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Before I get into this lens review I want to say one
thing, and you can quote me on this statement: the
Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L II lens is optically and
mechanically the sharpest and best built wide-angle
Canon lens I've ever mounted, and more importantly,
owned, to date. The exuberance created by the
extreme corner-to corner sharpness of this lens
almost overshadows Canon's other ground breaking
advancement, the TS Revolving System, with both the
24 and 17mm TS-E lenses. Yes, these are very strong
statements, but I feel confident that Canon has
finally turned the corner on their wide-angle lens
construction. Only time will tell as they replace
their older wide-angle lenses with this more modern
design.
I
feel I should remind all of you that the TS-E 24mm
lens is manual focus only. Using this lens as it is
designed negates the need for auto-focus. Precise
focusing control by the photographer is key to
utilizing the features that make this lens so
special.
How Tilt-Shift
Lenses Work
For those photographers who are interested in the
TS-E lenses but are not familiar with movements and
how they enhance our abilities as landscape (or
architectural) photographers, here's a brief
explanation.
With normal SLR (35mm style) camera lenses, the axis
of the lens is mounted in a fixed position parallel
to the film plane. Focusing the lens moves it
forward and backward, creating a plane of sharp
focus in front of it. That slice of sharp focus
moves only forward and backward as you turn the
focusing ring, but is always parallel to the film
plane. To widen that sharp slice of focus, known as
depth of focus, the photographer must use the
smaller f/stops. Tilt/shift & perspective control
lenses are designed to emulate the camera movements
found on view cameras. View cameras have the ability
to move this slice of sharp focus to the left or
right, up or down, and bring the normally vertical
focal plane closer in relationship to the almost
always horizontal landscape.
The tilt movement—rotating the front element
forward—allows the photographer to change the
relative distances between the lens and the film
plane in a way that makes both the closest and the
farthest objects to be in sharp focus even with the
aperture set to its widest opening. Shift is the
same but is used when the closest object in the
foreground is to the right or left of a background
at infinity. This allows the photographer to use the
mid-range apertures, which are most always the
sharpest, to get the entire scene into sharp focus.
With normal fixed focal plane lenses, the
photographer must use the smallest apertures of the
lenses to acquire the same depth of focus. Very
small apertures require longer exposure times, thus
making it necessary for there to be no movement of
the objects in the photograph. Most importantly,
those small apertures are the most degrading to
image quality due to lens diffraction.
Rise is used when the photographer is photographing
a very tall subject, for example, a forest scene. It
is used to keep the vertical lines of the subject
parallel, preventing them from converging. Instead
of pointing the camera up at the subject, the
photographer can leave the camera in a level
position then raise the front lens element parallel
to the lens frame. Fall works in basically the same
way, giving the photographer the ability to lower
the captured image closer to the ground without
pointing the camera down. Shift works the same as
rise and fall, but moves from left to right.
Movements have been very limited with the TS-E and
perspective control lenses built for 35mm film and
digital SLRs. With nature photography, modifications
were needed to have tilt and rise/fall together.
Canon lenses could be done by the photographer. But
with Nikon PC lenses, it meant a trip to the service
center. Canon has given the photographer the freedom
to choose at the click of a tiny lever and set a new
standard with tilt/shift and PC lenses. The new TS-E
24mm 3.5 L II's tilt feature rotates independently
of and in relation to the shift movement, this
incredible new feature is called TS rotation. This
new design allows the rotation of the tilt and shift
features to work separately of each other. The tilt
and shift relationship can be changed by varying
amounts up to 90 degrees and rotation locks at the
parallel or perpendicular settings relative to the
shift orientation with clicks at 45 degrees. Calling
this new lens a tilt/shift lens is no longer
completely accurate. With the new TS Revolving
System, the lens is much more like a large-format
field camera. In landscape photography, this lens
should be known as a tilt/rise & fall lens!
Optical Quality
The Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L II Tilt-Shift Lens is an
incredibly sharp lens at its widest apertures and is
extremely sharp, right into the corners. Stopping
down adds to the sharpness, and the lens is sharpest
at f/8 to f/11. The TS-E 24 II clearly displays its
capabilities and performance attributes in
dominating fashion, well beyond that of the original
TS-E 24mm L. Spend a few moments and look at the
full image sample (above) to get a good idea of how
detailed this composition is. Then move on to the
100% crops below, starting with the center. Notice
the detail and sharpness in the extreme corners. I
used my wonderful EOS 5D, a full frame sensor
camera, to perform the lens tests. This lens would
be even more perfectly matched to the newer EOS 5D
Mark II with its “live view” option.
100%
center crop
100% upper left corner
100% lower left corner
100% upper right hand corner
100% lower right hand corner
Chromatic Aberration
Chromatic aberration is extremely well controlled,
and nearly nonexistent - much less than the original
TS-E 24mm L. This is in part due to Canon's is new
SubWavelength Structure Coating. Distortion is
minimal and it exhibits excellent contrast and
colors. Notice in the extreme edge samples, there's
not even a hint of CA!
Teleconverter Compatibility
I
did want to mention that the new TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L
II lens works very well with the Canon EF 1.4x
Extender, even though the owner's manual states that
the TS-E 24mm L II is not compatible with
extenders. Adding the Canon EF 1.4x II Extender will
yield a 34.6mm f/5 lens that delivers very good
results. Adding the Canon EF 2x II Extender will
yield a 48mm f/7.1 lens, but for me the degradation
of image quality when using the 2x converter is just
too extreme to be worthwhile.
Conclusion
The TS-E 24mm II, even with a price tag of almost
$2,200 (or higher depending on where you buy),
double that of its predecessor, is well worth it.
The quality of the lens, in build and sharpness,
will suppress any emergence of buyers remorse. If
landscape or architectural photography is your
specialty, this lens, along with its siblings, the
17mm, 45mm, and 90mm, should definitely find its
place in your camera bag.
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About
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