Posted by Carol Nichols on December 21, 2017 at 5:54 PM
I haven't bought myself a Christmas present yet and am considering the Canon 24mm tilt shift lens for landscape and architecture photography. I understand this lens is a lot more complex to use than an ordinary wide angle lens and also much heavier to carry around. I would love to hear from those of you who have used tilt shift lenses to find out if they are as wonderful as made out to be or has it been sitting in your closet collecting dust because the complexity and weight issues are too much of a burden.
I'd greatly appreciate your honest experiences with these type of lenses.
Thanks & Happy Holidays!
Carol
Posted by Kathy Barnhart on December 22, 2017 at 1:45 AM
Hi Carol,
I have a Canon 24 mm tilt-shift that I would love to sell you if you decide to go for it. I bought mine new about 2 years ago and just haven't used it much. It is an extremely sharp lens and so I sometimes just left it in the "normal" position and loved the results. But I find that the weight is the biggest issue. If I am going out in the field, I'm not going to haul this one in addition to my 2 workhorse lenses. There is a learning curve, too, and I admit that I never got truly comfortable using it. People who do get used to them love them, but I have accumulated too many lenses, am getting too old to carry around so much weight, and feel that I can make lens corrections in LR and PS---I don't truly need this lens. So after all of that, if you are still interested, let me know! I have used this lens very little. My son-in-law may want to buy it but he was not quite ready when I last talked with him about it so I'd need to check with him first.
Kathy
Posted by Anil Rao on December 22, 2017 at 11:58 PM
Hi Carol,
I own and use a Canon 24mm TSE L II lens. I cannot say much regarding its weight since I had recently switched from the Pentax 67ii medium format system and everything seems light by comparison. However, it is lighter than the Canon 24-70 mm f /2.8 L II lens, which is the only other lens I have for my 35mm DSLR. W.r.t. to sharpness I think it does better than the Canon 24-70 mm zoom, although that is no slouch.
When locked in the zero tilt and zero shift positions, it behaves just like any other prime lens. Well, any other “manual focus” prime lens. There is no autofocus on the TSEs.
The new L II version of the Canon 24 mm TSE has a better design. The tilt and shift axis can be rotated independently. Also, the amount of tilt and shift has been increased over the previous version. This is due to the much larger image circle projected by the lens. You will notice almost no loss of light in the corners, even at max tilt or max shift. At the zero tilt and zero shift position there is absolutely no loss of light in the corners, which is wonderful.
For my landscape and abstract work I love the idea of using tilt to place the plane of focus exactly how I want it. However, I really haven’t used the tilt capability so far. Instead, I have been using this lens for creating stitched panoramas. Taking a series of successive images by shifting the lens slightly each time makes it very easy to construct the composite in ACR or Photoshop. Since you are not really rotating the camera around an axis, I found that the resulting stitched image loses very little in terms of image area.
Here are two images that I made with this lens. For the first one, the TSE was locked in the zero tilt and zero shift position. For the second one, I used 3 shifted images to create the resultant pano.
The only downside I can see is that the lens is not weather sealed. I guess it cannot be due to the shifting and tilting mechanism. While I don’t intend to take it out in wet weather, I do find it frustrating that dust can make its way inside the lens, especially if it windy outside and you are using the tilt and shift functions. In any case, this isn’t something that I am too concerned about.
I am not sure if you have read the news about Canon’s new TSE lenses that were released last month. In addition to the 17mm TSE and the 24mm TSE LII, they now have a 50mm TSE macro, a 90 mm TSE macro and a 135 mm TSE macro. The older 45mm TSE and the 90 mm TSE lenses have been retired.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Posted by Carol Nichols on December 28, 2017 at 12:51 PM
Kathy and Anil,
Thanks for your responses to my post. You have given me a lot to think about!
Discussion
3 repliesI'd greatly appreciate your honest experiences with these type of lenses.
Thanks & Happy Holidays!
Carol
I have a Canon 24 mm tilt-shift that I would love to sell you if you decide to go for it. I bought mine new about 2 years ago and just haven't used it much. It is an extremely sharp lens and so I sometimes just left it in the "normal" position and loved the results. But I find that the weight is the biggest issue. If I am going out in the field, I'm not going to haul this one in addition to my 2 workhorse lenses. There is a learning curve, too, and I admit that I never got truly comfortable using it. People who do get used to them love them, but I have accumulated too many lenses, am getting too old to carry around so much weight, and feel that I can make lens corrections in LR and PS---I don't truly need this lens. So after all of that, if you are still interested, let me know! I have used this lens very little. My son-in-law may want to buy it but he was not quite ready when I last talked with him about it so I'd need to check with him first.
Kathy
I own and use a Canon 24mm TSE L II lens. I cannot say much regarding its weight since I had recently switched from the Pentax 67ii medium format system and everything seems light by comparison. However, it is lighter than the Canon 24-70 mm f /2.8 L II lens, which is the only other lens I have for my 35mm DSLR. W.r.t. to sharpness I think it does better than the Canon 24-70 mm zoom, although that is no slouch.
When locked in the zero tilt and zero shift positions, it behaves just like any other prime lens. Well, any other “manual focus” prime lens. There is no autofocus on the TSEs.
The new L II version of the Canon 24 mm TSE has a better design. The tilt and shift axis can be rotated independently. Also, the amount of tilt and shift has been increased over the previous version. This is due to the much larger image circle projected by the lens. You will notice almost no loss of light in the corners, even at max tilt or max shift. At the zero tilt and zero shift position there is absolutely no loss of light in the corners, which is wonderful.
For my landscape and abstract work I love the idea of using tilt to place the plane of focus exactly how I want it. However, I really haven’t used the tilt capability so far. Instead, I have been using this lens for creating stitched panoramas. Taking a series of successive images by shifting the lens slightly each time makes it very easy to construct the composite in ACR or Photoshop. Since you are not really rotating the camera around an axis, I found that the resulting stitched image loses very little in terms of image area.
Here are two images that I made with this lens. For the first one, the TSE was locked in the zero tilt and zero shift position. For the second one, I used 3 shifted images to create the resultant pano.
http://www.anilraophotography.com/portfolios/new_work/tidal_remnants.html
http://www.anilraophotography.com/portfolios/new_work/
If you like to work slowly this is a great tool.
The only downside I can see is that the lens is not weather sealed. I guess it cannot be due to the shifting and tilting mechanism. While I don’t intend to take it out in wet weather, I do find it frustrating that dust can make its way inside the lens, especially if it windy outside and you are using the tilt and shift functions. In any case, this isn’t something that I am too concerned about.
I am not sure if you have read the news about Canon’s new TSE lenses that were released last month. In addition to the 17mm TSE and the 24mm TSE LII, they now have a 50mm TSE macro, a 90 mm TSE macro and a 135 mm TSE macro. The older 45mm TSE and the 90 mm TSE lenses have been retired.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Thanks for your responses to my post. You have given me a lot to think about!
Carol