TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II sample pictures

<p>So, I spent a bunch of time today in the back yard with my brand-new toy, and I thought I’d share a bunch of

the pictures with y’all. I probably won’t be doing any “real” work with the lens until the end

of the month; that’s when the wildflowers at the Lost Dutchman State Park are expected to bloom. And, with all

the rain we’ve had this season, it should be most spectacular…</p>

 

<p>…but back to today. I’ll be replying to this thread with several pictures, including some 100%

crops.</p>

 

<p>This first one was the first scene of the day. I screwed up something-or-other; it’s not as sharp as it should be.

It should still make a great 12″ × 18″ print, which is perhaps bigger than is appropriate for the

subject. It’s my favorite of the lot.</p>

 

<p>These fingernail-sized flowers were all of 3″ from the lens. I used about 5mm down tilt for focus and 5mm

down shift for composition; the camera was leveled. I shot it wide open at f/3.5.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p><div></div>

<p>In the background at the top of the picture above, you can see some diffuse colored blobs that are

actually oranges and grapefruit. Here’s a closer view.</p><div></div>

<p>That was shot at f/11, again with both tilt and shift…I forgot to note how much. Here’s a

100% crop of the intersection of the main branch. Barely visible is the remnants of a spider web.</p><div></div>

<p>I should note: that crop is completely unsharpened. I applied my usual style of tone / color /

<i>etc.</i> adjustments, but what you see there is without sharpening-related manipulation.</p>

 

<p>Same thing with this crop from the lower right corner.</p><div></div>

<p>The remaining pictures are much more academic than artistic. One of the interesting applications of

a lens with movements is the ability to create panoramas. Here’s a very rough example,

complete with un-matched exposures and drop shadows to help identify the different frames.</p>

 

<p>The new 24 allows pretty much unrestricted movements. Most conveniently, the rotation has click-stops every 30 degrees. The astute will note that this makes creating panoramas with the same 2:3

ratio a snap. Rotate the lens in the appropriate 30° direction; shift to one extreme; shift to the other

extreme; rotate to the other appropriate 30° direction; and make two more exposures at the

extremes of shift. The center frame is extraneous; I included it here for reference.</p>

 

<p>By way of comparison, on the right is the same view with the 24 swapped out for a 16-35 at 16mm.

As you can see, the perspective is identical, but the captured real estate is substantially larger. Indeed,

this panorama gives the equivalent of a 36mm × 54mm sensor.</p><div></div>

<p>So, that panorama got me wondering if the payoff really is there in terms of image quality. Doing a bit

of pickle peeping in the lower left corner quickly made me realize that, yes, a 24mm lens has a lot less

DoF than a 16mm lens. The grass was blurrier in the panorama, but it sure seemed a lot more like out-of-

focus blur than the usual kind of degradation one sees in the extreme corners of frames. To answer that question

(“Is it worth it to shoot a panorama?”), I made use of that proverbial brick wall you see in the

background.</p>

 

<p>All the following shots were done at f/4 with focusing done in Live View at 10× magnification.

First, an overview shot of the 16-35.</p><div></div>

<p>As you can see, there’s the well-known barrel distortion present, and a fair amount of peripheral light

falloff.</p>

 

<p>The overview shot below is from a Photoshop auto-stitched panorama from the 24 using the technique

I described above. I cropped it to clean off the rough edges from the frames not aligning quite perfectly, probably just a hair more aggressively than I needed too.</p><div></div>

<p>So, at first glance, it would seem that those wanting a distortion-free 16mm perspective would be

much, much better served with the 24.</p>

 

<p>And, to my eye, the 16 has a bit less vignetting overall, but the nature of the vignetting is less

distracting with the 24. That’s a matter of taste, of course.</p>

 

<p>But what about sharpness? Here is a 100% crop of the 16, uprezzed to the same pixel dimensions as

the panorama. This represents a 7″ × 7″ crop from a 54″ × 81″

print. Obviously, the insets are corner crops.</p><div></div>

<p>Considering the extreme enlargement, that center crop is damned impressive. The

corners…not so much. One would obviously want to stop down farther than f/4 for this sort of

thing with this lens.</p>

 

<p>And, for my last post, here’s the same thing from the 24 panorama. I think it’s pretty

clear that the image quality, both in the center and the corners, is significantly better. Clearly, if one

can take the luxury of making four exposures, moving the lens each time, the 24 is the better quality

choice. Of course, if one is making panoramas, a longer lens combined with a panorama head can create even better results, even up to the ludicrous gigapickle range.</p>

 

<p>Granted, the lens doesn’t have autofocus, fiddling with the knobs is time-consuming, and all the

rest. But I now have a new favorite lens, one that I will be having lots and lots and lots and lots and

lots…and lots and lots and lots of fun with.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p><div></div>

<p>Okay, I lied. One more boring shot.</p>

 

<p>If you make a different use of those 30° click stops, you can get a (basically) square format panorama with

the equivalent of a 36mm × 36mm sensor. Here’s what a square brick wall looks like.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p><div></div>

<p>I am shocked by the barrel distortion of the 16-35. Good to know. The 24 TS-E is obviously very sharp. I know the 24 is not a portrait lens, but I am a little surprised by the poor out-of-focus rendering.</p>

<p>Good presentation. Thank-you, and have fun with it.</p>

<p>Thanks, Ben. Obviously the downside to the 24T&S's panorama is the extra labour, need for static subject and a tripod, having to cobble together multiple exposures, and so on. But this looks to be lens that rewards a little work.</p>

<p>Ben, I'm guessing that must be the 16-35 I version? Barrel distortion in the II is MUCH improved over the first version. And thanks for putting this together in a coherent post. I've been interested in the TS-E lenses; haven't convinced myself to take the plunge, but with your post, I'm getting closer to the end of the diving board.</p>

<p>John, I <em>think</em> some of that bad bokeh might be attributable to the nature of the scene

and a rushed job on my part of sharpening for the Web. I suppose it could also be partly due to the

particular combination of movements I used? Not sure. The top of the frame looks much worse than the

bottom, you’ll notice. I’ll have to do some more experiments.</p>

 

<p>Mendel, I think the 24’s panorama capabilities are best suited to times when you come

across a scene where you wish you had something a bit wider than the 24 but you’re not really

looking to do a full-out panorama. For the latter, you’d be much better suited to using a pano

head and a 50. I should observe, though, that there are two other useful panorama stitches to be had:

full left-right and full top-bottom. The former gives you a widescreen aspect ratio and the latter 3:2

again, but not quite as big as the four-frame version. Both, however, are wider in the one direction than

either of the examples above.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

<p>Mark,</p>

 

<p>I’m afraid that’s the 16-35 II, bought sometime this past fall. If the II is this bad, I hate

to think of what the I is like. Then again, this <em>is</em> a brick wall at 16mm. I think it’s not all

that bad, considering.</p>

 

<p>I can safely say that, if you know what you’d do with the lens and you can afford it, you

absolutely won’t regret the purchase.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

The mind boggles when you think of what pano's you could put together with the 17mm T&S ;)

<blockquote>

<p>having to cobble together multiple exposures</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You may be missing the point of a perspective control lens. It gives you so much depth-of-field control that you can do in ONE shot what other lenses would require multiple layers to achieve. Yes, you can use shifting to gather segments of a panoramic shot, but primarily it's used to control perspective distortion.</p>

<p>Well done. By far the most interesting brick wall photos of 2010!</p>

<p>Could we see a 100% crop of the seams where the stitched photos come together? Any evidence of the join due to differences in exposure or distortion?</p>

 

<p>Ken,</p>

 

<p>Thank you…I think…</p>

 

<p>I used Photoshop’s photomerge for the panorama, which does a surprisingly good job.

Here’s a crop from near the center where three of the pieces come together.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p><div></div>

<p>If you need a hint, here’s the same crop after applying a stroke to the pieces.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p><div></div>

<p>Amazing. Thanks for sharing these...really!</p>