First of all: The Digital Picture.com has an excellent page where you can compare the sharpness of different lenses and different apertures.
But recently I did some quick tests with my 50 mm f1.4 myself. It’s a decent lens and regarded excellent for the price range. And it’s pretty fast, featuring an aperture of 1.4. But lenses loose sharpness and contrast at low apertures, and I wanted to know exactly how much. In this lens the difference is huge. Here are two 100% crops:
50 mm @ f5.6
50 mm @ f1.4
Yes. That’s the same lens, the same camera and the same conditions. Only a different aperture value. But will you see the difference if you snap an image at full resolution and reduce the size down to what you’ll need on a web page? Let’s have a look. 21 megapixels from my Canon 5D MarkII reduced down to an image that is 500 pixels wide.
50 mm @ f5.6
50 mm @ f1.4
And I guess you’ll need a slightly trained eye to see the difference clearly. First of all you see the vignetting: darker corners. Then you see that the DOF is more shallow and that the cars at the bottom of the image in the f1.4-version is not completely focused. This is how it should be. A shallow depth of field is one of the beauties of a low aperture value.
But if you look closely you’ll see that the overall sharpness and sense of depth in general in the f5.6-image is better. Even when the image is reduced down to this size.
So, if you want the ultimate in technical quality you should plan your aperture. And buy very nice lenses…
Place the camera firmly against the window. Start video recording just before you approach the station. Add a stupid sound from the default Apple audio library.
Thank you for all the good advice. On twitter and here in this blog. This weekend I did the final shoot-out between the 24-70 f2.8L and the 24-105 f4L IS. Because I do quite a bit of video recording with my 5D MkII I settled with the IS-lens.
So now I’m covered with image stabilized L-sharpness from 24 to 200 mm. With the 24-105 and my 70-200. But it’s all at f4 and up. For really low-light work I have my trusted 50 mm f1.4 and when deciding on the not-so-fast 24-105 part of my plan is to add some more primes. Canon have some tempting primes as well. 24mm f1.4 L II and 85mm f1.2L…
But right now I’ll play around with my current range of glass for a while:
50 mm f1.4 USM
15 mm f2.8 fisheye
24-105 f4L IS
70-200 f4L IS
When upgrading to the 5D Mark II some of my EF-S lenses had to follow my old 400D (EF-S won’t work on the full frame 5D). So I need to buy some new lenses to cover my needs. But I can’t decide. This is what I currently own:
Canon 70-200 f4L IS
Canon 50 mm f1.4 USM
Canon 15 mm f2.8 fisheye
And after posting the following question on Twitter:
If you could choose three Canon lenses. Regardless of price. What would you choose?
Here are the results so far:
Seems like the 70-200 f2.8L IS is a favorite. I already have the f4L version of that lens. Mostly because it’s half the weight and half the size of the f2.8L. I like to travel light. And the f4L is razor sharp and very high quality. Here’s a set of favorites shot with that lens. So I’ll keep that one. The next is the fantastic 85 mm 1.2L. Is it worth the weight and the price? Anyone out there owning one?
Still the problem is that I don’t know if I want to go for a zoom or some primes. I need something wide that’s not as extreme as the 15mm. And probably something for portraits that is faster and hopefully smaller than the 70-200 f4L IS. A couple of alternatives:
I’m also considering the legendary 135 mm f2L when I need more speed than the 70-200 f4L can give me. Or how about the very versatile and razor sharp 100mm f2.8 Macro?
What do you think? I need some advice. And at this point I don’t want to spoil the party by talking price. I want advice on the best solution. Your favorites. Regardless of price. Links to reviews. Etc…
Update:
I’m carrying my camera in my bag more or less every day. I shoot lots of stuff in natural and low light. Don’t like using a flash. Currently I use the 50 mm 1.4 a lot because of the combination of speed and light weight.
I just updated the firmware on my new 5D Mark II. The firmware is the operating system in my camera. The software that decides how the menus on the screen should look, what the buttons do, and basically everything about how my camera handles the data from the CMOS that sits in there, collecting light when I snap images.
I didn’t get any extra functionality, but two issues that I never had problems with are now fixed.
Yes, it works fine. But we want more functionality. We want 25p and manual controls for video recording. And in this world of software it is possible for people to make that functionality. For you. For free. Either by hacking the whole camera. Or if you provided an API. Or even better, if you simply published the development tools and software.
Your revenue is based on selling excellent cameras and excellent lenses. And I guess Nikon and your other competitors have hacked and examined your firmware in detail already.
Open your firmware and you’ll see 25p on the 5D MkII before you can say “development kit”. And you’ll see all kinds of stuff that you and your competitors never thought of.
And because I’ve made the links in this article pretty non-explaining I’ll repeat the link to CHDK as well! A very interesting project that already has enhanced the Canon firmware on a couple of cameras.
So far I’ve made two videos of the images I describe in this article. The one here at the top and another two minutes version. Read on to learn how I did this, to see the other video and to download the videos and images in high quality. And if you want to watch this video here at the top in HD quality you have to click through to Vimeo.
So I started shooting images with my Canon 400D. From the same spot each time, but not through my window. I found a spot outside that gave more or less the same framing each time I placed my camera. So, I went out on our balcony snapping some images at pretty irregular intervals all through 2008 .
All images shot in RAW. The three exposures where: normal, +2 EV and -2 EV.
In addition to the images I decided to record some audio at the same place. Using my Canon S2 IS and my Canon HF10 I recorded simple background sounds trough 2008 as well. Not with exact connections to each image. More with a focus on getting audio from winter, spring, summer and autumn.
All together giving me a pretty decent range of material to put together some experiments.
At the top of this article you find a 40 second version that show one year. Using the 10mm wide angle images. Right above you find a two minute version made from the 55mm zoomed in images.
First I used Photomatix to make HDR images of the ones I decided to use. Mostly because the HDR effect makes the images flat so that the difference in light and shadows won’t disturb the transitions in my video.
Then I used Photoshop to align all the images. Placing the camera manually at the same spot each time won’t give the exact same spot. So I needed some fine adjustment. Photoshop does this. Here’s how:
First load the images you have chosen into layers by using “File->Scripts->Load files into stack“
When you have found all your files make sure to check “Attempt to automatically align…“
Give your computer huge amounts of time and get back when it has finished. Now Photoshop has adjusted all the images and put them on separate layers in one file. The next thing you have to do is to crop the image. Because of the adjustments the images are not the exact same size. A crop will do the trick.
When the computer is done cropping you export the layers to files. “File->Scripts->Export Layers to files“
Now you have a folder with a bunch of images with the same framing. I decided to do simple dissolves between them.
And ended up with a project in Final Cut Express that looked like the image above. I didn’t want one dissolve at a time. I wanted to make some kind of flow where one dissolve is taken over by the new one before it is finished. As you can see from the timeline my dissolves overlap.
The free downloads
First of all: please comment here or contact me if you use the images. I’ll link to all cool projects made from these files!
For commercial use please contact me. Or you can simply buy non exclusive royalty free use by purchasing the full quality file here: OneYear40seconds1920x1080.30p.H264.mp4
It’s $99,- and the money will be spent on hosting for my projects.
For commercial use of the full quality non branded still images you can buy the complete package of high resolution stills here: EiriksoStills.zip
But I know what I’m doing and want the full resolution RAW files to make something really cool!
Please comment here or contact me and I’ll provide you with what you want. RAW files, video footage, more audio from the same spot etc…
Whats’s next?
Eh. Well. I just upgraded my camera to a Canon 5D Mark II. Giving me a possibility of getting even higher quality footage from this nice view of some trees… Guess I’ll snap some images on my balcony through 2009 as well. 🙂
So now you know. That’s the difference between these different lenses on a Canon 5D MkII fullframe camera. And if you don’t like the distortion of the fisheye you can remove it.
In some images you want the fisheye distortion, but in other images you might want to remove it.
And there are several applications that can help you with that. Regardless of what fisheye you’re using.
The most common way to remove the distortion is to squeeze the image in the middle. Something like what PTlens will do for you. In addition you can adjust perspective, rotation and a couple of other settings.
But this leaves you with an image that has to be cropped and if there are people along the edges of the image they will look very distorted.
Another program called Fisheye Hemi aim to fix that problem. And will try to remove the fisheye distortion using advanced algorithms to keep as much as possible and do the adjustments but keeping people and other details in the image without distortion.
I’ve made a simple flash animation to show the different images. Click the buttons below the image to change from original, to the one corrected with fisheye hemi to the one corrected with PTlens.
There are a lot of programs that is made to help you adjust lens distortions. I’ve also tried DxO, but simply found it too difficult to use. For people using Windows I’ve heard positive remarks of RectFish.
Please leave a comment if you have a favourite that I haven’t mentioned.
Had to replace some ink jet cartridges today. Canon, I love your products. But this?
Shame on you.
I don’t need half a kilo of packaging and manuals for each cartridge. This is ridiculous. Maybe you missed it, but companies try to show that they are environmentally friendly now. You know? Trying to be nice to our planet?
eirikso 