I don't know if Michael is planning on testing any, but I most likely will be. Of course, I don't have my 1Ds mkII yet, but my deposit has been paid. I currently have the 16-35 and the 24 TS/E.  I've rejected the canon offerings as a bit too expensive and heavy.  I'm looking to pick up a 35/1.4, 18, and 25 in the Contax Distagon family--go the ebay way; if it doesn't work out can always sell them again (for the same or more!). I'll probably compare these to the Canon zoom, as I don't own the primes. A great (and reasonably) lightweight kit I used when I owned my Nikons was the 20, 24, 35 1.4 (AIS), 35-70 2.8, and the 80-200....I later had the wider (and bigger/heavier) zooms, but never had the same warmy & fuzzy feeling about them.....

Since I keep hearing opinions, but am seeing no real data on this issue, I thought I'd try to post any examples of softness and CA on the web....

Your brave - most of the delivery companies in our area would not take too kindly to the action you are discussing. Surely it would be safer to wait for one to 'accidentally' fall of the back of a lorry

I'm very convinced that 17-40 with 10D is a happy combination and that 10D is surely an ideal wedding shooting camera.  The confusion about trying to evalutate the Canon ultrawide zoom reviews is that often it's unclear what camera the lens was tried on; film 35mm, 6 Mpixel digital, or 1ds.  However, even with very qualified reviewers discussing 17-40 for 1ds, you get conflicting information.  This lens is frequently referred to as an excellent lens (even for 1ds) and it's frequently referred to as a dog. I have seen with my own eyes corner crops of real life photos with very noticeable softenss at 17mm.  Jonathan's Yosemite waterfall picture even showed this corner softness in an 800 pixel wide image.  Sample variations?  Different ideas what's "excellent"?  I'm not a corner softenss fan, so I'd want a lens to be very sharp corner to corner at all focal lengths before I'd call it "excellent".  In any case, I'm not buying any more zooms without personal testing of a few lenses to choose from.

By the above statement one can conclude that you have no EXIF data available for the lens.  Which further infers that it was indeed one of your Zeiss primes.  Which further infers at least one of your Zeiss primes has a severe falloff problem for at least one of its aperture settings...

Ooops, I hit reply too soon.  Here's the test images.

As forI don't think anyone is claiming this or would claim it.  However, we were not discussing test patterns exclusively, but very visible corner softness and falloff in actual real life landscape photos.  Sure, these defects may not be fatal and some folks have done great photography with 35mm film, but all other things being equal I want the best corners I can get and the overall best resolution.  That doesn't compromise what I do in the field.  I get out a LOT and my outings are hugely strenuous and I want the best possible results for all that effort.  That means the best possible equipment along with the getting out in the field as much as possible.  To each his own.

Don't shop around too much in some of the other threads happening just now if you want to keep your good impression.  We really are generally more polite and kind and tolerant here than most forums, but now and then....
In any case I think Jack and I are both more interested in getting to the bottom of this than in equipment one-upmanship.  I'm ready to bail on any of my Zeiss lenses if I can find something (especially a zoom) that's actually substantially sharper.  I won't bail on any of my lenses for what I consider a minor falloff issue even if it turns out there's something with less corner fallof.  Easy enough to fix, but soft corners are pretty well impossible to fix and I don't want them.  I don't think I have them either.  The testing isn't that hard and I'm just not seeing any soft corners for any of my lenses at f11 (don't care about wide open).

Hey, no need to keep "no offense-ing" me.  I don't get offended over such things, only gratuitous personality slams.  I know there's a lot I don't know and I haven't ever done any BD correcting, but only read about the image degradation thing.

Yeah, I wasn't too clear.  I've occasionally done some doctoring of boring skies with cloud cloning and if a dark corner is involved...

I'll take your word for it.  Several people suggested that in the thread, so I figured, OK, maybe.  It must have been the 18mm lens, since the 28 and 35 have way way less falloff than that.  In fact as you can see from my test results here, the 18 images have less falloff than the other picture.  You'll also notice that the bottom corner falloff is less than top, which I've noticed before too, so why that image had such drastic falloff (though probably f11, and not f8 like the test strip here) is beyond me.  The 18mm picture on my "suggestions" thread also had very mild falloff that only one person commented on because he thought maybe it was intentional, since he thought it enhanced the image.  

In any case, the 18mm falloff I can live with, since usually it's pretty mild even before any correction and I don't see a problem with the 28 and 35mm lenses at all.

My photography bubble is made of indestructible material and has little to do with equipment; don't worry.

Anyway, I'd be interested to see what some 18, 28, and 35mm sky shots would look like with your Canon super lens.  Resolution tests are not quite so easy to do comparisons with from different locations, but sky shot falloff tests are pretty simple, so how about showing us?

Hey, Jack, I'm so relieved and glad to note your positive and constructive and un-pis*ed-off response.  I was quaking a bit in anticipation of maybe a flamish response.  A bit paranoid, but I've been a target a little too much lately.

I'm aware that you tested several lenses before finding such a good one and I'm aware that even Zeiss primes could conceivably vary, but the total picture here implies a truly phenomenal magnitude of variations; more than I would have considered possible.  And to think that there's people that consider the whole sample variation issue a myth.  In any case I'll be very interested to see what we come up with.  I want to try my grid pattern shots like usual and a few Michael type "real life" test shots.  These aren't so great for comparing center with corner for the same lens, but just fine for comparing one lens with another.  By the time we finish we should have some interesting information about sample variations and Zeiss vs 16-35L.  It's almost beyond belief that Canon would have such expensive lenses with the extremely lax quality control standards that you've experienced with your tests of several 16-35 samples.  Tells me that buying a lens on ebay is never a good way to save a few bux; I'll pay the extra and the sales tax to pick a good lens in a store in the future.  I'm still keen to see about the quality of that new Tamron 17-35 and to see how much variation there is.  All the reviews have been good, so maybe even the worst samples aren't dogs.

I'm still working on making my super duper ultralight fiberglass cabover camper for my 4x4 truck.  As usual with such things, the farther I get along the more I realize just how big and challenging this project is.  It WILL get done, though, and then we can work out a mutually good time for me to come up your way.  I'm reluctant to make a time estimate, but I'm eager to get out again for some more shooting, so I won't dawdle.

On a comparison of the 100-400L to the 400mm, Micheal reiterates that for the1Ds only the best L lenses will 'do'.

I'm a wedding shooter  (and sometime landscape when I have the time!) and have been very pleased with the results of the 10D I now use exclusively. Infact since I bought one a month ago, my film cameras haven't fired a shot and my trays of film look so forlorn in the fridge...

I bought a 17-40 f4L and a 70-200 f4L for use with my event shooting and am very impressed with them. However my Sigma 28-70EX, although satisfactory on film, even up to 15X10" prints, pales in comparison when used on the digital.

I was wondering whether such a high resolution FF DSLR as the 1Ds Mark II is going to start showing even more shortcomings in canon's current lens lineup, to the point that those seeking to replace medium format with this camera, should bargain for a lot higher expenditure in lenses then they may have had to in the past?

I sold my Mamiya 645 system to pay for the 10D after being assured by the pro lab I use that at the max size I print for my landscape work, 18X12", I wouldn't be able to notice the difference. That said, I still wouldn't use the sigma, after seeing the quality of the pictures compared to those shot with canon's lenses. I'm not going to bother replacing it as with the X1.6 factor I do not find it a useful focal length anymore, but it would have been an extra expenditure I hadn't counted on, and maybe something extra that people should be taking into account when going digital.

There are somewhat conflicting opinions about Canon L ultrawide lenses, but the great majority of reviews I've read have rated these lenses as being rather poor even for 1ds at the widest settings.  If this is even somewhat true, then Canon L ultrawides will be pretty hopeless for 1ds MKII if you want sharp corners at all focal lengths.  Are you planning to test any Zeiss distagon ultrawides with the 1dsMKII to see if they do substantially better than Canon L?

I saw an 18 on ebay a while ago, but it's disappeared.  18's and 21's are extremely difficult to find, new or used.  25, 28, and 35 are very common.  The reviews for 25 are not as good as 28.  Any reason you prefer 25?  In any case there's plenty of 25's on ebay right now.
I hope you do get some distagon lenses.  I'll be very eager to see how they compare with your 16-35 and how any of these lenses work with 1dsMKII.  If you can really get the maximum advantage from the sensor so that the lenses are not the bottle neck then 1dsMKII should totally rival MF film for absolute enlargability and blow it away every other way.  Wow, I might have to take time out to hustle for some money if this is really the case.  I've already got a killer selection of lenses...

The reputation of the original 1Ds as being very demanding on lenses is well-deserved. I have a collection of mostly L glass, (a few of my primes are non-L, like the 100/2) and I've become intimately familiar with the shortcomings of all of my lenses. I don't see the 1Ds-MkII as being a waste even if ultimate resolution is lens-limited; having more pixels than the lens can resolve will still give you better color accuracy (more sensor pixels will increase the accuracy of Bayer interpolation within lens-resolvable detail) and the additional pixels will decrease the visibility of sensor noise in prints, which will make the 1Ds-MkII's lowered sensor noise at high ISO even more advantageous over the 1Ds.

I'm currently looking for an accomplice to help me stick up some recreational pharmaceutical delivery personnel so I can afford a 1Ds-MkII.

Very good points, and obvious enough now that you mention them.  Of course, I still hope there are some lenses (especially maybe distagon ultlrawides) that outresolve the sensor.  I want it all.

Can you forward me a recreational pharmaceutical delivery schedule for your neighborhood?  I think the action here is all too small.

My offer to test the ones you have against Canon prime glass remains open -- I am unconvinced that using Contax (Zeiss) glass on Canon represents a marked improvement in image quality.

For your application I would think you would be well served by adding a 50mm f/1.4 prime to your kit. Great for candids and available light portraits.

Yes, but I compared it to my 16-35 and that is avery different lens than the 17-35 Photodo tested...

As for my results being different:  First off, I am not a lone voice.  Several folks got the same results I did and quietly sold their Zeiss lenses before stating anything publicly -- I know this, we talked about it offline.  Second, most of us who did so tested against the expensive Canon L primes -- 24/1.4 and 35/1.4 -- while most of your Zeiss choir used the lesser f2.8 designs for comparison.  (The exception is the 20, and I agree the Zeiss 21 is superior -- but in my case, my 16-35 is superior to the two 20 primes I tested, and not too far off the Z21.)

Second, I believe it is because I am very picky and used a real test target and tested all apertures from a set position, and not just some images casually shot only at f8 in my front yard.

Lastly, I think a lot of it has to do with mob mentality -- three people at RG do a test of one Zeiss lens against one Canon prime and claim the Zeiss is far superior.  Then a dozen others buy the lenses and adapters, never really test them, but jump in and claim their superiority too.  FTR, my difference is I actually test them for myself, even though it may have been the early reports that encouraged me to do so.  

Furthermore, there seems to be a lot of incorrect assumptions floating around -- like Photodo said this or that and they must be right, or just like yours that I was using the older design 17-35.


Cheers,
Jack

No hope of ever figuring that out.  I was running around like mad to take advantage of the brief window of good light and quiet water.  I might also have had a polarizer on the lens.  In any case I've got lots of other pictures with all my lenses with uniform sky images without this sort of dark corners and my test grid shots show no significant differences in regards to corner performance for any of my 4 Zeisses and my 50mm Canon.

All in all, still a confusing situation.  I can't help but give weight to your opinions and experiences, so I won't feel convinced one way or the other without tests with mutually controlled methodology.  I'm not sure I even ever saw any reviews about 16-35 Canon.  It's not even listed in Photodo.  Could be that it's better than the Zeisses.  What's hard to believe is that everybody totally miss-evaluated the Z28 and that it's really such a poor lens.  I won't be totally surprised if some of my lenses fail and I end up quietly listing them on ebay, but I won't make any rash decisions at this point.

No link...

FWIW, a common problem in lens design; there is no free lunch:  When you correct for barrel distortion one of the big compromises is corner falloff.  In Zeiss' case, they are very well corrected against BD -- almost perfect which is a major feat in itself.  However the downside is the falloff.  (Ironically, they spent additional effort on the 21 and designed in a bit of "moustache" distortion -- a combination of Barrel in the center 2/3 and Pincushion in the outer 1/3 -- thereby gaining a bit of ground on the falloff issue.  You can easily see this if you shoot a full horizon shot with that lens

However to answer your question, in general the Canon lenses show far less falloff -- almost all gone at f4 while the Zeiss are still showing at f8 -- but conversely the Canon glass have notably more BD.  (Unfortunately this extends even to the TS-E lenses.)

As digital photographers, the good news is that we can easily deal with barrel distortion using the free plug-in "PTLens".  We can also deal with the falloff -- though not as easily -- using a mask in PS.

It was obvious to me even in the water.



That is probably the WORST way to try and deal with falloff!



No offense Didger, but it sounds like you've never tried it yourself... This is one of those assertions that gets blindly followed by those who have never even tried it but read it somewhere else...  

First off, de-fishing a fisheye DOES imaprt some significant distortions that can be seen after the fact if you know what to look for.  BUT! A normal de-barrel is so slight of a pixel-push that it will go totally unnoticed even in very large, interpolated prints.  



Sorry to burst your bubble but...  

1) Yours wasn't that.  Anybody that's used a polarizer with wideangles wider than 28mm knows that depending on the angle of the sun they will generate a "sine-wave" darkening pattern in a clear blue sky.  It is as plain as day when you know what to look for.  It can show up only on one edge of the image and appear to be falloff or vignetting, but it never radiates evenly from center to corner.

2) A similar effect from a polarizer could be due to a too-small filter causing vignetting, but usually that shows as a severe clip at the very corners only and NOT a gradual darkening from the center out as your image indicated.  

Cheers,
Jack

Hey, I just carefully checked out Michael's review comparing 17-40L and 16-35L.  The 16-35 loses very substantially every which way at 17mm: flare, less overall resolution and worse corner resolution and less corner contrast.  Now unless Michael flat out faked every bit of that, the pictures in the article leave no possible doubt about the relative performance of the two particular lenses he tested.  I haven't been able to find many other reviews of 16-35, but several said "not sharp".  I've seen a number of pretty awful 17-40 corner crops (real life images) and some incredibly bad reviews and test result reports for 17-40, so now it looks like you must have the absolute best 16-35 ever made, a whole different kind of animal from what Michael tested and maybe Michael tested the absolute best 17-40 ever made and an outright defective 16-35.  The implausibilities mount and if we also add in the fact that your Zeiss 28mm is not only not as good as your 16-35, but actually flat out bad, in opposition to just about everything you can find published (including Photodo) about Z28, it looks like your findings come from an alternate Universe or something.

Your all around huge expertise about hardware and Photoshop is very clear and beyond question and I'm just a relative beginner in all areas, but these test results of yours are simply beyond what I could accept from anybody without verification.  The other folks that have tested these lenses are also experts, at least some of them (Michael, Photodo) and you can only make just so much allowance for sample variations.

If you're into doing the comparison testing of our lenses where we can look over each other's shoulders I'd still be into working that out some time.  I don't mind risking how foolish that might end up making me look.  If your lens is really as much better than Zeiss primes as you indicate, I'll start looking around for a 16-35 super copy, though the weight of that lens is a huge turn off.

I will state this again so there is NO confusion -- you obviously have not been reading my posts completely.

I tested THREE 16-35's before I found a good one.  My first one did not flare badly, but was HORRIBLE in the corners re resolution.  My second one was a bit better in the corners, but not good enough for me -- and flare was worse.  Any of the Zeiss glass I tested wouyld have easily bested EITHER of those lenses.  

HOWEVER!!!  It was not until my third copy that I got a "winner" -- And again, FOR THR RECORD, it is NOT a super lens, just VERY GOOD and still shows some corner softness.  But it is better than ALL the alternatives I have compared it to in the 20mm range and 28mm range, including Zeiss.  

And yes, feel free to look over my shoulder when we do a test -- you are welcome to come up to my neck of the woods anytime to do it.   I am willing to accept the fact that maybe there is also significant variation in Zeiss glass,  and perhaps the ones I tested were crap,  and even the remote possibility that maybe it's YOU who happen to have the super-set-end-all Zeiss lens collection   

Cheers,
Jack

This comment is not directed at anyone in particular.  A photograph for which "sharpness" is its main claim to fame is a sad photograph indeed.  I would suggest that, if the time spent on test patterns were reallocated to getting out in the field and improving ones eye (or even looking at the history of photography to figure out the differences between your photographs and those you admire), it would be time well spent.  I see too many technically excellent photographs that are DOA.

Not my normal territory this section of the forum, but a riveting read anyhow.. sort of "clash of the Titans" scenario ???

All very civilized really... it hasn't descended into the mindless petty bickering that characterises your average DP review forum just yet  :laugh:

I find that giving your lenses a good wipe on the outside surfaces just prior to image capture does no ends of good to sharpness ::


 Ed

No problem -- will take some for you the next time I have clear a blue sky here to photograph

And FTR, I don't think my 16-35 is anywhere near a "Super Lens"...  In fact, I'd love to find something better -- as good as my 35/1.4 -- and regardless of cost.  My 16-35 is however better than most other options I've compared it to in the 20mm range...

I had a patch of blue open up this evening so grabbed a few very quick sky shots with the 16-35.  From past tests, the 16 setting at f2.8 is the worst one for this lens and falloff, followed by (oddly enough?) the 28mm setting at f2.8.  By f4 at any focal setting, falloff is virtually a non-issue with this lens.  Unfortunately there was a slight veiling cloud cover remaining and it shows as slight hot spots to the sides, so this is not a pure test image.  Nonetheless, you can get an idea of the falloff, though slight, this lens produces.  

Many photographers working with the 11MP 1Ds have, in terms of resolution, felt that it was pushing Canon's best lenses.

So far I've shot about a thousand frames with a pre-production 1Ds Mark II, and though I haven't done any rigerous tests or comparisons yet (that'll wait till I get my own camera soon), my initial sense is that the 16MP simply exacerbates the situation.

In all likelyhood the 1Ds MKII will outresolve the vast majority of lenses available for it. This is not bad thing. Something has to be the limiting factor. But, I would imagine that those looking for image quality to compete with medium format digital will want to use Canon's prime L lenses.

I hope to have some definitive side-by-side comparisons against a Phase One 22 Megapixel P25 within the next few weeks.

Michael

There were a couple of 18s this week, but they came and went before I decided to act....One 21 listed now.

I like the 25 angle of view better than 28.  Never use 28 much, not sure why. It's probably because my first wide angles were the Nikkor 35 and 24 lenses. Had the 24 Nikkor (in AI and AFD versions) and own the Leica M 24 Apo...Wish the M lenses would work...When I have my 24-70 Canon, I often forget I can zoom...Old habits die very hard.

Yeah, yeah, I kinda expected a message from you here about now
When a good time (that I for sure won't need my lenses for a while) comes I still want to do that.  I'm also waiting to see if someone (maybe Michael) will test the 1dsMKII with Zeiss lenses and his Canon ultrawide(s).  That would take care of two issues at once (Canon vs Zeiss and 1ds vs 1dsII).  In the meantime, it's a little hard to disregard a massive body of test results and reviews, including Photodo.  Your Canon 17-35mm Photodo 3.2.  Distagon 28mm Photodo 4.3.  That's not a small difference and Photodo testing is not to be casually dismissed.  There's also the matter of my own tests.  They're not so comprehensive and also not super precise, but all my test results have made sense and not been totally out of line with everybody else's.  How do YOU explain that everybody else got it wrong about Zeiss???

We all want our own stuff to be the best and no doubt my views also get distorted by this phenomenon, but the fact remains that yours is a lone voice about poor quality Zeiss distagons and your report of extremely good Canon 17-35 all around sharpness at 17mm is also pretty unique.  

I think the only way I could really feel totally settled with this is if I come to your house some time with my stuff and we both oversee the testing to be sure we're both happy about methodology.  I'm serious about that.  Once I get my camper done (slow tedious project) I could head your way from Yosemite some time and do a little seashore shooting on the way home.  I think whatever conclusions we come up with that way would be pretty rock solid and worth sharing with everybody.  I don't even mind if the results make me look like a dummy.  Nothing new there.  I want to learn and not necessarily win points for having the "prettiest" opinions on the forum.

Hey, do you know anyone that will be getting a 1ds MKII?  It would be really cool to do a full on lens and camera "test-a-thon", even if it turns out that some other folks will be doing this too.  You can never have too much information.  Maybe we could even scrounge a copy of that supposedly ultra fabulous new Tamron 17-35mm.

And your Eastern Sierra shot showed SEVERE falloff from center to corner...  Did you ever figure out which lens it was you used?

Indeed, my naive economic reckoning says that when the quality of one component can be improved more cheaply than that of another, you should push that "cheaper" component to the level of quality where it is not a major limiting factor. Let the cost of the most expensive component set you r limits. E.g., do not by expensive lenses and then use cheap film!

Sensors are probably heqading to the point where one can afford to have then outresolve the very expensive lens collection needed to match the latest 35mm format sensors,so I can see future improvements mostly removing sensor performance from the equation on resolution limits. "Excess" sensor resolution also eliminates moire problems and Bayer interpolation artifacts as mentioned, by "oversampling".

I knew that for sure, but not which one.  Here's a set of crops to show top and bottom sky all the way across for 3 Zeiss lenses.  The big color differences are because I couldn't get blue all the way across in a single image, so there were obviously big auto white balance differences from one take to another.  All shots were at f8 pretty much dead center histogram wise and default PS conversion.  You can see significant falloff for 18mm but very little for 28 and 35.  It seems that for 35 bottom is better than top.  I'd be interested in seeing a comparable test of your 16-35 at those focal lengths and also your bad Zeiss lenses.  Are they worse than this?  Is the Canon zoom a lot better than this?  I wouldn't spend a lot of money just for less falloff than what my Zeisses have.  Even that much worse image I posted got totally fixed in most of the processing efforts.  Resolution is another issue, but I haven't seen any real difference in corner vs center for any of my lenses (the ones I kept), expect when I was shooting at too close a distance with the widest ones.  Also no CA.

Mild falloff generally won't show at all in most images and even the pretty drastic falloff (most likely polarizer) of my image on that thread got automatically fixed for some people with whatever processing they were doing for other corrections.  Other people had to work a bit to fix the falloff.  You could only see the falloff in the sky in the first place, and there cloning can often come to your rescue if nothing else works.  Sure, no falloff would be best, but fixing BD easily is not really a free lunch either, since the interpolation required for distortion fixing introduces image degradation.  The falloff in that image was an extreme worst ever case (probably polarizer) and the images here were all f8.  I usually shoot at f11, so there would be slightly less falloff yet.  In any case, corner softeness is the biggie, since there's no cure for that.  You can't create lacking information out of nothing.  However, at this point I'm not willing to throw away Photodo and my own test results where corner sharpness is concerned for distagon wide primes.

Well, if your lens isn't "super", and Zeiss distagons are not "super", that doesn't leave much in the way of ultrawide candidates super wise.  Now that I have my permanently attached to the camera panorama head, I can very easily do vertical pano shots with my 35mm or 50mm lens for stitching and that's a way to get truly super quality ultrawide shots, though if you're having to bracket for later blending it's a bit of a hassle to do the panorama thing, though it can be done.
I just wonder what people will do ultrawide wise with their 1dsMKII's if nothing is really quite good enough for a 1ds.

Well, I'd say that for any real practical purpose, that's no fall off at all and if it's even better at f8 or so, then falloff for this  lens is essentially non existent, certainly way better than my Zeiss 18mm.  Well, falloff is not an issue over which I'd spend much extra money for improvement over what I have, but corner softness is another issue, and getting the definitive answer for that will have to wait for another day.