oscar_van_der_velde

<p>I have the lens, Samyang version and use it on my EOS 5D (I crop the images, result is about 6 megapixel). At f/5.6 and beyond it is as sharp as any other lens I own, much sharper than any fisheye adapter and provides less extreme distortion. One can photograph people near the edge of the image and they appear less distorted than if I use the 20mm super wide. CA and flare are well controlled. Actually there is hardly any flare in the image when the sun is included. Manual focus is not very critical since DOF is huge, but you would get reduced sharpness if you forget to refocus when switching between closeups and infinity shots. Sharpness at f/3.5 (wide open) is okay, but stars have some halo/distorted shape. Actually my Sigma 20mm f/1.8 is better wide open, save for some lateral smear of brightest lights and stars.</p>

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<p>Compared to the Canon 16-35/2.8 IS USM, the 16-35/4 AF-S VR appears "reasonably" priced.</p>

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<p>The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II has no IS (image stabilization). I'm curious if the 17-40mm f/4 L will soon see an optical update with IS added, hopefully selling under €1000.</p>

<p>Overexposure could occur if aperture blades do not return to wide open position after exposures. This happened to me with my new 20mm F1.8 in 2002 and it was solved permanently after a visit to a Sigma service center.</p>

<p>Could be an interpolation issue? At 50% my images look most crisp. Or is also the larger scale contrast lower in your case?<br>

A bit off-topic, there is a different issue with the high quality setting in DPP. When saving a high ISO image taken at night which required an odd white balance, weaker colors result than appeared on screen. Turning off high quality mode, the image saves just like it appeared in DPP. It isn't noticeable in normal images.</p>

<p>I see this movie as lots of water, lots of damage to bridges, apparently also to some houses. Material damage. I think the video would gain power from a more personal approach with inputs of affected persons and eye-witnesses.<br>

The quoted comment about donating £20 to the Cumbria floods instead of Haiti shows that person has painfully little clue about the difference in scale and consequences of events. If he/she could donate £20 to Haiti, then a right amount for Cumbria for him/her would be £0.02 or less. Or conversely, if willing to spend £20 on Cumbria, consider £2000 or more for Haiti. Just to illustrate the difference in scale (not even?) justified by the number of casualties and total loss of infrastructure, health care and organization.</p>

<p>I've used my 5D with a big towel on top of it for some lightning shoots. Works well up to its absorption capacity. The problem is to <a href="http://www.lightningwizard.com/showphoto.php?photoid=1296">keep the droplets off the lens</a> ...<br>

I remember once after some raindrops (not soaked at all) the joystick would already not work anymore.</p>

<p>You can get rid of such color noise very effectively if you shoot RAW and use Canon's Digital Photo Professional you received along with the camera (it should also work on JPEG).</p>

<p>If you just bought it maybe a Canon service center can tune it under warranty?<br>

I'm always surprised when I read somebody finds the EF 28mm f/2.8 not sharp enough. Apparently one needs luck to get a good one. Maybe the ones sold now do not get much quality control anymore? I bought one in 2000 (slide film era) and the many reviews on Photographyreview, as well as Photodo at that time raved about its sharpness. <br /> I tend to agree about the vignetting, but it has its charms. DPP can correct it. I can't imagine the L zooms will do any better in that respect though. Sigma states it designed its F1.8 wide angles for low vignetting. I have the 20mm and it's not bad in that respect, and razor sharp by f/2.8 with careful focusing.</p>

<p>On recent cameras above the X00D level, since the 5D, you can save all settings to a Custom Mode (C or C1/C2/C3 on the program dial). So you set the AEB and everything else you like, store this as custom program, and you can dial it whenever you need.</p>

<p>Wouldn't such a list be more useful if the lenses were sorted by type, like "wide angle prime", "wide angle zoom", "standard zoom", "tele zoom", "macro", etc? It makes no sense that the lenses made for different purposes compete against each other.</p>

<p>28mm f/2.8 is my vote for cheapest sharpest (I don't have 24/2.8 and 35/2, try them also)<br>

But what are you going to shoot?</p>

<p>I found this very interesting thread just now. Did you notice the newly introduced Samyang 8mm fisheye has a nearly stereographic projection? See the comparisons at<br /> <a href="http://michel.thoby.free.fr/SAMYANG/Early%20test%20report.html">http://michel.thoby.free.fr/SAMYANG/Early%20test%20report.html</a> <br /> and<br /> <a href="http://www.lookaround.nl/images/net/SY_vs_TOK_PG/image_001.html">http://www.lookaround.nl/images/net/SY_vs_TOK_PG/image_001.html</a> <br /> Note the less distorted plant pot and bicycle wheels compared to other fisheyes. I suppose also faces would look better. It looks more natural to me and this is apparently because of the fact that the projection is "conformal". The magnification in the center is smaller while at the borders it is larger. For a diagonal (full frame) fisheye crop it may result in a wider field edge to edge?<br /> I suppose for fisheye one could indeed use any projection since lines are expected to be curved, but for a non-fisheye ultrawide angle lens it is the question if most people are willing to accept slightly bending straight lines. Perhaps they would... since many wide angle zooms actually have barrel distortions at the widest setting. But wouldn't that place them automatically between a certain fisheye and the rectilinear projection?<br>

<br /> Oscar</p>

<p>The close focus distance of zooms is way longer than primes and the largest magnification is at the long end of the zoom, which isn't wide at all. I think you should look at the Sigma 20mm, 24mm, or 28mm f/1.8 lenses. The 24mm gets in closest and does 1:2.7, the 20mm 1:4 and is more of a true wide angle on APS-C format.<br>

I have the 20mm and use it on full frame. I do not use it very often at very close distances actually, perhaps also because the working distance is a few cm from the lens, and the lens can drop a shadow somewhere in view. The perspective effect is quite strong which is not always desirable.<br>

On full frame a Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35mm (M42 mount) works well for wide angle macro.</p>

 

<p>I'm sure Canon has an address available to receive your complaints, and several service centers to fix your issues. It is the fastest way to solve any problems and make Canon hear you. Why would they bother browsing such flame threads?</p>

<p>You will rather <em>lose</em> light using a DX (EF-S) size lens, because with the smaller image circle you will get stronger vignetting on your DX (APS-C) sensor dan by using only the central part of an FX (EF) lens which has a larger image circle.</p>

<p>Ben Goren wrote: "I don’t think <em>anybody</em> has ever made <em>any</em> standard zoom that opened up to f/1.4. And, if they did, they certainly wouldn’t design it to close down to f/4.5 at the long end."<br>

Actually, this makes me wonder: the physical aperture of an 28mm f/1.4 is 20 mm, and that of a 80 mm f/4 is also 20 mm. It seems more logical to me that the physical aperture stays constant than that the focal aperture ratio (f/..), yet there are zoom lenses with the latter being constant (f/2.8), so their physical aperture is not constant. Can this be noticed when looking at the rear end of the lens while zooming?<br>

Would a fixed physical aperture on a zoom lens involve degraded image quality at either end of the zoom range?</p>

<p>In cases where shutter speed will be 1/f or smaller and you don't have a tripod available, fire at least six shots at once. One of them usually will be pretty sharp, provided everything else is fine. I just got a sharp macro/close up shot at 1/20th second that way. It is also better to raise the ISO and get sharp pictures with some more noise than to have noise-free images with motion blur.</p>

<p>I hope for a EF 100mm f/2 Macro USM IS. It would be one of the most versatile lenses to exist (macro, portrait, sports, theater and concerts, landscapes)...</p>

<p>The sharpness and contrast of my EF 28mm f/2.8 are great, except for a rapid drop-off in the extreme corners on the 5D. Show an example if you suspect a problem.</p>

<p>It depends a lot on the monitor calibration and the contrast range and nature of the subject. If you tune the monitor settings only visually based on gamma and contrast charts, different results can arise every time and it influences the preference. I currently like Standard, contrast -1 to -3, saturation +1 for general shooting, but I shoot RAW and process in DPP so I can change it to anything else.<br>

I preferred Landscape and Faithful over Standard, with DPP 2 when the colors where rendered somewhat differently.</p>

<p>Manual.</p>

<p>I used the 50mm f/1.8 (mk I). The squares ones are taken with a Bronica 6x6 camera on ISO 100 slide film. The 50mm f/1.8 lens is actually sharp and contrasty already wide open over the entire full frame (5D), compared against two M42 mount lenses (Takumar S-M-C 50/1.4 and Cosinon 55/1.4) which show either more sharpness loss towards the edges at f/2 or lower contrast, but the Takumar has much less vignetting at f/2 than the Canon.</p>

<p>Fireworks at f/1.4?! You will probably blow out all color. Try f/8-f/11!<br>

http://www.lightningwizard.com/France.php?page=10<br>

http://www.lightningwizard.com/Netherlands.php?year=2001&page=2</p>

<p>An IR cut filter is already in front of the sensor. However, I think it still passes enough IR to affect photography in some cases, most obviously blue flowers which rarely become as deep blue in photographs as we see in the field. On my 5D they appear a more washed out color, on slide film a bright purple. So perhaps an extra IR cut could help in such case.</p>

<p>Canon offers a higher precision focus screen for lenses wider than f/2.8. Even if you use auto focus you cannot confirm correct focus by eye with the standard screen at wide apertures. I used a MF 50/1.4 lens and it was surprising to see the difference in depth of field between viewfinder and resulting photo with the standard screen and the focus often was too far off. I now use Ee-s for the 5D.</p>