New Toy arrived today;
I hope it is a keeper.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8341/8...1442485d_z.jpg
New Toy by hdnitehawk01, on Flickr
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New Toy arrived today;
I hope it is a keeper.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8341/8...1442485d_z.jpg
New Toy by hdnitehawk01, on Flickr
Nice! You know you have to keep us posted, right? ;)
Of course, like a kid with a new toy everyone will get to hear about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by ahab1372
Congrats on the new "toy", I predict you will not be returning it:)
:) If I do it will be to excange for another till I get one that is just right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
Sweet glass Rick....let us know how it turns out.
i have lens envy! got the orig version. i've seen some incredible starbursts at night even as large as f/11. congrats on your new toy
Congrats! I am sure you will like it!
Enjoy the lens, Rick! Can't wait for some pics...
I can hear you squealing from here Rick. Congrats on the new glass.
I'll be interested in your zoom/prime comparisons.
Thanks Guys, I took some pics earlier but nothing worth showing. The IQ seems great so far.
Here is my first impression, I just got home and had time to do just one check so I headed for the brick wall on the outside of the house. The 24-70mm II has quit a bit of lens distortion compared to the 24mm f/1.4 L. I pulled up Bryan's test and this was confirmed but since the below samples are on a crop body (1.3 1D IV) I wonder if it has more than it should.I think it is the norm and tomorrow will check with the 5D II. I don't think this will be a replacement for a good 24mm prime but the IQ is right up there.
Tomorrow should be fun :D
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/R...3&LensComp=480
The 24-70mm II @ f/2.8 on the 1D IV
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8477/8...d39b2686_z.jpg
24-70mm II by hdnitehawk01, on Flickr
24mm f/1.4L @ f/2.8 on the 1D IV
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8065/8...ea661320_z.jpg
24mm f:1.4 by hdnitehawk01, on Flickr
Thanks HDNH, this post apparantly got me into the buying spirit as i just ordered a new 5Dmark3, a 17-40 f/4 L, and the largest of three Think Tank backpacks! Please do not post any additional purchases you make as this website has all of a sudden become an expensive site to vi$it! happy thanksgiving if you celebrate it and if not, go out and shoot a turkey anyway with your new lens. erno
Congratz on the new camera.Quote:
Originally Posted by erno james
Hmmm :p a new 5D III I need one of those to, or maybe a 1D X.
Congrats Erno, are you spending all your winnings from all these assignments you keep winning. Noone will stand a chance once you get this new gear. :cool:
The bricks are a good test pattern, the slight barrel distortion is seen as you mention. The corners look pretty dang good compared to the 24 prime!Quote:
Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
I agree the corners are much better than v1 and the 24-105. I wonder what the f4 version as in storeQuote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
I am going to put it on the FF tomorrow and see how it compares to the 16-35, 24, 35 and 70-200mm L's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Busted Knuckles
From looking at the MTF charts it looks like the new 24-70 f/4 will be weak in comparison to others on the wide end and probably the sharpest of any zoom at 70mm. I really thought about waiting and possibly going that way, but I would regret not having f/2.8
Too many new lenses from which to choose. I balked, and bought a Tripod Ring D for my 100L, RRS plates for that and the MP-E 65mm, an RRS macro rail package, and a pair of Wimberley macro flash brackets. Short days and long nights coming, macro time. :)
I have the Wimberley clamps that get the flash off and above my 500mm and it is really convenient and it made me a fan of the system. I have thought about buying the macro flash brackets to add to my macro set, they look like they would be very versatile and handy.
Which RRS rail package did you go for?
I would like to get the MP-E-65mm and the Stack Shot system from Cognisys.Quote:
Originally Posted by neuroanatomist
I have the RRS B91-QR flash bracket for the 600 II, although I picked up the extender to get it a little further off axis.Quote:
Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
I got the package for collared lenses (B-150B rail and LMT riser with clamp).
I really like RRS gear, but their macro flash solution doesn't seem nearly as flexible or useful as the Wimberley F-2 brackets.
I've been looking at the StackShot system, too - might get one of those at some point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
Congrats to everyone on all the new gear!!
Hmmm...now if I would have only bought a bunch of boxes of Hostess twinkies at the grocery store yesterday I would be able to buy alot gear on my Christmas list!! One box of twinkies is going for a few hundred bucks on ebay!
Wow, a lot of new gear going down right now.
I heard the words from the other half that i'm sure everyone here wants to hear at some point... "I don't mind what you buy, as long as we can still afford food and the mortgage".
Well, i'm still $1k up every month after mortgage and bills, so maybe I should be looking to invest in something new one of these days. (not counting the Cosina/Voigtlander Bessa L i just snagged off ebay for $100, all i need now is a 21mm Skopar for it and i've got my lightweight hiking/landscape kit sorted).
Or maybe take neuro's advice and go for macros. On saturday I was cleaning out the farm that i've been housesitting this year, collected quite a few dead bugs and things to macro, there shouldn't be that many Centipedes and European Wasps inside (at least they were dead).
I bought FoCal, since I thought it would be a good time to because I had to check out the new 24-70mm.
I just ran the new lens through three sets of tests. In all about 12-15 cycles at each length and I repeated the test three times.
Tests had the same lighting, right at EV 11 with around 1/350 shutter speed.
With the 1D IV I have the following results;
24mm 0
35mm +4
50mm +4
70mm -1
I could discount the 24mm as it dropping off will not hurt much. The drop from 50mm to 70mm with a difference of 5 bothers me.
I think I will ship it back and try another copy.
Any one think the camera could be a problem?
The 5D II had similar results only not as exaggerated. It makes me think the 1D IV AF tunes to a finer edge than the 5D II.
Does it have a visible effect on the images? That doesn't sound like a camera problem to me and it may fall within the factory specs for the lens especially considering the 24mm and 70mm are so close. It might be worth trying another copy but if the images are good I would not send it back.Quote:
Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
That is what I have been debating. It feels prime sharp, but I didn't get a chance to set it up on controlled test for sharpness yet. I was able to shoot several hundred shots Saturday morning and was fairly impressed. The lens seems very sharp, but I did notice that some of the shots were a bit weak. I should go back and see if they were primarly in the mid range. Maybe do some more testing, it wouldn't matter if I send it back today or tomorrow it would still be next week before I get a new one back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel Eade
I'd be concerned, and sending it back makes sense. You could pick reasonable AFMA values, maybe W = +2 and T = 0 or +1, and use FoCal to run a single-AFMA aperture sharpness test at 50mm and 70mm, to see how they compare.Quote:
Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
I have something similar with my 28-300L - it's around +4 at 28mm, 50mm, 100mm, and 300mm, but around -2 at 200mm. If I'd bought it new, I'd send it back (I bought it used for around 60% of the current new lens price, and while I like it, I'm not sure I like it enough to keep it, may swap it out for the 24-70 II, actually, or perhaps the 50L). As it is, looking over my EXIF with the lens, only around 10% of the shots are between 150-250mm, and it's f/5.6 at that point so AF errors aren't as critical as with an f/2.8 lens like yours.
John,
One of my concerns is of course this is the first time I used foCal.
If you wouldn't mind can you see anything in this description that sounds as if it may have caused an anomaly.
I bought the pro version.
I used two 200 Watt incandescent bulbs for lighting.
I ended up with an EV between 10.8 and 11.2.
I printed the target on an 8 1/2 x 11 plain paper. Didn't have an inkjet available at the time.
According to FoCal the 8 1/2 x 11 should be scaled correctly and I shouldn't have to measure and enter it.
50x focal length for each setting.
I had a shutter speed of 1/350 ISO 100 set at a temperature of 5200.
The actual color temperature if you shot this situation would be lower, probably 3800 or there about. I tried both ways 5200 was more consistent results.
Target acquisition I verified the target each time and checked to make sure the circle spot was on the crosshair. Then got the green check mark. Being a bit excessive I rechecked this with each individual run.
My results were in a range of 3 places, for instance the +4 looked something like this 2@ +3, 2@ +4 and 2@ +5. I reset up and did 3 runs of tests from 24 to 70mm with an average of 5 tests each time. They were very close and all showed the exact same thing.
The chart they produced were fairly pronounced with steep curves.
The two things that concerned me are the target and the temperature.
Any thing you see I might have missed?
Thanks
Rick
Rick,
FoCal seems to pick the 5200K for me (also incandescent), too, so it sounds like that's something they think is optimal and I'd not worry about that. They do warn that printing the target on a laser printer may lead to higher reflectivity, so I'd possibly be concerned about that. I print mine on heavy matte paper on an inkjet. But you've got plenty of light and it sounds like you're getting consistent results, so I think you're good.
John
Thanks John;
I tried to print the target on my Pixma 9500 and matt paper. I think the ink has set to long, I couldn't get it to even print pictures.
I will print a target off of the Pixma 9000 tonight on matt and run the test again.
I took your advice, to extremes. I printed off a new chart on the Pixma 9000 using matt paper. Rearranged the lights to make sure a bit and got a little better results and the range tightened a bit.Quote:
Originally Posted by neuroanatomist
I ran the aperture sharpness test all the way across the board. This lens seems to back focus at 50mm and then it falls off at 70mm.
This is what the chart looks like. I think a person could take this lens and be very happy with it because it performs so well at 50mm.
I am still leaning toward sending it back.
This is tonights results and is the IQ at f/2.8 at each setting from the foCal aperture sharpness test;
Setting 24mm 35mm 50mm 70mm -2 1139 1095 1101 -1 1109 1132 1150 1088 0 1139 1122 1147 1101 1 1125 1161 1151 1075 2 1130 1152 1169 1069 3 1012 1002 1189 4 1170 Average 1 1 3 -1
According to this table I would just dial in a +1. Is the decrease from 1151 to 1075 noticeable? I don't have any Focal experience, but it seems marginal to me
After 2 weeks I received my replacement lens. UPS took 14 days to deliver back to B&H. Praises to the B&H folks they offered and sent the replacement lens overnight and it arrived yesterday. They also told me that on a replacement the 30 day return period starts over. +2 for B&H. -1 for UPS of course.
So last night I checked AF, it was pretty even and checked out.
Today I took a set of real world samples and checked the lens against my 24mm f/1.4L II, 35mm f/1.4L and 70-200mm f/2.8L II and the 16-35mm f/2.8L II.
Let it be said at normal view on my 24" monitor full screen I doubt any one would ever notice much difference in these lenses. But on closer inspection I notice that the sharpness of my 24mm f/1.4L II and 35mm f/1.4 are as good or slightly sharper in the corners than the 24-70mm. I do not think this lens is as sharp as the first lens I had, using the limited number of pictures I took as comparison with the first lens (I wish I had done more now).
I just set up some make shift charts in the front room, took some shots and it confirmed what I was seeing in the field. Near equal sharpness in the middle, slightly behind the 24mm L and 35mm L in the corners.
This is what concerns me, an quote from Bryan's review;
"In this comparison, the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L II USM Lens turns in image quality that is remarkably similar to the incredible Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L II Tilt-Shift Lens. This particular location in the frame compares especially unfavorably for the 24-70 L (and the 24 L II)."
If you look at Bryan's review this is referring to the squash and pumpkin crop out of the left corner of his picture.http://www.the-digital-picture.com/R...ns-Review.aspx
I am getting no where close to the image quality difference with the 24mm L at f/2.8 as shown in Bryan's crop.
From the pictures I took with the first body of the brick wall, I should be seeing a bit better sharpness.
I am going to check the new lens out it again tomorrow. It looks like it may be going back as well.
Side note; even though I appear to be overly picky, which I am when buying a $2300 lens, either of these lenses exceed the 16-35mm II substantially and are a major upgrade from the old 24-70mm IMO.
This is frustrating, to say the least. Not only are you spending time sending these lenses back and forth, you're also spending a lot of time evaluating them. You've got the skills to check all of that. Imagine someone who buys this lens, and wouldn't know much about how to confirm what you've found.
It's very disconcerting and discouraging.
Let's hope that the third time is the charm.
Actually my skills are somewhat limited, and I don't have the high dollar charts and equipment to test with that some of the forum members have. I do have a nice set of L lenses to compare to and my homemade charts, best of all Bryan's good info. As far as spending time testing, I kind of enjoy it.
I did some more comparisons tonight, I figured it wouldn't do any good to send it back until monday. The new 24-70 is giving near identical IQ and resolution as the 24mm f/1.4 L, the checks I did more checks after I posted this initially and the more I check they are neck and neck. I just picked up some supplies at Hobby Lobby and I am going to set up different home made targets.
I have always thought my 24mm L was an exceptional lens. I bought a TSE 24mm a year or so ago then returned it. My 24mm was sharper in the center and only slightly less sharp on the edges. I thought at the time that I had gotten a bad copy of the TSE. Now I wonder if I just have a really good copy of the 24mm f1.4 L.
But to your comments about someone without the ability to test buying this lens. Either of the 24-70 lenses I had were producing near prime quality. If a person had never owned a prime or just moved up to this lens, I think they would be very satisfied with even a model giving the lowest results. Going from an old 24-70 they would say "wow". For me I am just to picky.
Well, maybe you're picky (I don't think so), but for $2300, I'd expect to be picky, too. And, for that kind of money, the lens needs to perform near flawlessly without having to send back two copies. The Canon hype demands that it does.Quote:
Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
This has been an interesting read. I got my 24-70 II a few weeks back and the results it has given me has been outstanding. I did not buy the version I, because I thought it was too big and heavy, so my basis for comparison has primarily been the 24-105mm f4.0L. But I also upgraded to the 1DX at the same time, so in all fairness, I have not done a very thorough quality control on the lens.
Having read your experience H, I became a bit worried and decided to give it a more dedicated check. I have verified it against the 24 mm f2.4L II, 50mm f1.2L, 24-105mm f4.0L IS and the 70-200mm f2.8L IS II. I do not have the expensive charts either, so I had to create scenarios I believed would show any weaknesses. I checked focusing with a LensAlign MkII and concluded on an even -1 throughout the zoom range. I shot enough images with it to conclude that AF is both very fast, stable and accurate from very low to very high temperatures.
Color is a bit more difficult to be totally objective about, but it looks good to me on my iMac 27". CA is also very well controlled. The main problem in my view is vignetting. It falls off a bit more than I like, but when required, I fix it in Lightroom or Photoshop.
Sharpness and resolution is then left, and what I have seen from my copy of the lens is very good. Center is as good or better than any of the lenses I compared to, throughout the zoom range. corners are slightly behind the 24mm, but not much. It competes very well with the others. The 70-200 is sharper, but then that lens is just incredible. Compared to the 50mm, IŽd have to conclude that the 24-70 is better.
I hope Canon is reading your posts here. When charging USD2300 for this lens, you should certainly expect and get both first class and consistent quality.
Good luck with No.3!
Quote:
Originally Posted by eldarhau
Mine is pretty much as you describe at 24mm. The vignetting is just part of this lens I think.
I posted this earlier, but this is from Bryan's review and talking about the corners;
"In this comparison, the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L II USM Lens turns in image quality that is remarkably similar to the incredible Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L II Tilt-Shift Lens. This particular location in the frame compares especially unfavorably for the 24-70 L (and the 24 L II)."
In my mind it leaves a few possibilities. Bryan's copy of the 24mm f/1.4L II is not as good as the copy I have, which I have a hard time believing he would have a low performing version considering the amount of testing he does on these lenses. Another option, which is the direction I would tend to believe, is that my copy of the 24-70mm is not performing as well as his fourth copy.
Here is some info that might help, and some charts you can print off to test with;
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2010...to-test-a-lens
The same link had a link to this site, I am trying some of their free charts today;
http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF5.html#using
For those reading the thread, I have been talking mostly resolution. Then trying to figure out if a zoom lens is resolving better than one of Canon's finest prime lenses. That should speak volumes about the quality of this lens. If we compare other factors like lens distortion, vignetting, flare and chromatic aberration these factors all make the 24mm f/1.4L the better lens.
HD, I bumped this thread to see where you stand with the new 24-70 II or if you have even rec'd copy 3 yet. This is a lens I have been droooling over and am seriously considering getting rid of both my 50 1.2L and my 100L macro to finance it. But, after reading your experience I am, to say the least, reluctant.
Any new info you have would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Bob