Customer Reviews

Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L UD Aspherical Ultra Wide Tilt-Shift Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First the lens itself is an excellent wide angle prime. Very sharp edge to edge even wide open. Virtually no flare. But it should not be bought for that purpose. The 14mm f2.8 is cheaper (at $2,000!) and faster. The 16 to 35mm f2.8 zoom is even cheaper and much more versatile. Also, this lens does not auto focus and has a big unprotected bulb in front that requires special care in handling.

What the lens does is produce wide angle shots that cannot be obtained from any other lens. In a normal wide angle, tilting the camera so it is not parallel to the ground makes the vertical lines tilt strongly open or closed. The more you tilt the camera, the stronger the effect. Sometimes you want that effect. It can enhance the height of things. But other times you don't. This lens offers the ability to control line tilt or eliminate it altogether. Set the camera so lines are all straight or tilted to the extent you want then shift the lens itself up, down or sideways to capture the desired field of view. The effect is amazing.

But that is not all. Because lines can be kept straight, shooting two or more shots by shifting the lens instead of the camera facilitates stitching multiple shots into very wide angle images. It is possible to get a shot wider than a fish eye lens with no linear distortion.

And that is still not all. The ability to tilt the lens helps depth of field. I won't try to explain the principle (there are plenty of sites on the internet that describe it) but with the camera on a tripod, it is possible to set the basic shot, shift the lens to the desired point, tilt the lens until everything is in focus up to within a very short distance from the lens, take that shot, then shift the lens the other direction with no or the opposite tilt and take a second shot, then stitch the two shots to get an image wider than a fish eye in focus from inches to infinity even with the lens wide open.

This lens is mostly useful for architectural and landscape photography. You will not use it to photograph the kids or carry around town on vacation (unless you take photographic vacations). It takes a lot of work. Basically, the shot has to be set up in manual exposure and focus before the lens is shifted. A tripod is not absolutely necessary but will be useful for most shots, especially if you plan to stitch multiple shots. It takes those of us old enough to remember back to the days when everything had to be set manually. For those not that old, it will be a shock to have to make so many settings. But for certain shots, there is no substitute for this lens.

It is probably a professional only lens. The cost, effort and basic photographic knowledge required means this lens will never hit the mass market. But for those who like to take landscape panoramas, it is almost a necessity.

UPDATE

I recently had a chance to photograph a slot canyon. It was narrow and tall and I thought a perfect place to try out this lens. I did get some good shots but I was much more impressed with the 16 to 35mm f2.8 II. It was a sharp as the 17mm, easier to use and a lot more versatile. Part of the problem with the 17mm was the work required to set up a shot. It took forever and the results were uneven. This was not a place where tilting lines were a problem so I had the highest hope for shooting multiple shots shifting from side to side to create very wide angles. I found that the 17mm would produce a shot that appeared to be wider angle because I could get closer but the 16mm would get the same shot just not as elongated. The 16mm shot was the more impressive for that particular place. At another site I was shooting an arch and found I could easily get the whole span in the 16mm. A two shot stitch with the 17mm was no more impressive and had a problem with darkening at each end.

Bottom line, the 17mm is no substitute for other lenses. It is a highly specialized lens useful when you have to stitch multiple shots or keep vertical lines straight. The 16mm to 35mm zoom and the 15mm fisheye will be better choices for 95% of all the landscape panoramas and canyon shots.

SECOND UPDATE

I recently tested this lens agains the 14mm II and 16-35 II zoom in a simple landscape panorama with the sun in the upper left quarter of the frame. The 16-35 flared the most, to the point the photo was ruined. It had a high quality filter that may have added to the effect but I was surprised with the amount of flare, which was mostly thick uneven rays emanating from the sun and not multi colored shapes across the frame. The 14mm also flared badly around the sun but less than the zoom. It had no filter. The biggest surprise was the 17mm. It had virtually no flare. Slight rays around the sun but a nice effect. Shifting the lens to both sides then stitching the shots together produced a stunning shot, very wide and clear. This will be my choice for that kind of shot in the future.

If the price has not completely deterred you, and you love wide angle images, this is your lens. I cannot rate it high enough. I shoot it on a 5d mark 2, and it is best used on a full frame camera. It is sharp! Not as sharp as the Nikon 14-24 with the 16:9 adapter, but it blows away the canon 20mm, the older version of the 24 mm ts-e, and the 24 - 70 L . It is a beauty to behold. And the images are truly remarkable. I can't imagine you will be disappointed.

Although the nikon 14 -24 sharper and a SUPERIOR lens in terms of image quality, the 17 mm ts-e can do things that will simply make you happy. Using the shift function, you can take a series of three images, that are overlapping by 30% or so, and then merge them in photoshop to give you 2 things. 1) you will have an effective sensor size of something like 48mm x 36 mm( depending on the direction of the shift) and 2) with that size sensor you will still have a 17mm lens! The files are big. On my 5d mark 2, they sometimes work out to be 500 - 600 MB. If you are going to print 8 x 10 or 13 x 19 it does not matter, but if you are going to go large, 30 x 40 and up, it makes a huge difference. You are effectively getting medium format sensor resolution with a 35 mm camera ( Once you merge the images together)These files have an angle of view on a 35 mm camera, that is equal to about a 10 mm lens, with no fisheye effect and little distortion unless you are close to things. This lens will give you images that will amaze you. The perspective( in these merged files) is real but unreal. It is unlike anything else.

The build quality is beautiful. It is hard to imagine having any disappointments in that area. The front lens element is a bit scary. Beautiful and scary at the same time. I think they call this the sublime. It is.

You have to watch for flare when your light source is in front of you, but I have actually found some of the flares to work well with the images I have taken. That would be an individual issue, I suppose.

If you think it should be 500 or a thousand less, you are wrong. It is a steal at 2500. It has changed the way I make images and see the world with the camera. It has opened new possibilities. If you are serious about the images you make and you love wide angle because it mimics the way your eye sees the world, then the money is well spent.

Please also note, that for archtectural and landscape photogrpahers, the perspective correction of the shift will also make you very happy. If you have expereince with a view camera and love the movements, this is close to that and in a very usable, functional form.

Personally I have not done much with the tilt function. I have played with the out of focus thing, but the lens is so wide and has such amazing depth of field that it does not easily give you the toy look of a longer tilt shift lens. But so what?

I have just shot an architectural interiors job, and using the shift function has given me a series of i images that would otherwise simply be impossible. Both my client and I love these shots!

If this lens appeals to you, and if you still have doubt, don't worry, you will love this lens every second you use it. Enjoy!

This review is based on using this lens for the last month or so on a Canon 1Ds Mark III camera.

General positive aspects of the lens:

- Build quality is superb
- Image sharpness unshifted and untilted is excellent in the corners even at f/4
- When shifted fully, image sharpness decreases in the corners at f/4 but is once again critically sharp when the lens is stopped down to f/8
- CA is absent across the frame unshifted
- When fully shifted, there is mild CA in the corners, but is still considerably better than most lenses

Negative aspects:

- Price of course. It would have been great it this lens was $500 or even $1000 cheaper. However though the current price is very high, I wouldn't say the lens is poor value.
- Bulbous front element, so no front filters. This will be a deal breaker for a lot of landscape shooters or anyone who want to use filters. You also have to be careful with flare. I've had shots where the sun was almost behind me and yet produced flare in the image. There is no lens hood, so in those cases you'll need to use your hand as a shade to reduce flare.

In the end though, its unlikely that one is going to just impulse purchase this lens. Chances are you'll have specific uses for it and so you'll know what you are buying. You shouldn't hesitate because of optical quality though, its superb and I believe the lens has enough resolution to drive higher and higher MP cameras of tomorrow.

I'm a self-taught DSLR shooter and this is only the second lens I've used regularly, after a 50mm f/1.4prime (80mm portrait equivalent) - in fact, that prime sits in the bag all the time now, since this lens is so fun and versatile for what I like to do. It would seem absurd to put such a good lens on a cheaper camera like the T1i, but the resulting field of view (about 28mm equivalent, in 35mm terms) is very useful.

First off, you must use live view - it's the new "ground glass," if any large format users will agree - and for that you probably need a newer camera with the "920,000 dot" (640x480) LCD screen (the newer pro bodies have this, and so do the 7D and T1i), or tether your camera to a computer so you can see the effects of the tilt. Folks mention the focusing screens but I don't see the use when I'm more interested in aligning the plane of focus to the landscape and constantly moving the live view's magnification point back and forth. Even with the T1i's 3" screen, I almost always magnify to 5x and sometimes even to 10x for critical focus. Just a few degrees of tilt make a huge difference, and once you learn to tilt less, instead of tilting more, getting close and far points in focus becomes relatively quick - doable within half a minute.

It's a bit annoying that it's not immediately obvious to the casual viewer that you are Hot Stuff for playing with the shift function when you tilt the plane of focus along a wall or something (on the other hand it's exceptionally easy to make shots with the "toy landscape" trick), but in any case it does it perfectly. It's more fun if you shoot video (and even at night the T1i does very well, if you can ignore the ants running all over due to the high gain applied to the sensor; shooting wide open doesn't help much though you have a nice thin depth of field) where you can make it obvious what you're doing with the focus. The precise, quiet focus ring doesn't introduce any perceptible noise even with the T1i's infamously sensitive internal microphone, as long as you're careful not to scrape your fingers on it. In normal use, the lens doesn't have a high maximum magnification, but you can still get quite close to things with it - the focus ring stops turning a bit to the left of 1/4 meters, somewhere around 9 inches. I think that's pretty stunning, really, and really helps you get the most out of the tilt as you can very brazenly draw attention to something by starting the plane of focus right next to the lens.

I'm not so enamored of the shift function, as it makes things rather more pointy at the far edge than seems natural, but it's a necessary evil that I use as needed. I haven't noticed any vignetting (keeping in mind I'm on a crop sensor body), and I haven't needed to use full shift for perspective correction either. Even a block away from a 20 story Art Deco skyscraper, I've got enough shift to fit the top in. I've gotten acceptable results even handheld, wide-open.

The lens is clearly much better than my camera with its compact-like noisy pixels. That said, I've shot bright lights behind trees in the dark and managed to get some obvious flare, and have gotten some flare in other conditions (like the sunsets I think this lens is well suited for photographing). Along with blur quality, though, the flare is of reasonable quality, and usually just one obvious small speck, rather than a trail of them in various sizes.

Now, the big bulb on the front makes me plenty respectful of this lens, so I store it in a Lowepro 1W lens bag. It's a perfect combination. I recently sat the lens bulb-down (thankfully on a glove) and then touched the element by mistake, but you can hardly tell; there's just a few streaks in the center to clean off later.

Oh, and it's sharp wide open.

I may have gotten a little carried away but I liked the new Canon 24TS so much I bought the 17 as well. For me, the 17TS is a paradox. On the one hand, the shift makes it possible to photograph buildings in a realistic fashion (not falling over.) On the other, for most subjects, the perspective of a 17mm lens looks unrealistic to me. If you like an ultra wide angle perspective (sometimes called perspective distortion, but it isn't) you'll love this lens. You can photograph a studio apartment and it will look bigger than a ballroom. Anything that's close to the lens will appear gigantic and disproportionate to the rest of the scene. Of course many people like this and even Ansel had his "near/far" approach. But I find I use this lens mostly when I can't use a longer focal length of if I need more shift than I can get from the the 24TS.

Regarding the cost, having been around expensive and exotic lenses for most of my life, I have to say, compared to what? The quality is superb and there is nothing else like it. Canon is too well-run to lose money on something like this and it's impressive they can sell it at this price.

This remarkable lens is now an active part of my lens kit, serving special purpose and landscape photography. This is the most creative lens that I have ever been privileged to own or use. I often carry the 14mm L II for faster and wider interior shots but use the 17mm T &S as first choice. Focus is not that time consuming and once you experiment with the tilt and shift controls you will have a preset that needs only fine tuning to produce the most amazing photos that I have taken to date.
Aftere one month of use the retaining screw for the tilt knob fell out and I did not notice it as it was night time. Have to buy a new screw which seems not up to Canon standards. I will check the rest of the screws on the knobs on this as well as on my 24mm T & S lens. Definintely below standards that I have come to expect from Canon.

PRO: You must use this lens if you shoot architecture or interiors. Even it you have to buy a full frame Canon body to use it's full potential because you use some other system, just consider this lens & camera a necessary purchase. The TS-E 24mm, a splendid lens, often lacks that little bit more to make the framing perfect. The TS-E 17mm gives that little extra that makes everything right.
CON: I miss having a filter to protect the front surface of the lens. Just pay attention to what you are doing.

I love this lens! Only thing I wish is that the body extended beyond the protruding lens so I could protect it with a filter, just have to be VERY careful...

Does what it is designed to do. Beautiful construction. More difficult to focus than the 24mm, and image quality may be a hair less crisp. There will be some distortion to angles (walls/ceilings/light fixtures etc) near the corners..but 17 is 17 so there you go. Construction is top quality. Mine has been dropped (dinged the steel housing) and it still works perfectly...Generally i use my 24mm if I can but in a pinch this thing is perfect.

Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L UD Aspherical Ultra Wide Tilt-Shift Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

I have had this lens a year now and used it in professional situations and also on personal trips to places such as Yosemite, Tokyo, Sydney, Los Angeles taking exteriors, coastlines, cityscapes, interiors and even a little reportage (a selection here [...] ) . I am a 6'5" person and find the lens easy to handhold, particularly for shifted shots in landscape and portrait mode - it is great to have 1600 no noise ASA where f8/11 handheld shifting becomes possible in well lit areas! But the reason I said this is my default prime is that unshifted this lens is just fantastic, at f5.6 and below the whole frame is super sharp, it blows away my zeiss and other L lenses and the 17mm UWA is for me the ideal - 15/16 I found too wide and 20 + too constricting. So when in photo mode the 17mm is on the camera at all times while walking or recon'ing some scenes (apart from my 100-400 for completely different situations) - it is fantastic to have shift available when you get the urge to tilt up or down it takes me seconds now to turn the locks off, move it up, quickly exposure compensate, line up the grid all without taking my eyes off the viewfinder! OK a world away from my 7x5" Zeiss large format camera, or my Mamiya shift kit from many moons ago, this feels almost like a pocket cam - price excepted. So in summary highly recommended, with practise you don't need to be using tripods and f22 all the time BUT look after that lens front - I only take the lens hood off seconds before the shot and it goes straight back on even If I know I will be taking more shots in the area - second nature now.