Customer Reviews

Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Ultra Wide Tilt-Shift Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After years of missing large format cameras with their swings and tilts, and of course their wonderful large film size that together produce incredible images, I think I have found something that will lessen my longing.

This tilt-shift lens combined with a high-pixel DSLR (like the Canon EOS 5D Mark II) enable a photographer to produce images that can rival the best from medium format cameras and even can under the right circumstances push image quality into 4 x 5 inch sheet film territory.

I got this lens, snapped it onto my camera and got excellent results right away. It helped to spend some time refreshing my memory about how to use tilts and shifts but aside from that, there was nothing mysterious about this lens other than the magical quality it possesses for producing sharp, colorful images that can be free of converging lines or offer incredible field of focus control.

Other's have described various technical qualities of this lens and most online reviews describe the several improvements this lens offers over it's predecessor.

The big ones are better control over chromatic abberation and the ability to independently control the axes of shift and tilt. Closer focus is also a bonus.

Opinion varies about sharpness in the corners but all agree this is perhaps one of the sharpest lenses in Canon's line-up. My example delivers sharp corners so perhaps my copy is better that some of the reviewers?

I had to choose between this lens and more traditional ones (I was looking at the 70-200mm) and decided that this lens offered me the things I could get with no other lens - a lens great for interiors, exteriors (architecture) and new landscape dimensions. I can get the zoom later! This lens is unique. I wasn't sure how much I would like it but now that I've had some seat time with it, I could never think of being without it.

Usual L quality - beefy, precise, and consistent behavior for all controls!

Not a bargain price but it's the old adage - you get what you pay for!

If you are serious about landscape invest in this lens and you will not be sorry. Even if you don't care about the tilt and shift, get this lens because it is ridiculously sharp everywhere on the lens, the corners, sides, middle, etc. No CA, minimal flare, etc, etc. Everything you hear about this lens is true! Focusing on 5d2 via live mode and 10x zoom is a joy, just can't say enough good things. 24mm is the perfect focal length, no need for zoom. The build quaility is rock solid. This is the sharpest lens canon makes, at any focal length, so far.

This is an important update on the TSE 24mm lens from Canon.
This new version is heavier, more versatile and definitely a step up optically.
Distortion is practically non-existent, which is a big plus for architectural photography: you don't have to correct the pictures with software like PTLens.
Chromatic aberration is almost inexistent, and sharpness is outstanding.

The tilt feature makes it possible to take a picture of a garden (or any planar scene) with the foreground and the background all in focus. The minimal focusing distance is 21cm. By the end of the first day I was proficient at using this feature.
The shift feature is used mainly for architectural shots. You'll get better results (edge sharpness and proportions) with such a lens than with perspective correction in software, and you will save time.

It's a manual focus lens that should be used with a tripod. Focusing when using the tilt feature requires a bit of practice to get it right, and is considerably helped by using Live View. For this reason you should use it on a 5D mark 2.

When used at the extreme shift position the top of the image is soft wide open but becomes acceptable at f/11. On this count it does better than the Nikon 28mm pc lens I was using before (which is an older design).

One problem with this lens is that it is very obviously a "professional lens", so I would not go walking around in a poor country with this lens. It's also very heavy so that would get tiring.

One wonders if it could not be improved further with autofocus, but that would require redesigning the camera as well, as well as adding a motor to operate the shift, which is a non obvious proposition.

Please take your time to get familiar with the locking switches on this lens before you go around in the field as you might accidentally try to unmount the lens from your camera when trying to change the axis of shift.

This is an amazing piece of engineering. You need patience to use it properly. It's great for landscapes, cityscapes and architecture, including interior shots. You can hand hold it but it will be easier to use of you have a monopod or tripod. It's a manual focus lens, so you need a Canon DSLR that has live view and the ability to magnify the image on the LCD screen I tend to turn on live view, magnify the image, focus the lens, and then turn off live view and frame the shot with the viewfinder, talking care not to move the focus ring.

You can (1) shift the whole lens up on its mount to accurately straighten the converging lines you get when pointing a wide angle lens up; (2) keep both the foreground and distance background in focus by tilting the font of the lens down or up slightly; (3) create a panorama on a full-frame DSLR equal to the width of a 15 mm lens by taking a shot with the lens shifted to the right on its mount, taking a second shot with the lens shifted to the left, and merging them in software; and (4) shift the lens left (or right) to get a photo of a reflective surface (like a mirror) that looks like it's taken head on, but is taken from the side, thereby avoiding having your own reflection in the frame.

The lens mount rotates so you can use both tilt or shift in landscape mode or portrait mode. You can combine shift and tilt, and you can rotate the lens to set both functions at various non-standard angles to adapt to all sorts of situations, like keeping converging lines straight when you're looking down or up at an odd angle. You can fix distortion and out-of-focus problems or get creative by introducing distortion and out-of-focus areas.

With all of this, the lens has excellent optical characteristics, as noted in other reviews and on dpreview.com. Its mechanical construction is excellent, although the locking mechanisms that keep the tilt and shift angles in place are not made for fast use by large fingers.

There's a learning curve, but you can shorten it by reading the manual that comes with the lens and by looking on line for tutorials and for tables that tell you how much to tilt the lens to keep the foreground in focus. (Only 1 to 1.5 degrees is enough when you're at eye level.) Patience will reward you with shots you can't get with any lens on a normal fixed mount.

Best lens I own...I shoot architecture and this is the king. Crazy sharp (as has been said many times here) and compared to the 17mm this thing is easy to focus (in bright sun I use an viewer for liveview). I'll also note that this thing has taken a beating...I use it all the time..it's been bumped and banged about a fair bit and still performs perfectly. Amazing piece of glass..

I own most of Canon's best lens, However, the tilt shift lens is the sharpest, has excellent color reproduction, and enables incredible depth of field adjustments as well as perspective corrections It is the best lens in my collection and seems to be staying on the camera most days. It is excellent for architectural and landscape photography and I highly recommend it. Yes, it is expensive, but worth every penny.

Not a lot to say here. This lens is not a zoom, not fast and it has a very large image circle. So there's every reason to expect it will perform and boy, does it ever. It's true that shifting, especially if you shift all the way, lowers the image quality. But this lens is so sharp and has so little chromatic aberration there seems to be resolution to spare. Image circle, freedom from CA, vignetting, and ergonomics are all superior to the Nikon 24PC (and that lens is no slouch, either.)

Good as the 24TS is, I would recommend stopping it down, even when you're not shifting. I know the test reports always say "Its fabulous wide open so stopping down just invites diffraction." This is certainly true in theory and probably in a test environment, but I find it's best at f/8 - f/11, even unshifted.

Liked the 24TS so much I bought the 17TS also. While the 24TS lacks the coolness factor of the 17, the 24 is, in my opinion a much more useful focal length. (It's also a tiny bit sharper but they are both first class.)

I have never used this kind of lens before.
After exploring the user manual and going through a lot of discussion regarding how to use it, I was finally able to enjoy the magical effect of it.

The resolving power of this lens is top notch. Much better corner quality compared to the 24L II I owned on my 5d mark II.

The really cool thing about this lens is that you can create quite some personalized photos.

I am still in the learning phase and this is the lens that creates magic.

The only thing is that it is really expensive.

If you have ever desired the features of a view camera, but are now using a full frame DSLR, this lens will give you 90% of focusing options. It IS heavy, but that is because of the solid construction and optics. Still, it is better than hauling around a fully equiped view camera. The optics are as good as any review you have read - it may be the best lens Canon ever produced.

Since my specialty is interior design and architectural photography, a wide angle tilt shift lens is a necessity for vertical perspective alignment. This lens aligns verticals pretty close to perfection. A little bit, but not much photo shop work is still necessary but I do not need to use a large format camera.