I am getting into professional interior and architectural photography and would like to plan ahead with equipment investment. View cameras with digital backs are the best for such photography. They offer the most control over perspective, but are very expensive and bulky to work with.

Since I use the 5D MKII I have two other alternatives. Get the 24mm TS-E or use my current 17-40mm lens @ 17mm and crop by 50% to obtain 24mm view. The TS-E rout seems better as I do not have to sacrifice almost half of my picture resolution to achieve the desired look. That being said, do TS-E lenses give enough control to achieve similar results to lens perspective corrections in photoshop?

In the example below I shot the first picture at 24mm. The second picture was shot at 17mm, adjusted with lens correction filter by 20 degrees vertically and -40 degrees horizontally, and cropped to about 50% of original size:





If such degree figures in photoshop correspond to actual lens shift degrees then obviously TS-E lenses cannot achieve anything like photoshop as they are limited to 8 degrees if I am not mistaken. That makes me wonder how many degrees of shift do view cameras offer?

I would really appreciate hearing all of your thoughts on this as this topic might not have a "definite" answer. So it always great to learn how more experinced photographers approache this issue.

Thanks in advance!

You only need shift to keep the verticals parallel, and shift is not measured in degrees - but mm, or inches.

If you point the camera horizontal, and the bottom of the subject is level with the lens, the shift you will need will be half the width or height of the sensor.

Tilt angle is asin(f/J), where f is the focal length, and J is the distance from the lens, parallel to the sensor, to the plane of sharpest focus. (see Merklinger's "Focusing the view Camera").

So, in an extreme example, if the arm of the sofa in the foreground gave you a value of J=1000 mm, and you were using a 150mm lens, you would need 8.6 degrees of tilt... I do not think any of the modern compact medium-format view cameras give you anything like that much tilt, but with shorter lenses and bigger Js, you would need less tilt, and with a 50mm lens you would need 2.8 degrees.

There is a fair amount on my blog related to this issue. I make my living largely shooting architecture with a 5DII and t/s lenses. In my experience soley relying on PS for perspective correction is very limiting too, and gets you into trouble with odd artifacts at times and weird distortion once you get close to stretching the image around half the width of the frame. T/S lenses will cover your needs most of the time or a combination of shift and vertical flat stitching. Or sometimes even with that I have to let the vertical lines converge somewhat and do some PS correction too. All in all after shooting architecture for thirty years with a 4x5, I don't find a DSLR and T/S lenses limiting. Indeed I find them liberating.

I have a Linhof M679cs and a P65+, but I use the Canon T&S lenses more often. Here's the main reasons,

1. For interiors you're often really pushed for space, not in terms of "wide-angle" space, but in terms of "where's the photographer supposed to stand" space! A DSLR is just more compact and manouvrable, especially compared to a technical camera fitted with a sliding back.

2. Instead of complex interior lighting set-ups I'll often just use HDR, and managing the multiple layer files from a DSLR is quicker and easier than from a digital back.

3. The architectural photography I do is unlikely to grace the pages of Architectural Review, it's bread and butter commercial work for developers, hotels, and building materials suppliers. In this context there's not much reason to use the Linhof/P65+, the quality from a DSLR is more than adequate for four colour offset printing, and the movements available from the Canon T&S range are adequate for 99% of the challenges you'll face. That's not being cavalier with quality, it's just being realistic.

4. This may be heresy for many, but in my view the marriage of digital backs and technical cameras isn't that harmonious. There's certainly no cheap option, because the mechanical precision that digital backs require doesn't come cheap. But even with the best cameras you'll struggle to get sufficient focusing accuracy from the ground glasses currently available, and you certainly won't get that focusing accuracy with the viewing devices available for sliding backs. Consequently you often have to fit and remove the digital back for each shot and sooner or later you'll drop the back on a concrete floor. So better have your insurance up to date!

5. In the crowded European cities where I work you can bet that at least half the exteriors will need extensive retouching to remove parked cars, street signs, etc. In practise that means moving the camera to get a clean view and then patching in a section to cover up obstructions. It's a lot easier to move a DSLR than a technical camera, and it's quicker to complete the retouching on smaller DSLR files.

if i had a p65, i would have bought an arca RM3D or an artech or a cambo wide DS...

Keep in mind that PS cannot replicate the main effect of a tilt, which is to change the angle of the plane of focus so that near and far things can both be in focus. And, while PS can correct perspective to some extent (e.g., converging verticals), the result is lost resolution and potential loss of image quality.

I have been shooting architecture for over 20 years and can count on one hand, the amount of times I tilted the lens board or rear standard with a view camera. 99.99% of the time all you do is rise and fall of the front standard. With my Canon and shift lenses tilting is only used for special effects to reduce depth of field and is unnecessary for increasing it. I have thought long and hard about moving into a MF back for my landscape work, not for architectural interiors. I think the new canon shift lenses do the job very well.

...so you very rarely shoot pictures like those above, with a foreground?

I have been shooting arch for over 10 years, with 8x10, 4x5, roll film, MFDB and dSLR, and I can also say I've used tilts less than a handful of times. Once or twice it was good to have shooting details on 4x5. With MFDB I have yet to encounter a need for them. I have the ts-e lenses and would be happier if they were just s-e lenses (although the extra tilt lock on the 17 and new 24 is a welcome addition).

Buildings tend to be straight up and down, minimising the need for tilt in the vertical plane, but I would have thought that yaw might have been handy quite regularly.

...by comparison I would think/hope that landscape photographers would use tilt a great deal more.

Thanks for posting this. I had to read your reply several time, but I think I got most of what your saying.



right thing, shift in mm and tilt in degrees




What do you mean by that, especially the bold part? I get that shooting with the lens level to the ground and the frame starting from the bottom of the object (ex: building) you need half the width or height to achieve straight lines?




asin? I am dividing f/j (150/1000) and getting .15

Canon TS-E lense provide 11mm shift and 8 degrees tilt, should they not be sufficient for the example above?

That's exactly what I was hoping to hear, I just ordered a used 24mm TS-E and I am looking forward to using it, because as you said shooting wide and cropping introduces problems.

The blog is awesome I am reading it as we speak



and many thanks for all the other members replys I will be reading them in detail as time permits

For about 20 years I worked with film(6x9-8x10) for architects. Now I am using a Canon 5D MII and a Sinar Artec with an Emotion Back. The Canon is for simple architecture, bread and butter....
For more interesting architecture I am using the Sinar. Since I am using it, my pictures are becoming better in my opinion. The Canon files are technical perfect, but the pictures I am making with the ArTec are really better.
This is only my personal opinion, but I have seen a lot of German photographers changing to DSLR and loosing quality. Some of them are using MFDB and their style didn`t change so much...
Also there are still some architectural photographers still using film, and their results are really wonderful.


Michael Heinrich

what you say makes perfect sense and I can attest to that from personal experience.



that's one thing I want to avoid as much as possible: HDR. In fact, I am looking very hard for sources to learn complex interior lighting. From my perspective well placed lighting setups create very unique results. In some instances however, HDR is the only rout.



yup 21mp is sufficient for most commercial work

what do you mean by more interesting, and how are your pictures becoming better? Could this have something to do with the slower process of view cameras versus 35mm cameras which are faster and easier to setup?

I can say without much fear to be wrong, that "more interesting" has to be understood as projects/contracts with higher budgets and more time to realize the project involved (the necessary time to deliver the best possible), giving the possibility to the photographer to plan and organize better, to spend more time to study the subject and to eventually deliver MORE than what has been asked for by the customer.

That's e.g the way Rainer is working, and I thing Michael as well. And in this case they will make use of the view camera and its unique features.

Best regards,
Thierry

What I explained is my experience. I am working as a teacher for architectural students and I often tried to find out why I am really working better with this kind of equipment. Before digital I also worked better with my Technika 5x7" than with a Hasselblad SWC. Doesn`t matter wether I needed to shift or not. That some photographers have lost their own language with their change from 4x5 to DSLR is not only my opinion.

Michael

I think I have to agree totally. I am shooting with a DSLR with ts lenses and find it to be very limiting. I learned off of a film view camera and as soon as I can justify financing a digital view camera, I am going to get one. I still shoot with the DSLR like I am shooting with a view camera, slow and careful and thinking about every thing, but I still find it to be too limiting when it comes to the shifts.

I am also finding that I am one a member of a decreasing group of photographers who bother gelling there lights. I keep about a dozen different kinds of gels on me and it is hard today to find one who even just has daylight balance gels on him.

How many mm of shift does a view camera give you? 11mm on a 24mm horizontal frame is almost a half frame shift. I know its not as relatively large of an effect when in vertical view.



I can't work without gels, how do such photographers color correct their pictures, correct each part of the picture separately?

Do not consider the 17 - 40 mm as a lens for Architectural photography, it has distortion bordering on a special effect. Not my area but I often think Photoshop corrected images often leave things looking a bit odd, I would think the least you need is both the 17 and 24 mm Tilt shift lens if a bigger format is out of the question for now, to provide professional looking images,

Kevin.

The amount of shift in a view camera depends on the lens and the camera itself. Most digital view cameras will give you 25 mm up, 15 mm down, and 20 mm left or right, like the Alpa 12 max (my choice). But some, like the Alpa 12XY, will give much more but they are larger and bulkier.

Alpa will also mount the lenses on their boards 4mm offset in one direction (if you want) giving 8mm of additional shift.

Now most lenses do not offer this much movement though. For instance, the Schneider 35 digitar has an image circle that is 90mm in diameter which means as long as the sensor stays in that circle you are fine, but as soon as you move out of it you get dark/black conners on that side. This gives you about 18 mm (I think) of lateral shift with a p45+x back. Usually the wider the lens, the smaller the circle. The Rodenstock 23 HR only has a image circle of 74 mm giving you only 4/5 mm of shift (this lens in like a 15 mm on a full frame DSLR), whereas the 70 HR has a 110 mm circle. Schneider is releasing a new 28 mm lens with a 90 mm circle this winter which is amazing, although the thing is huge, at least 5 inches in diameter. Image circles also increase in size as the lens is stopped down but with digital sensors, due to how they record the light, you can only stop down so far till the quality starts to decrease.

Resolution decreases as you get closer to the edge of the image circle so something else you need to look at on these lenses is the line-pair resolution. There some lenses with huge circles, but the line-pair res at the edge is around 40/50 per mm. For the modern backs though you need around 90 lines per mm.

The thing I like about view cameras verses t-s lenses is that you can shift on both axis at the same time. Also, the optical sharpness of these lenses is amazing.

When it comes to working with gels, I am finding a lot of photographers around my age (I am 27) are just digitally correcting the light and getting results that are "good enough." I am highly critical of my work and often loose sleep for something wrong in an image that is so small that no one but me notices. But I guess it is good to be more critical then your clients.

I have a case full of gels that I have not used in years. With digital I find it more interesting to work with mixed light-as by playing with the white balance I can judge whether the mix works or doesn't, but also "cleaning up the color" or adjusting the mix sometimes with either strobe or halogen fill.

I too teach architectural photography at the university level. View cameras and DSLRs are just tools which do not control the photographers aesthetic unless one allows it to. IME it is worthwhile to teach DSLR use with a view camera work ethic, always using tripods, leveling the camera etc. forcing students to slow down and think about the space and slow down. Even with a DSLR, architectural photography can become a contemplative experience just as it was with a view camera.

As a long time view camera user I have to agree with Kirk here. dSLR's can be great tools for arch photography.

I agree with the fact that you can not let the type of camera dictate how you work and DSLRs can be a good resource for architectural photography, only I wish that they did away with the tilt and made shift shift lens.

Very thorough and informative feedback, thanks for posting.





What is the advantage of horizontal shift? The main advantage of vertical shift is keeping the camera level with the ground while covering something above or below the camera as if tilting. Horizontally, there is no tilting just rotation, so how does shift in this orientation work?

To be specific I think tint gives me more trouble than white balance. Green and magenta stand out in such a way that I find a gel the only way to fix the problem. With white balance (blue and yellow) I see more room for mixing.

T/S lenses will shift either vertically (called rise and fall on a view camera) or horizontally and any combination in between. I use the horizontal shifts primarily for flat stitching, but sometimes at say 10:00 and 2:00 when I need some rise with the shift on a stitch. It works extremely well. I find few practical limitations with DSLR T/S lenses vs. a view camera.

I never said that MFDB are better than DSLR. Its only my personal experience that for my work MF is better and even when I tried to explain it to students I was not really able to find a scientific reasons. The best way to improve architectural photography in my opinion is to learn more about architecture. I wrote a book for students and there is about 90% relation between architecture and photography and only the other 10% about techniques.
In my opinion this is the correct relation.

Michael Heinrich

i.m.o. good architecture photography has much to do with an understanding of the relation object and room, means perspective and image composition.
therefor real estate photography often has not much to do with architecture photography as i understand it, cause the motifs often are overloaded with chairs, plants, toys, people. the intent in this is to create atmosphere, not to show space or architecture, at least not construction aspects of it.

nowadays, with the existence of the new 17 and 24tse lenses from canon, it might be possible to use these lenses in a similar way than shift cameras as the alpas, artecs, cambos and s on ... but before architecture wide angle photography with 35m lenses was a very abstract way to get good images.
one had to stitch with 645 lenses and shift adapters or to correct electronically in ps. i.m.o. all ( except the olymus 24 ) the older shift lenses from schneider/canon/nikon in the wide end have been simply unusable for distortion and for sharpness decrease if shifted, so this was either a very complicate and abstract way to get good shots, or a way which implicated very lo quality. i personaly have made some of my best shots with 35m cameras, but i had experience to see and visualize motifs even without camera, this way to work i learned in the 4x5 film days. i would suggest this to everyone who wants to start in arcitecture photography, work with 4x5" to get a feel for the speed of shooting, which should be a very lo one if the desire is to get great shots.

i would not say that the budgets are higher with mf, because no one cares usually with wich camera the shots are done, people care about the results.
my workflow is faster and more intuitive with the artec and the emotion back together with exposure and lightroom, than with the canon,
thats why i prefer to work with mf.
but still about 50% of my shots are taken with the canon, either because i want to shoot details with very long lenses or i use the canon as "problem resolver"
if i dont go wide enough with the rodenstock 23mm.

Got tired of reasding that abrevation not knowing what it stands for. Did a little search and few clicks later I stumblled into this thread which discuss the same topic and has Kirk contributing too!

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/for...6309&page=2

Just like shifting vertically keeps the vertical lines of the building from converging, horizontal shifting does the same thing but for the same thing for those lines. Now 60 % of the time I am fine with the horizontal lines converging, but if I the angle I am looking at a building or space is only a little off from a direct view, I often want to correct the horizontal perspective as well.

I have to agree with Reiner in that if you want to get into the medium, you should spend some time working with a 4x5 view camera using film. It really makes you think about what you are doing. Also, its takes away some of the luxuries of digital like being able to see what your picture looks like right there and the ability to correct things in the photo separately in PS. When shooting with film, you really have to be comfortable with your camera and lighting, especially when working with positives and the only way to get that is to work slow and careful.

You should be able to get a cheap army surplus 4x5 with a decent lens and a film holder; I see them all over the place. If you decide to go this route, it might be good to get some film balanced to daylight and some balanced to tungsten as well; I don't think it is advisable to go out and get a color light meter and a set of correction filters for an exercise in view cameras.

So basically if I stand facing a wall and rotate the camera to the left side of the wall, the lines will converge at the left side because they are further away from the lens. Got to try correcting this one day with photoshop.




well if I was still in Chicago I would probably do that, but since I moved to the Arabic World getting such a camera is would be a luxury, and getting films process would be next to impossible.

Michael, Nor did I say you said that?? I basically agree with you about the value of architectural knowledge....from a different point of view though. The classes I have taught at The University of New Mexico and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (about 20 years combined) were/are jointly offered by the photography and architecture departments. Usually about 2/3 of my students are from architecture departments. The architecture students (usually 3rd or 4th year or graduate students) of course have a rich background in architecture. My best and most successful students have come from architecture, perhaps because of their knowledge, but I believe because knowledge leads to motivation ie their passion for architecture becomes the driving force. Photo students, even in art schools, tend to look at AP as a lucrative, interesting, challenging, perhaps easy, way of making a living, which is far different from being passionate about architecture and wanting to learn how to illustrate it. Unfortunately in a one semester class there is so much technique to teach that (far more than one can get to in one semester, hence many repeat my class) that it consumes my efforts. So at SAIC we designed a class that is team taught with myself and Tim Wittman, an architectural historian. The combination works very well.

Abdul

Abdul, that site, The Large Format Photography Forum,I am a moderator there and it is a great resource with nearly 500,000 posts and there is much more on that site related to architectural photography which you can access through searches. But IME this site attracts the most knowledgeable practicing professional architectural photographers.

Hi, Abdul... I have been away and could not find any wireless internet coverage.
If you point the camera horizontal, and the bottom of the subject is level with the lens, the shift you will need will be half the width or height of the sensor.

Keeping he sensor parallel to the subject keeps the verticals vertical, shift just gets the subject's image on the sensor.

The more offset you have, the more shift you need to keep the subject image on the sensor, in the simple example, the whole subject (e.g. building) is above the horizontal, and the whole image is below the horizontal, so you shift by half the sensor size.

Tilt angle is asin(f/J), where f is the focal length, and J is the distance from the lens, parallel to the sensor, to the plane of sharpest focus. (see Merklinger's "Focusing the view Camera").

So, in an extreme example, if the arm of the sofa in the foreground gave you a value of J=1000 mm, and you were using a 150mm lens, you would need 8.6 degrees of tilt... I do not think any of the modern compact medium-format view cameras give you anything like that much tilt, but with shorter lenses and bigger Js, you would need less tilt, and with a 50mm lens you would need 2.8 degrees.

asin or arcsin or is the trigonometrical ratio that is the inverse of sine, so arcsin .15 is the angle whose sine is .15, which give 8.6 degrees.

Using a 17mm lens on a 24 * 36mm sensor...

2* 17 = 34, so you would almost be able to accommodate the first example vertical, and easily do it horizontal.

In the second example f=17mm J=1000mm arcsin(f/J)= 0.97 degrees.

With larger formats and longer lenses (and narrower depth-of-field) you need much more tilt.

Thanks everybody for the help. I found a very nice book that answers so many basic question about architectural photography and I recommend it for anyone new and interested in this topic. Its only weakness is a very short section on interiors.

I have the book reviewed on Amazon: Architectural Photography: Composition, Capture, and Digital Image Processing

edited

Interesting, Kirk. I gave a lecture at the University of Madison and the event was coordinated by both the Architecture and Photography departments. Also, last year I gave a talk at SAIC to Cindy Coleman's Architecture class. When I work with architects, they almost always carry cameras and seem to understand the vision more so than clients from any other genre. Recently I've been thinking about going back to school and I think I'm going to take some architecture classes.

Format debate. I would advise anyone starting out as an architectural shooter to buy the Canon with T/S lenses. That said, my view camera will always be my first choice. I always shoot tethered and on tripod. Given that, dslrs actually slow me down. With the way you have to rotate the lens to implement shift and rise together, I find composing very frustrating. I can't even imagine trying to stitch images when shifted diagonally so.

Lighting.. Rainer is more of an Architectural Photographer, while I am honestly more of an Interiors Photographer. I think this is where you see so much division in opinion. When I'm shooting buildings or large public spaces, I'm just as likely to use little or no lighting. For interiors though, my client's product is as much materials and finishes as it is the geometry of the architecture. If I tried to rely upon ambient light to accurately describe the textures of fabrics and reflective qualities of many materials, the results would be unacceptable for the high end designers I work for. In the end, I think it's kind of silly for us to argue the validity of our own specific approaches when our work and our clientele are so varied.

And now pancakes, bacon and coffee!

Why I choose Medium Format Digital over DSLR:

Emotional reasons:

I fell in love with photography after I began using a large format camera (4x5 & 8x10).
I never liked the proportion of 35mm, too panoramic for most of my work.
I hate looking through a small viewfinder all day, I prefer to see the shot with 2 eyes (Hence the term View Camera, seen with 2 eyes)
Working with a slower (however not bigger in the case of the Alpa SWA) camera will improve anyones work. More time spent with each shot will make it a better shot.

Technical reasons:

35mm lenses (all SLR, MF too) have too much distortion, yes it can be corrected but it adds time and aggravation.
CA/Purple fringing on the lenses, yes correctable but another step.
Again for me wanting to crop the 2:3 aspect to 4:5 or 4:3 takes away resolution.
HUGE ISSUE:, no lateral shift in combination with vertical shift, yes you can shift T/S or PC lenses in a similar way but its not the same control
Image quality and sharpness of the P45+ with Schneider Lenses (+ one Rodnestock 23HR which does need distortion correction sometimes but is easy with Alpas new software.)
When needing something wider than 24 you'd need to do perspective correction. Now the 17TS is available which sounds great but was not available when I made my decisions. I cannot see spending the time or effort on site to correct perspective in order to fine tune whats in frame or out or to show it to the client.

These are just my reasons since the original poster was asking about why one system over the other I thought I'd share my experiences. No judging here. I do have a 5D system with PC and TS lenses that I use as back-up or second system for doing two shots at once, but I'd rather use the Leica M8 if I didn't need the perspective control. Better lenses.

Everyones workflow is different and whats important to them is also different. If you never worked with 4x5, switching to MFD might seem very awkward if you're not used to the pre-visualization process required for view camera work. "Seeing" the image often comes first in your mind and then is translated by choosing the right camera height and lens.

Jeffrey -

"I hate looking through a small viewfinder all day, I prefer to see the shot with 2 eyes (Hence the term View Camera, seen with 2 eyes)"

Live view on the Canon (5d2) lcd is excellent, and you can tether live view with Canon software.

"HUGE ISSUE:, no lateral shift in combination with vertical shift, yes you can shift T/S or PC lenses in a similar way but its not the same control"

Since you mentioned the SWA (of course about size, but you did include it and you do use it), that is rise/fall only, or shift only if you reverse it, so no combo possible. While I agree the combo possible on dslr pc lenses is limiting in comparison, the more I use it the more I learn to work within its limitations, and it's a rare situation that I need more than the canon offers.

"Working with a slower (however not bigger in the case of the Alpa SWA) camera will improve anyones work. More time spent with each shot will make it a better shot."

One can shoot any camera slowly, but one cannot shoot any camera quickly.

"CA/Purple fringing on the lenses, yes correctable but another step." "When needing something wider than 24 you'd need to do perspective correction. Now the 17TS is available which sounds great but was not available when I made my decisions. I cannot see spending the time or effort on site to correct perspective in order to fine tune whats in frame or out or to show it to the client."

The new 17 and 24 are game changers. If you haven't used them you should at least try and then judge. No fringing, no distortion. The 23 Rodenstock has massive distortion compared to the 17tse. Also the screen on the Canon is good enough to show the client. Canon does need to make a 32/35 tse, 65/70tse, and update the 45.

I use the Alpa Max/MFDB too and it creates the best files. The Schneider and Rodenstock lenses are superior, no doubt. But more and more my reasons for using the "bigger" system are purely emotional. I like the way the Alpa works, and I like the results. It's satisfying. I cannot say the same about the Canon, it doesn't have the feeling, and at first I hated it. But it works in most situations flawlessly.

I chose the Alpa before the 17 and new 24 were announced, before the 5d2 was announced even. I saw it and pulled out the credit card before it even crossed the counter at the shop. At the time there was no question how to go from 4x5 to digital. Now there is, and, no regrets, but I don't think I'd spend money the same way.

I must say at first I really missed the view camarea experience. I really loved the big camera, the large groundglass and the movements. If I had to guess I would say that at least 80% of my work was 4x5 and 35mm 1%. Even the blad had a special feeling. The process was deliberate, the medium unforgiving. (I shot reversal 95% of the time). The wonder and sometimes downright terror of wating to see the results at the lab is missed, along with the time spent talking to my fellow photogs while waiting. I don't miss a box full of cc filters, polaroid that was worthless for checking focus ( except for the negs from P/N film) and clients who took the film with the promise to fix the few things we just could not fix in camera but then failed ot do so.

The Betterlight scan back was an eyeopener in the world of digital but mostly worthless for my work. The P20 was pretty cool too, but there was no wide which killed it as well.

Then the 1Ds arrived and it changed the whole ballgame. Sure I miss the old, but damn, the new has opened so many possibilities that just were not possible before. (or not without a lot of expense or trouble) Truth be told I'm guessing I spend more time per image with a dslr than before with a view camera. So much that sometime I need to call enough, we are changing things just for the sake of change, its not making the image better!

It's a mind set, not the equipment....

You must have a really good copy of that 17, or some others have really bad ones. Here is one person's experience:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/834707/2#7777728

Summary: significant CA, significant distortion, to the point where he now uses an adapted Nikon 14-24G and a 24 TS-E II.

is this what you mean - "the TSE 17+1.4 TC produces quite a noticable amount of CA and distortion" ?

If so then, yes, in my testing the addition of the 1.4x produces unacceptable results. But that may have been the 1.4x I tested as RainerV on this forum finds the results of that combination more than acceptable. And there's a thread on get dpi forums with that exact combination comparing it to the new 24 tse II and it stands up very well. So I'm inclined to think the 1.4x is the culprit.

The arch forums at ASMP have only positive reviews of the 17tse. Stores can't get enough of them.

So I don't think it's just mine that's a good copy.

Have you tried the lens or have any direct experience of a bad copy? Canon has many dogs and their QC is often suspect, but this is one lens almost without exception people are enamoured with.

No, I haven't tried it, but I have read both glowing and negative opinions on it, so I guess there is some QC at fault, perhaps less than some previous Canons, like the old 24 TS-E (which I have tried, and which wasn't super-sharp and had CA).

He writes about the 17tse together with the 1,4 extender. The extender itself creates some distortion as well as some ca ( although both easy correctable because it does not shift and is therefor symmetrical.
The 17tse shows à bit ca ( about two points correction on the Red-Green scale in LR).
distortion is very good,.
Same behavor than the 24tseII reg. CA. These two new lenses are both stunning .

It seems I grabbed the wrong link. Still, it sounds like he sold the lens again and kept just the 14-24G and 24 TS-E II, so I guess he wasn't even happy with the 17 TS-E by itself. I have seen another couple of people who weren't that happy, but probably twice that number who were happy, so 2 out of 3 ain't bad?

because you`ve put my nose in fred miranda i went in, after many years not having been there.
i found 9 reviews of the 17tse and 11 reviews of the 24tse.

100% of this 20 reviewers said the lenses are: very sharp, very good optically, very small amount of CA, little distortion.
the critics was about too huge front elements, too price, no filters on the 17 and some details like that ( anyway price isnt a detail but we here in the beautyfull 16bit mf world are really used to pay much worser amounts of money ).

funny how you can write what you are writing. maybe you should test them yourself ?

Same old story!
You have to test these lenses for yourself.
Currently I'm happy with my D3x and the Nikon PC-e lenses.
Apart from the easy to fix barrel distortion,the 14-24 is also very useful.


However,when Canon launches their 1DsMk4,I will certainly have a look at the 17 TSE and the 24 TSE II.
Hopefully by then,there will be a 35 TSE and a 45 TSE II and a 90 TSE II

Maybe Nikon by then will have a 17 PC-e ?

Happy shooting,

Best,
Willem.

Was just about to write something similar, to ask for links to negative reviews as I haven't seen any (not that I was looking). Yes, people complain about not being able to use filters and the dangerous front element, but these aren't complaints about the lens' performance optically.

I find the 17 needs 1-2pts green shift correction in LR sometimes. In DPP there's no CA.