evphotography

<p><em>"Eric this is exactly the point why I think you are comparing apples and oranges. You have a 100 per cent crop from a 6x7 film and then say despite it not being very sharp it doesn't matter too much because it can produce a very nice large print. What is demonstrates is large format is far superior for enlargements and much less demanding on lenses because it does not need to be enlarged many times to get a large print."</em><br>

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I think that maybe you misunderstood the point of my posting Geoff, or maybe I didn't explain in enough detail the point I was trying to get across. I wasn't trying to advocate that someone with 10-12MP camera try to make a large 24"-28" print from them. Even though I know some people do, that is a hole different subject altogether. I choose the 6x7 film image because I felt that a lot of photographers, especially new ones, probably have never seen what I drum scan from MF film looks like at 100% and so I thought that it was a better example for the point I was trying to make. Which is if you are making prints that are within the limits of what a camera can produce at it's given sensor resolution for that print size, then not to obsess so much about performance of a lens. Meaning that if you have say a Canon 5D at 12.8MP and are making prints no larger then 12x18 which is about 240dpi, then don't worry if the lens is little soft in corners. It is hardly going to be noticeable anyways.</p>

<p>But you are correct that a lot of photographers do want to make very large prints from say a 10-12MP camera and that's fine. If that is the case then they better have a lens that is tack sharp from corner to corner, because they are going to need it. But then again that doesn't advocate poor performance of a lens, only they are trying to push their camera and lenses to a limit they were not designed for. So maybe that is another subject a lot of newer photographers need to be made aware of also.<br>

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<p>I appriciate all of you who have posted their opinion, there is a lot of great points made I hope will help some others to stop worrying so much about the minor flaws of a lens. I especially want to give a nod to Greagory Ferdinandsen last post, he nailed it dead on. I too feel lucky I learned photography back in the film days. Thanks all for your posts everyone, much appreciated.</p>

<p>Now here is an example of what the image actually looks like at print size which is a 24x28" print at 240 dpi. No sharping was applied to this image posted either. If you saw the actual print with post sharping applied it is even more impressive.</p>

<p>So I hope this is a fair example of what I am talking about, if it isn't please let me know.</p><div></div>

<p>I wanted to post this question, because I thought it might help some of the beginners just starting out into photography. I chose Canon's WA lenses as the subject because they are always getting criticized for being low performers. But I see so many post asking which is best lens to get, or comparing this brand to that one, or this lens to that one. Is pixel peeping really a good way to evaluate the performance of a lens or camera for that matter? Please let me know your thoughts and if I am off base here.</p>

<p>Here are my thoughts. Every lens has its strengths and weakness, you just need to do a little research and find out what is the best lens for your type of shooting. I always test out any new lens I get to see how it performs at certain focal lengths and apertures, then use it for it's strengths and I can get some excellent results from it. If I only worried how it looks on a screen at 100% viewing and not real world prints, then I wouldn't want to buy any of their lenses.</p>

<p>Finally here is an example of what I am talking about. I choose a film image that was shot on 6x7 film and scanned because I think it does a better job of getting my point across. The scan is a Tango Drum scan from West Coast imaging in California. Let me mention they don't apply any sharping during the scanning process, they feel it is better not to and let photographer sharpen the image to taste in post processing. For anyone knows anything about scanning, a Tango drum scan is one of the highest quality scans you can get for film and many professional photographers use West Coast imaging to do their scans, like Micheal Frye, Glen Ketchum, etc.</p>

<p>I choose this section for the crop because I wanted some of the sky in the image to show what a fine grained film like Fuji Velvia 5o looks like when viewed at 100%. This isn't the sharpest section by any means because the plain of focus was toward the foreground. No sharping was applied to this image, pretty impressive, yes? I don't think so</p><div></div>

<p>Last thing I might mention, before someone criticizes my examples, is the image I posted at prints size is not actually print size, because the print is 24x28". But it is an example of what the image looks like in a 24x28" print with no sharping applied. If you saw the image with post sharping before printing it is even more impressive.</p>

<p>Do you see what I am talking about? I want to mention that the section I cropped is not the sharpest part of the image, because the plain of focus was on the foreground section of this image. But I wanted you to see the what grain on film really looks like at 100% so I choose a section that had some sky in it. I also want to mention the shot was taken with Fuji Velvia 50 film, which was known to be a very fine grained film. <strong>I also want to mention the image I posted at print size had no sharping applied to it either</strong>.<br>

So point here Dean is don't get all caught up in pixel peeping your images at 100% when comparing this lens to that lens. Yes some of Canon's lenses do have fringing problems, but that is so easily fixed in PS with an adjustment slider I don't even give it a second thought. I use a 17-40L lens and at certain focal lengths and apertures their is some fringing and loss of sharpness in the corners, but if you test out your lenses and find it strengths and weakness at different focal lengths and apertures you can get some great performance from them. When you finally see the image at print size, NOT 100% viewing size, you will get some impressive prints that you would have to look at very closely on large prints to see the short comings of the lens.<br>

Yes there are some really high quality older Olympus, Contax, Nikon primes lenses out there that when used on your camera with an adapter are sharper and less fringing. But to me losing the ability to use auto focus, manual stop down metering only, no EXIF data and having to switch lenses every time you need a different focal length, is not worth the trade off for the extra sharpness and less fringing that when viewed on the actual prints would be very hard to see the difference between the two.</p>

<p>Now here is the image when viewed at print size for this 6x7 image I took which is about a 24x28" print at 240 dpi. Do you see a difference? When looking at this 24x28" print it is beautiful. I have outlined the part of image I took the cropped section posted above.</p><div></div>

<p>Dean that test you did is totally unfair. First of all you compared a prime lens to three of Canon lower performing lens. Their TS-E lens you used is the lowest in terms of sharpness and quality out of the three they make, try it against the 45mm TS-E or 90mm TS-E, those both are much better lenses. Also using the 28-135mm & 28 f/2.8 are not top performers in Canons line up by long shot. Better comparing them against their 50 f/1.4 or for zoom lens the 17-40L or 16-35IIL.</p>

<p>Digital has one drawback I have found, everybody is so caught up in pixel peeping images at 100% on monitor now. Back in the film days, very few complained about these lens being such low performers. Have you ever looked at high quality scan from film at 100% on a monitor, you would be shocked! Here is an image from 6x7 film I took with a Pentax 67II. The scan is a Tango Drum scan from West Coast imaging in California. Let me mention they don't apply any sharping during the scanning process, they feel it is better not to and let photographer sharpen the image to taste in post processing. For anyone knows anything about scanning, a Tango drum scan is one of the highest quality scans you can get for film and many professional photographers use West Coast imaging to do their scans, like Micheal Frye, Glen Ketchum, etc.</p>

<p>Here is an example of the problem with pixel peeping. The image below is a cropped section from the 6x7 film image when viewed on a monitor at 100% and no sharping was applied to this image yet. Pretty impressive, yes? I don't think so.</p><div></div>

<p>There is nothing wrong with the 16-35 II, if you want a UW fast lens then that is your only choice other than some primes. Here is good article written by Ken Rockwell, read the hole thing, makes a lot of sense. I first want to say I don't agree with a lot of what Ken usually writes, but he is right on with this one. Also let me add, look how many professional photographers out there like Art Wolfe, George Lepp, Mark Adamus, etc. who all shoot with Canon and lenses like the 16-35II, they don't seem to have any problem getting their work on cover of OP or selling their work. If Canon's WA are so poor, how can that be? Think about it. To many people pixel peep and compare this lens to that lens, don't get to caught up in that.<br>

<a href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/lens-sharpness.htm">http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/lens-sharpness.htm</a></p>

<p>It depends on what body you ordered. Is it a FF sensor, then it doesn't perform nearly as well at 17mm, it is pretty soft in the corners. On cropped sensor body, then it performs really well. I found that lens performs best at 20-28mm when stopped down to about f/8-13 on FF, but with cropped sensor body it performs really well at all focal lengths.</p>

<p>It is hard to say, but I think they will come of with some new technology to increase the pixel count and maintain IQ or improve it. Everyone thought and spouted when new 5DII was announced that it would suffer IQ loss because of increase in pixels on FF sensor, but as everyone has now realized that didn't happen. It is every bit as good in terms of noise as older 5D and maybe even little better on higher ISO's. It won't surprise me a bit in 3-5 years that 30+MP will be standard on FF sensors and 20+ on AP-C sensors. The interesting part is where will we be in another 5-10 years, look how far they have come in last 9-10 years in DSLR's. Remember when Nikon announced their first somewhat affordable DSLR the D1, 2.74MP camera that cost about $5500, then Canon with with their 30D. It is an interesting time to be a photographer and see technology that keeps getting better and better.</p>

<p>For portraits, weddings or commercial work I wouldn't think you really need the build quality of a 1Ds body. Even though the body on the 5DII isn't nearly as good, it is not a cheap plastic body without any weather sealing by any means, I just got mine few weeks ago and it is more then rugged enough for that kind of use. I use mine for landscape photography and wouldn't hesitate at all to take it out some weather. Now the AF isn't going to be up to same standard, but again for your use the AF on 5DII should be fine. A lot of wedding photographers used the old 5D and love it and the AF on new markII is even little better now they have 6 auto assist points in center. But the features the new 5DII has is leaps and bounds ahead of older 1Ds models, with new menus, live view, high resolution screen, dust cleaning, etc. I also really like the new batteries with the micro chip built into battery that will give you detailed info on how much charge is left, instead of little bars on older ones, also the condition of life span of it. The quality of the images in terms of noise and with 21MP sensor is amazing. I couldn't be happier with my new 5DII, must say this is my dream camera I have been waiting for, this is one camera I won't have to upgrade for some time now. I would go with 5DII.</p>

<p>Yes there is, but you will lose focus at infinity. When Canon introduced their new EOS line of auto focus cameras in 1988 they did something that no other manufacturer had done. They totally abandoned their previous lenses. The FD mount lenses used on their manual focus cameras simply would not fit on the new EOS cameras at all. Not only was the mount coupling different, but the "flange to focal plane" distance was longer (44mm vs 42mm), so even if an adapter was made which allowed an FD lens to mechanically couple to the EOS mount, the lens wouldn't focus to infinity. To allow the lens to focus to infinity, the flange of the FD lens would have to be 2mm <em>inside</em> the EOS body. But if you don't need focus at infinity then here is an adapter you can get. Read the reviews I guess they do make them with glass elements that will allow you to focus at infinity, but I have read that will lose some quality from the glass element on the adapter. You would be better off picking up some older Contax C/Y, Olympus or Nikon lenses, which can be purchased used fairly reasonably that will work with an adapter. They make some really great lenses, like Olympus 21mm f/2 or f/3.5 was an outstanding WA lens, Contax 28mm f/2.8 AE, Nikon 28mm f/2.8 AI-S or Contax 35-70mm f/3.4 are some others. These used can be picked up from about $300-500 depending on the lens.<br>

<a href="http://www.adorama.com/CZFDEOSA.html">http://www.adorama.com/CZFDEOSA.html</a></p>

<p>I have to agree with G Dan, if you are just starting out in photography I think that you might want to try and decide what kind of photography will I be doing and make your camera and lens choices based on that. If shooting sports, wildlife and so forth, or if you think you will be out in trenches of Middle east, dust storms or rainy days, then the 1DsIII or better yet the 1DII would be a great camera. But if shooting landscape, macro or just urban street photography, then probably 5DII would be better choice and hole lot cheaper as well. Then for lenses, there is no perfect set of lenses for photography, that is why you are probably getting confused by lens reviews and so forth that you have read. Every lens has strengths and weakness, but you first need to have an idea of what you will be shooting and type of photography you will be doing to choose lenses that will work best for you. Here is kind of break down of what I am talking about. First off any of Canon L series lenses are great lenses and have highest quality optics, but not always. An example is like their 50mm f/1.2L, is an awesome lens, but for sheer sharpness from corner to corner the 50mm f/1.4 is as good if not better than L lens if you are shooting at apertures like f/5.6 and smaller. Same with zoom lenses like 70-200mm range. Their 70-200mm f/2.8L IS or non IS is awesome lens. But the 70-200mm f/4L IS is probably one of the sharpest lenses from corner to corner if you are shooting from apertures from f/8-f/16. For wide angles the 16-35mm f/2.8LII is great lens, but if shooting at apertures mostly around f/8-f/16 the 17-40mm f/4L is just as good if not better on wide end. Have to remember that when choosing fast lenses like 70-200mm f/2.8L, they are much larger and heavier than say the f/4L version. I am a landscape photographer and I shoot with 5DII, so here is the best lenses I found for that type of photography and here is why. I like to hike out into nature and so I don't necessarily want largest and heaviest cameras and lenses because they make for a really heavy camera bag to carry. Here are the lenses I carry.<br>

<strong>17-40mm f/4L</strong>, because on focal lengths from 17-28mm it is just as good as any wide angle they make, exception of maybe 24 f/1.4L prime. But it gives me four primes built into one lens, than just one focal length like 24 f/1.4L and that little extra sharpness in corners you get from prime only will be really noticeable when pixel peeping on a monitor at 100%.</p>

<p><strong>35mm f/2</strong>, because at f stops from about f/5.6-16 it is so close to being as good as the 35mm f/1.2L that I can't justify spending $900 more for L version and it is smaller and lighter. Also because the 17-40mm f/4 isn't nearly as good at that focal length.</p>

<p><strong>50mm f/1.4</strong>, for same reason I choose the 35mm f/2.</p>

<p><strong>70-200mm f/4</strong>, for same reason I choose the other lenses</p>

<p>Now if I was a sports photographer, wildlife photographer, or shot a lot of indoor low light photography my lens selection would be a lot different. I would probably go with the faster lenses like 70-200mm f/2.8L and 50mm f/1.4L and so forth, because they perform a lot better at larger apertures than the ones I have.</p>

<p>If it was me, I would consider going with a less expensive camera and set of lenses and use that money you will save to take some workshops and/or classes from some professional photographers. You will get lot more benefit from that then you will from buying most expensive equipment that Canon makes. Have to remember in the end, it is the photographer not the tools he uses that makes great images. You can always sell it later and get their flagship camera if you find you really need the added features it will get you, like build quality and auto focusing, etc. Good luck and hope you enjoy your new venture in photography.</p>

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<p>It is the contrast detection AF that is causing it, because the camera needs a certain high contrast image to focus properly with that kind of focusing. I personally prefer the contrast focusing when in live view, seems to be much more accurate then phase detect. In several tests with both, the contrast detect nailed it dead on every time, where phase detect didn't. This is all great when shooting still images, but will pose a problem with video recording. Have to remember this camera doesn't have a lot of features that a dedicated video camera has, wasn't built to be just video cam. But when you learn it strengths an weaknesses and how to use those to your advantage, you can get just as high of quality video as you can with say a Red One camera costing 10 times as much. Sometime when you are watching a movie or any TV program, see actually how many times the video photographer will change focus during recording, not very often. They usually shoot a short scene with one point of focus, stop scene, refocus then shoot the next clip. Edit it later and you can produce some outstanding video clips. Focusing during any recording is very difficult thing to do even for movie makers, that is why you don't see it very often in any program. This camera isn't really made for the everyday person who wants to shoot their kids birthday, family events and so forth. If that is what you want to do, then might want to consider a descent dedicated HD video cam. But if you learn how professionals shoot video, with short takes and then editing it all together later, you can blow away anything you will be able to get from those less expensive video cameras.</p>

<p>Here is pretty good site for checking out reviews and how this lenses stacks up against others. Best part is at top of page click on the "ISO12233 crops" link and you compare that lenses to any lenses they reviewed and see samples at all different focal lengths at different f stops.<br>

<a href="http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-17-40mm-f-4.0-L-USM-Lens-Review.aspx">http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-17-40mm-f-4.0-L-USM-Lens-Review.aspx</a></p>

<p>Bad idea, probably won't have any problems doing it that way. But the one time you transfer those images and then something happens and they don't get copied to your computer, you just lost all of those images. It only takes about 20 sec to pop card back into the camera and format the card, after you know they all have transferred successfully and are on multiply Hard drives.</p>

<p>Good luck, I had to wait an extra week for my extra battery I ordered with my 5DII to arrive, after I got my body from Adorama. Best thing is to put an order in and wait. Adorama hasn't been to bad. I only had to wait about 31/2 weeks to get my 5DII and hopefully won't be any longer than that for the second extra battery I just ordered.</p>

<p>I recently got my new 5D markII and so I went out and shot a few images with it on my 17-40L. Here is what I got. Until now I only shot with it on a crop sensor body (40D). I didn't post any center sections of the image because they are all tack sharp like on my 40D. But these corners are terrible. So do I have a bad copy of this lens or is this normal softness for a lens like this? I also shot test shots at 20mm, 24mm & 28mm and I will admit the corners are a little better, but not by a hole lot. So what is other peoples experience with this lens on FF body, high MP camera like 1DsIII or 5DII? Also want to mention this was on Gitzo series 3 CF tripod, mirror lock up, 2 sec timer and plane of focus was on these trees. Please no comments on how yours performs on crop sensor body, it isn't relevant.</p>

<p>If this is best I can expect I guess it is time to go back to primes. For my landscape work, which is 99% of what I shoot, this isn't going to cut it. I do like the convince of zooms, but I'm not going to sacrifice this kind of IQ for convince.</p><div></div>

<p>Here is the top left corner, it was the worst of the two. This is very visible at print size as well.</p><div></div>

<p>Reason I brought it up is because after testing my Canon 17-40 f/4L outdoors, the results I got were horrible. The right and especially left top corners and I'm not just talking about extreme corners, was terrible soft and all smeared. This was shot on a Gitzo series three CF tripod with mirror lock up at shutter speeds over 200 sec. Shot at apertures f/8-13. 17mm was worst, 21mm improved slightly, 24mm about same as 21mm and 28 probably best of all those focal lengths but in my opinion not nearly good enough. I tried a friends 35mm f/2 and even though it was touch soft in couple of extreme corners at f/5.6-8, it wasn't bad at all and at f/11 overall looked great. After reading a lot of reviews I get the impression that their primes at wide end like 24mm & 28mm don't perform any better than their L zoom lenses in that range, is this true? I just want some good glass to cover from 20-28mm end. I have seen a lot of mixed results on the 16-35L II, saying it isn't any better than 17-40 when stopped down. Do I need to just keep buying lenses until I find a good one?</p>

<p>Just got the new 5D mark II and was considering the 24-70 f/2.8L lens. But I would like some opinions on how well does the lens perform with a FF 21MP sensor. I Use to use this lens when I was shooting w/5D and it was great, but I can tell already this mark II will really show any flaws of a lens.</p>

<p>The point of posting these images to make you aware that every lens isn't perfect, do some research and see what it strengths and weakness are. Then decided if spending the extra money for better built lens is worth it. Both of the lenses you mentioned are excellent, 24-105L & 24-70L. But you can get some great images with non L lenses as well. Here is an article written by Ken Rockwell, let me say first I don't agree with a lot of what he says but I do totally agree with this article.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/lens-sharpness.htm">http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/lens-sharpness.htm</a></p>

<p>Here is a corner crop section from same shot.</p><div></div>

<p>Sorry image was to big on first posting, wouldn't except it. Here are the crop sections.</p><div></div>