Very much so! But that must be a hefty pricetag
Very much so! But that must be a hefty pricetag
The red L still means top of the line, pro quality. However, ultrawide zooms are very difficult lenses to design. The EF-S lenses simplify the situation, because the smaller image circle removes some technical barriers. The other two L lenses in the same approximate price range (70-200/4 and 200/2.8 II) deliver better IQ than the 17-40, but that
Originally Posted by vanheden
This may surprise you, but "sharpness" and "good color" are actually the same thing. When you use a "good color" lens to photograph flowers with bright and bold colors, those colors will come through at full strength. Whereas a lens without good color will record the flowers in a more dull, low-contrast way. (Some photographers actually use such lenses on purpose,particularly older ones,to attain a certain mood for the image. I prefer to capture good colors first and then make it dull in post production -- that's easier than doing it the other way around. [])
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The color of a lens is so important that all the manufacturers measure it and publish charts on it -- it's called MTF. A perfect "100%" MTF says that the lens will give you the best color possible of what you're photographing. A low MTF, like 20%, means the color is significantly dulled and diminished.
So there are three related factors:
- "Good" Color: this occurs when you have high contrast at low and medium spatial frequencies, especially.
- Sharpness: this is a subjective combination of contrast from various spatial frequencies (usually the highest -- but it depends on who is using the word).
- Resolution: this usually refers only to the absolute highest frequencies, and ignores contrast.
So, the primary factor in what most people consider good color is actually contrast. But there are two other factors as well:
- Spectral transmissivity
- Color accuracy
- Color matching (with other lenses)
The first factor relates to how some lenses have a red cast, or a yellow cast, or some other color filtering effect to them. To me, that's bad. I'd much rather apply whatever color filtering I want in post, but I don't begrudge anyone their preference for doing it in the lens and without needing an extra color filter.
The third factor, color matching, is when you try to get two lenses that achieve the same color -- even if that color is inaccurate and/or has a certain color cast you like or dislike. At least if they are the same, whatever effects you get will apply equally when you switch lenses.
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The effect of all three of these factorsis very, very minute, and completely overshadowed by things like the white balance setting. That is, you can take two lenses that are completely opposite in their color cast, apply a custom white balance, and to most people the color will be the same. For really critical color, you can use a colorchecker chart and a custom profile to get them closer. It's only the most advanced and difficult situations where you truly have to have lenses with perfectly identical spectral transmissivity in order to achieve identical color reproduction.
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Personally, I love the 17-40 as a full frame landscape lens. I think it produces very good results on my 5D2 at f/8. But that's because the image is enlarged/magnified a lot less, and a narrower f-number can be used to achieve the same DOF and diffraction. The net effect of these is that the flaws don't show nearly as bad and the results are sharper and have better color. But I don't like to use it at f/4 or f/5.6, and I don't like to use it on a crop.
Think of the 17-40 as a large, expensive camping trailer. If all you have is a compact car (e.g. crop camera), trying to pull that trailer will make your camping trip miserable. A small tent (like the 17-50 f/2.8) is more appropriate for your small car and give you better results. When you get a large truck some day, then you can pull the camping trailer and enjoy all the benefits of the expensive camping trailer.
Thanks again for all imput!
Neuro, yes i had that belife aswell, but in this thread even the chapest standard lens seems to outperfom the 17-40 and that realy rocked my world, so to speak.
Sharpness is important, but colors just aswell when it comes to the dramatic landscapes, i just have to look at more pictures from the different lenses i think to make my own opinion on what suits my needs, sharpness vs. colorvise. The 10-22 if appeling for its range i must say, and the 24-70 for its performance, but they are still a bit above what i hoped to budget.
My plan is to fit the lens on the 50d body and use the Cokin P ND system, that will go with both the 50/1.8 MKII and the 70-200/4 (yes i shoot landscapes with that to, not well but i do
No dubt that both the canon 17-55 and 15-85 performs well, aswell as the Tokina and Sigma, witch seems to be the most bang fpr the buck when boughtbrand-new, but they are hard to comeby here and when on sale would raise the budget by 60+% (no upper limit at 100% of new-price, you know the market...)
Alot to think about and to compare, i am glad i raised this before my "big" mountain expedition (Just 2 weeks). The FF factor is realy not "that" (the "" meens that it is, learned form a teen..) important, but i like the tought of having a base-set of lenses that will go with any body that i can afford.
If having to scale the impostance of things, i whink i would go like this:
Lifelike Color
against-the-sun-compability (sorry i do npt know the proper word for that)
Sharpness
Taking the Cookin P filter system (The Lee ND
The differance between in color is not huge between any of these lenses, when you are looking at pictures with great colors you are looking at 90% postprocessing.
The correct term is flare. Bryan (owner of this site) also has a flare comparison on this site.
John.
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