
I have absolutely no doubts that you have a very sharp copy of the 16-35. Like I said, there are always exceptions ... there will be some good copies of the Canon lens and some bad copies of the Nikon lens, but on the whole, you will not find corner-to-corner sharpness with the Canon 16-35 lens.
AF is not really a big issue - as otherwise no one will buy the TS-E lenses or the Zeiss Distagon ... as they are all MF.
AGeoJO wrote:
At the next opportunity, we can do a side-by-side comparison of the two lenses. The reason I brought this back up because you referred to a test that used an "early" copy of the 16-35mm II. Granted, it was Canon's fault for creating that wide copy-to-copy variation, especially in the beginning but I am convinced, well, almost at least, that the new, current copies of this will give the Nikkor a run for its money and that without any adapter but with AF. Take your poison !
bobbytan wrote:
Canon has not really improved on their wide-angle lenses with the exception of the TS-E lenses. Maybe that's the reason why they have not released an ultra-w/a zoom lens to compete the the Nikon - they couldn't make one that is better. But it's good to know that they are making a 200-400L ... and I am willing to bet it will be better than the Nikon version.
Of course Canon have improved their wide angle lenses. Are you saying that the mkII versions of the 16-35, 14/2,8 or 24/1,4 is not better than the old versions
No, I am not saying that ... not at all. I bought/had the 16-35 II, 85L II and 70-200 II ... and they are all better than the original version. I am just saying that, all things considered, the 16-35 II is still not as good as the Nikon 14-24G.
And I have a love affair with my 70-200 II ... it is ASTOUNDINGLY good!
Sven Jeppesen wrote:
Of course Canon have improved their wide angle lenses. Are you saying that the mkII versions of the 16-35, 14/2,8 or 24/1,4 is not better than the old versions
. I know two wrongs will not make one right and yes, it is a hassle but what else can we do? 
