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

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Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9 x 9 x 9 inches ; 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00009XVCD
• Item model number: 2543A004
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 25, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

With a Canon TS-E lens, you can control the angle of the plane of focus and the picture’s perspective. The effects of large-format camera movements can be obtained with TS-E lenses for EOS cameras. Although manual focusing is required, automatic aperture control enables autoexposure and autoexposure bracketing. The tilt and shift axes intersect at a 90° angle. They can be made parallel at an authorized Canon Service Facility (modified at owner’s expense).

The widest tilt-shift lens in the Canon system, and a marvelous problem solver for architecture, scenics, and many other applications calling for a wide-angle perspective. With floating optics, it’s sharp from infinity down to 1 ft. (0.3m), and it uses a ground and polished Aspherical front element to assure excellent quality. Like all the TS-E lenses, it has a fully automatic diaphragm, so there’s never a risk of forgetting to stop the lens down.

Product Description

Compact, wide-angle lens which enables tilt and shift movements. The floating optical system, with an aspherical lens element, corrects distortion and other aberrations. High image quality and compactness are the result. Great for architecture, landscapes and other wide-angle shots.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Lens, more manual skills needed, June 21, 2007

By	MGMcd (Columbia, MD USA) - See all my reviews

I have had this lens for a few days. I ordered it since I was tired of stitching bad photos by hand, and finding everything out of alignment. I do mostly indoor and outdoor architecture, and nature scenes, so needed something with both a panoramic sweep, and to maintain parallelism in my subjects.

The lens allows 11 degrees of shift to either side of center, and it rotates, so shift is either left/right, or up/down. Out to 5 degrees of shift, I am finding the auto settings are not too perturbed. After 5 degrees, some manual setting skill is needed. I will develop more of those soon, I can tell. The lens also allows tilt capabilities, which produce a nice selective focus effect, not unlike a lensbaby. I don't use much of that, but may do some portrait work with it.

The build quality of this lens is rock solid. The optics are very nice. I got a Hoya UV filter, and there is not much light loss, although I think there is some peripheral CA.

Straight through photos (no tilt/shift) are very sharp out to the edge, but this is a manual focus lens. For my work, I set it to infinity and that is no problem. For closer subjects, this could be challenging for someone with old eyes. A focusing screen is next.

I attached a photo above of the US Capitol. This was hand stitched in PhotoShop from two images shot 5 degrees left and right off center. ON A TRIPOD, of course. Note that there is no misalignment of the vertical lines in the Capitol building. In fact, the blend line goes between the first and second bays next to center on the left side of the center section of the building. Even knowing where this line was, I couldn't see it. The alignment and metering is so good that there is a couple along the curb in the lower left, and the woman turns between shots, and there is some double exposure effect, but she is right where she is supposed to be from the previous shot 10 degrees to the other side. The original image was more than 5' wide, so I had to shrink this one down for posting.

Definitely a special purpose lens, but if you want to do good architectural shots (to preserve paralellism) this is the best you can do without going to medium format. IMHO.

Update from June 2008: I notice that someone has posted an image that seems to be taken without using the Shift effect, so that the flagpoles in the image are tilted toward the center of the frame. This happens when the plane of the image sensor is rotated out of parallel with the flagpole, and indicates the lens was not used properly for this shot. The poster there should have mounted the camera on a tripod, rotated the camera body and lens appropriately, and then shifted the lens UP. Then the flagpoles would be parallel with the edge of the frame and not be tilting inwards.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very cool specialty lens, May 30, 2008

By	Jan Klier (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had this lens for close to a year now, and have had many opportunities to use it. It's a great specialty lens if you frequently shoot what it is best at, and those type of shots are worth the money you spend on the lens.

There are two separate purposes for this lens: Shifting the field or shifting the plane of focus. The shifting the field applies to architectural and landscape photography. Tilting plane of focus is among other things an interesting and unique portrait style.

I've found that I use the shift 95% of the time on both architecture and landscape. I've found the tilt to be marginally usable on this lens, mostly because at 24mm this is not a great portrait lens - you would go for the 90mm version. The facial distortions at 24mm (particularly on full frame bodies) are just plain hideous and overpower any benefit gained from the tilted depth of field.

Any time you photograph a building this lens is exceptional in allowing you to retain the proper perspective. That's what tilt-shift lenses are famous for.

However, I've also found it helpful in landscape shots where I want to the move the horizon up or down to avoid a 50/50 split without introducing curvature on the horizon due to the wide angle. That can be particularly helpful when shooting canyons from the rim in Arizona, or wide angle beach scenes, both of which have strong horizon lines.

The two challenges to master with this lens are that it is manual focus only, which many of us are not as used to anymore with today's cameras, and the fact that a significant shift plays games with the camera's exposure meter. I've found that I either have to meter the scene with a light meter, or meter in camera unshifted, then switch to manual mode and shift the lens. Both workable, but extra steps forcing this to be a lens for very deliberate shooting.

People interested in selective focus may want to check out the Lensbaby lenses, which are purely artistic, but allow a lot more play with selective focus then this lens, which will only tilt in one direction.

In summary, I enjoy having this lens, and it has served me well. But it takes some time to get used to and to know which scenes it will help and which ones it will not work with.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for what it is, March 27, 2009

By	Luving it (Seaside, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Never used cameras bigger than 35mm so can't comment on the similarity to the large frame world. But I suppose if someone does come from the large frame world, using this lens would be a piece of cake anyway. I am a hobbyist and like to use this for tall buildings and large landscape. On Canon 5D, it's not super wide, but wide enough. On a 40D it's much less wide, but the tilt effect is more prominent.

For best result it should be used on a solid tripod, but I found hand held completely possible in out door day light. Manual focusing is not that bad if you have camera with live view or a bright view finder (a 2x view finder would also help but then you need a tripod again). The metering used to be a science in the film world. But now with RAW and DPP (or photoshop), you can just give a few tries and find the right combination in no time. M mode is very useful since the camera won't mess your setting up once you settle on a combination of aperture and speed.

Can't wait to get out and use it on some real worthwhile scenes. If you've never used one, try it and see if it works for you! I don't know why this one is designated as L while the other two are not. I got my lens second hand so I can not comment on initial quality. But as a second hand in great shape, I'd say this is indeed an L lens. The lens is very sharp without T/S. The original owner told me it's sharper than the 24mmL. I don't have the 24mmL so I can't comment on that. But this lens certainly is really sharp all around. T/S increases CA around the border quite a bit.