24mm Mk II TS-E Problem

[mikegml]

Bought a Mk I 24mm TS-E months ago and liked it very much. I liked it enough to have bought the Mk II which arrived last week. (Sold the Mk I).

First thing I did with the Mk I was to test it against my 17-40 (at 24mm obviously) I'd read many comments saying it was a poor performer and some saying it was ok. I found it to be close in performance to the 17-40, close enough that I couldn't tell which was which unless I pixel peeped, I was happy enough.

The Mk II by every account you'll read is a stellar performer, significantly better than the Mk I. So on arrival the first thing I did was to test it against my 17-40 expecting to be very impressed.

Unfortunately I wasn’t impressed. Comparing many shots both wall chart shots and real world shots, my TS-E is 'fractionally' sharper than my 17-40 and 'slightly' less distorted in the corners, and that's about it. It’s difficult to spot any difference without viewing at 100% so small is the difference.

Remember this TS-E is supposed to be a superb 24mm even without its T+S functions, better even than the dedicated 24mm 1.4 L but my copy barely improves upon my 17-40. In fact it only just betters my old MK I TS-E.

I’ve posted on other forums with people saying the TS-E can do so much more than the 17-40! I know that, I’m not comparing the capabilities of the lenses. If the TS-E can't outperform my 17-40 as a 'straight on' 24mm then I'm not consoled by the fact that it can do many things the 17-40 can't do.

So, let me ask anyone who has these two lenses, how much better is your TS-E as a straight 24mm than your 17-40? slightly better? much better? or as another experienced user posted in another forum his TS-E was ‘way better corner to corner’ it’s somewhat subjective I know but your opinions would be interesting.

I won’t be posting examples, I’ve done that elsewhere and unless you can download the shots it’s difficult to compare.