Not perfect – you get what you pay for, I suppose.

I wrote in somewhat lukewarm terms of the underwhelming definition of the Canon 20mm lens here.

I took a more objective view of the vignetting issue by banging out four snaps on the old estate, camera and lens dutifully mounted on a tripod, at the four largest apertures:

To best assess vignetting, look at the bottom right corner. The sky is misleading as the changing azimuth angle will provide some natural vignetting with any lens this wide. You can see that at full aperture, f/2.8, the vigneting is pretty awful, but rapidly falls by f/4 with full coverage at f/5.6 and below.

So unless you want to use the Photoshop CS2 Filter->Distort->LensCorrection->Vignette->Amount, (does anyone at Adobe have the remotest iota of common sense when it comes to designing menus – who would guess it’s under ‘Distort’?) f/2.8 is simply not useable. Realistically, if it’s a low light situation, vignetting is no big deal and tends to enhance the drama of a picture. But if you want full coverage to the corners, forget it. Regard the maximum aperture as useful for focusing only.

How about definition? Well, I concluded that my first sample was just not good enough, especially after nothing but great experiences with the 15mm fisheye, the 85mm f/1.8, the 200mm f/2.8 and the 24-105mm zoom. If I can get way better definition from the fisheye after doing all that pixel stretching with ImageAlign (making the lens like a 12mm rectilinear hyper-wide) then all cannot be right with my 20mm sample which clearly has poorer definition than the fisheye. So I bit the bullet and returned the lens to B&H. Moses, of that estimable store, didn’t understand when I explained the lens sucked, but when I pulled Schlecht on him he cottoned on and was very good about it. I had a replacement (with an older serial number, strangely) in my hands in seven business days. Thank you, B&H. Was the result a quantum leap in definition? No. However, overall the ‘bite’ of the image is improved, if still not up to any of the other lenses which, frankly, easily surpass it in this regard. Vignetting in both samples at full aperture is just awful.

The right answer, I suppose, is to get a used Leica 21mm Super Angulon R and adapt it to the 5D. That lens may only be f/4 but it’s fabulous, like all Leica glass. I used one on my Leicaflex SL for years. Unfortunately, the sheer bulk of the lens, compounded by a heavy brass mount and a huge front element, not to mention a complete lack of focus or aperture and exposure automation on the 5D, rules it out. The M Elmarit will not, of course, achieve infinity focus owing to the need for a short flange-to-sensor distance mandated by the rangefinder design. Plus, it’s way overpriced.

So mediocre definition would seem to be the Achilles Heel of this optic – that or I have been an unlucky victim of poor quality control. Canon has little incentive for improving the lens, with everyone being sold on bulky, slow zooms. Shame. Still, at f/8 it’s decent and it’s dirt cheap, too, at $400. If it was much more I would return it.

You can get an idea of the relative size of the 20mm in this picture where it is side by side with the 50mm f/1.4 – it’s not too bulky.

Notice that the 72mm Canon UV filter on the 20mm lens says ‘Sharp Cut’, implying a sharp cut off prior to the infra red range of the spectrum. By contrast the 58mm filter on the 50mm lens bears no such designation. This is rather mystifying (the 77mm filter for the 24-105mm is also ‘Sharp Cut’) as the sensor in the 5D (and probably in their other DSLR offferings) has a built in IR filter – something Leica should have learned before mistakenly releasing the M8 with no IR sensor filter, only to have to issue free lens filters to all buyers as IR rays wreaked havoc with color accuracy. No biggie – Canon’s filters are inexpensive and do the job of protecting my lens’ front elements.

Update: I ended up selling the lens – too much bulk for too little performance. Read all about it here.

It’s nice to have a 20mm again

Chevy. 5d, 20mm, ISO 250, 1/500, f/11, 1 stop underexposed, processed in Aperture

No question about it, I miss my 21mm Leica Asph Elmarit, though who can afford one at $3k+ today beats me. The Canon 24-105mm L zoom is wonderful, if a tad bulky and heavy, and the 15mm Fisheye + ImageAlign works out to something like 12mm! So there’s a big hole between 12 and 24mm and the inexpensive 20mm Canon lens fills it nicely.

Anyway, that’s my excuse, and I’m an ultra-wide guy by nature. The Elmarit does that to you. Now this lens, at one tenth the price, is no Elmarit, but it’s more than serviceable. Plus you don’t have to deal with the crappy (sorry, no other word to describe it) plastic Leica viewfinder which, for all its cost, gives only a very rough approximation of what you will get on film. Sorry, film only for the Leica lens if you want all of its 21mm wide on the image. That disables it for me ay any price. If you want to get flare free snaps with biting corner definition at full aperture, and you are unaware that film is dead, the price of entry to the Elmarit world is justifiable. For me, this Canon 20mm f/2.8 does fine. By f/5.6 vignetting becomes very low and the corners sharpen up nicely; frankly, they’re not so great at f/2.8. At f/5.6 an 18x print will not embarass you, provided your original is sharp and well exposed.

Yes, it has some flare spots into the sun – see above – but the image retains high contrast across the frame. All I did was bring up the shadows in this snap, using Aperture. Exposure was for the highlight on the hood. Contrast is as recorded by the camera otherwise. Works for me.

A nice lens, not all that compact, and fully automatic – lightning quick auto focus (though hardly vital with a lens this wide) and easy manual override. I bought mine from B&H in New York along with an inexpensive Canon 72mm UV filter to protect that bulging front element.

Update: After some more experience I ended up exchanging the lens for another – read here.

An intriguing new feature in the latest pro Canon DSLR

It was a rite of passage when using my rangefinder Leica bodies – the M2 and M3. Should the rangefinder alignment go out for whatever reason, you would go outside, place the camera on a tripod, focus on infinity then remove the lens. Sighting the rangefinder, lateral out-of-alignment would be corrected by using a right angled flat bladed screwdriver on the roller cam, which is eccentrically mounted. Replace the lens, check, repeat if necessary.

Vertical alignment was even easier – with the lens in place, remove the small chrome screw next to the rangefinder window on the front and use a jeweler’s screwdriver on the slotted screw thus disclosed.

This was called ‘adjusting the rangefinder’.

Much the same your friendly Leica repair specialist would do, though for your $250 you would get a three month waiting list and the obligatory German accent should you actually be lucky enough to reach this exemplar of the mechanical arts on the phone. If lucky to get him, you could plead for the return of your body after the obligatory three month absence. Good luck.

Aaah, Leica ownership. Like owning a Jaguar. You need two. One for the garage while the other is in the shop. You also need two mechanics in case one breaks down.

So lo and behold, what does the new professional grade Canon 1D Mark III offer? Why, a modern electronic version of this same feature. I quote from the awesome (as in 720 page!) B&H Digital Photography catalog which the local fork lift operator just delivered:

“AF Micro-adjustment is another example of the flexibility of the Mark III’s AF system. If a critical photographer ever finds that his system seems to consistently focus slightly in front of or behind the intended subject, the AF Micro-adjustment (C.Fn III – 07) allows the user to adjust this in fine increments to put the sharpest plane of focus back where they’d (sic) like it to be. It even allows different adjustments for up to 20 different Canon EF lenses if necessary”

So it sounds like Canon has not only added an overall adjustment to correct for an incorrectly adjusted focus sensor, they have also made it possible to key this adjustment to your lens of choice, recognizing that manufacturing tolerances would, inevitably, result in mis-collimated lenses. So you adjust things in the camera rather than at the manufacturing stage, suggesting a very smart way of keeping the cost of lenses within reason.

Now this latest Canon camera holds no interest for me. It uses a cropped sensor, making my wide angles less wide. Even if it had a full frame sensor I would not be a buyer as I simply do not need battle toughness or 10 frames a second capability, nor the massive bulk of the fixed battery grip.

But it’s nice to know that this feature will be coming to more ordinary bodies down the road, as these things inevitably do.

For some stunning Canon publicity images from this new camera, which claims a sharper sensor than its predecessor (these are clickable BIG downloads), click here. Make sure you check out Sample Image 7 – taken on the 85mm f/1.8 – the cheapest optic used and quite superb, as I know from personal experience.

f/1.4 is fast!

I have never owned a lens faster than f/2.

That said, the f/2s I have owned have invariably said ‘Leica Summicron’ on them, whether 35mm, 50mm or 90mm. Which is sort of like saying that all your sports cars have been Porsches, meaning the best of breed. At 90mm, that was an apochromatic, aspherical element lens and suffice it to say that the aperture ring on this lens only did two things – it changed the amount of light striking the film and it changed the depth of field. Definition at any aperture was the same, which is to say superb.

So I got to thinking what something faster might be like. Now f/1 is available from Leica only, and that means a second mortgage, so forget it. The f/1.2 lenses out there from Japanese makers have generally poor reputations, being more exercises in marketing, or keeping up with the Joneses if you prefer, so they are of no interest to me. But guess what? Canon just happens to make an f/1.4 for very little money and it’s auto-everything and a nice match for the 5D body. Plus, having grown up with film Leicas, I simply like the 50mm focal length.

So a couple of clicks on the B&H web site and the 50mm Canon f/1.4 was on my doorstep.

The lens is well made, if not as solid as the ‘L’, meaning the extending focusing mount has a bit of play at the closest focus distance. Auto focus is every bit as fast as the ‘L’ and, strangely, the viewfinder image does not appear much brighter than with the f/4 L – certainly not three stops (8x) brighter. Naturally, as a fixed focus 50mm, it is much smaller and lighter than the L and the absence of Image Stabilization further reduces bulk and weight. The feel, with the lens on the 5D body, is just right – a smaller lens would not feel as good in the hand. The focus ring, if you elect auto-focus override, is a bit blah – it’s geared down approximately 2:1, making for slow manual focusing.

Surfing the web, comments about this lens vary from ecstatic to disappointed, the latter writers damning the optic for soft images at full aperture. How much of this is poor Canon quality control (how much can you expect for $300, after all?) and how much is poor technique I have no idea, but my first ever f/1.4 snap suggests this is a special piece of glass.

At any rational enlargement ratio, the above snap shows critical sharpness on the right front nails and the eye, which is how I wanted it. The nose, the crowning glory of the Border Terrier, is clearly unsharp, being a few inches closer to the lens.

I took three precautions to avoid definition robbing issues. First, I used a reasonably fast shutter speed of 1/60th second. Second, in the very low lighting in which this was taken, I cranked up the ISO on the 5D to 800, knowing that grain would simply not be an issue with the 5D’s sensor. The aperture was, of course, f/1.4. Finally, and I suspect most importantly, I used Canon’s spot focusing center rectangle to place focus where I wanted it, using a partially depressed shutter buttton to lock in the selected focus point. I wonder whether many users are using the default multi-point focusing feature of Canon’s DSLRs and ending up with the wrong focus point being selected? How on earth can the camera know what you want to focus on using this technology? Optimal auto-focusing depends on a focus point with contrast and detail, as those variables drive auto-focus accuracy. Point your auto-focus camera at a white wall and just watch the mechanism hopelessly try to establish optimal focus. Selecting the nails on Bert’s right front paw satisfied the dictates for accurate focus.

So this inexpensive optic seems like a nice addition to the 5D and some more extended work will disclose whether my first positive experience is borne out over the longer term. If not, I’ll just sell the lens for eighty cents on the dollar and put the loss down as the small cost of a worthwhile experiment.

Some empirical tests deliver surprising results.

Being the ‘serious’ photographer in the family, the sad responsibility of selling off everyone’s film cameras naturally falls on my shoulders as we all move on to the world of digital picture taking.

I made mention of my mother-in-law’s magnificent Kodak Medalist II earlier, at which time I also sold her film Canon Rebel, together with its cheesy 28-80mm ‘kit’ lens.

Years earlier I had bought the same Rebel but got so tired of the execrable quality of the kit lens that we sold it and replaced it with a better 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 Canon with improved optical and mechanical quality. When she decided to upgrade to the digital Rebel, we did the same, buying the pricey EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS in lieu of the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 non-IS kit lens. A wise decision once you have handled the latter.

Anyway, I finally decided to sell the film Rebel and I dutifully listed it for sale. However, as the lens will cover a full 35mm frame I spent a few moments taking some pictures with it side by side with the costly 24-105mm f/4 L lens, both on my Canon 5D. You can get some sense of the relative sizes of the lenses here:

Both lenses at their shortest focal lengths

Both lenses fully extended

I took pictures at full aperture and f/8 with both, at 28mm, 50mm and the 105mm maximum.

Looking at the results, I must confess any differences are more imagined than real, and I know my 24-105mm L is good for enlargements to any size any rational user would want.

The L lens adds an Image Stabilizer, goes wider at a very handy 24mm, has lots of metal, very smooth controls no wobble anywhere plus …. lots of weight and bulk. By contrast, the 28-105mm lens is very light, although the mount is metal, has a horribly raspy, grabby zoom ring and the lens barrel wobbles about merrily when fully extended. Both have autofocus with the L marginally faster, but not enough to make any practical difference. Oh! and yes, before I forget, the L is $1,300 and the other is $230.

Now we may have been lucky and got a really good example of the cheaper lens, but based on this little exercise, I would recommend it without hesitation for anyone looking for light weight, fine resolution and a nice broad zoom range good for 95% of anything a regular photographer might need. You might not want to bash it about too much or expect it to last to the next millenium but, then again, you would also save a lot on chiropractor bills, not to mention over $1,000 on the lens.