Small Rambling on the 24mm TS-E II

[tokengirl]

I've been using it for landscapes with great success, so I decided to try my hand at something new: office space.

5DMkII & 24mm TS-E II, 3-shot vertorama, available light only. First time I ever tried stitching photos - modern software never ceases to amaze me.

My conclusion? It's not really wide enough for interiors. So I just HAD TO order the 17mm TS-E. It will arrive on Friday, and I'm not quite sure how I will make it through this waiting game.

 

[pfigen]

I have both the 17 and the new 24, and couldn't live without either of them. The 24 seems to have a very slight edge optically, but then, who ever thought we'd ever even SEE a 17 with an image circle big enough to shift. Here's an example of the 17 used to stitch two horizontal frames into a vertical. This lens just rocks. And then a couple of single frames of Disney Hall the first weekend I had the lens.

 

[mbroomfield]

Where are you buying from? I've been looking for both for some time now.

Thanks

Mike

 

[pfigen]

I got the 17mm from Samy's and the 24 from Canoga Camera. They are both hard to find and almost impossible to get any sort of a discount on. The 17 lists for $2500 and the dealer pays over $2200.

I wanted to buy the 24 from Samy's but they couldn't get one in time. Their Canon rep swore up and down that not a single store in Southern Ca. had any in stock but later that afternoon I saw two with my own eyes at Canoga. Not sure what exactly is going on here but something is definitely up in the supply chain.

I've been dealing with Frank Schlegel at Samy's for well over twenty years. Give them a call and ask for him.

 

[tokengirl]

Where are you buying from? I've been looking for both for some time now.

Thanks

Mike

B&H Photo. As of this morning, they had the 17mm in stock, but not the 24mm II. Sign up for the "notify me when available" e-mail, and you'll know as soon as they get them in. Upon receiving the notification, act quickly. I hesitated for an hour on the 17mm, and they were gone. I had to wait another three weeks until they got them again.

 

[tokengirl]

And then a couple of single frames of Disney Hall the first weekend I had the lens.

Ah, that magical first weekend with a new lens... it's kind of like a first date.

Really lovely photos, btw.

 

[mbroomfield]

Thanks, I've signed up for notification of both from B&H but haven't received any email. I've been checking daily too. I'll sign up again I think.

Mike

 

[docmaas]

Exactly how did you take your 3 images. Was the camera stationary and you used the shift function with the lens tilted or what?

Also in pictures of the lens I see that there is material surrounding the rear element between the glass and the inside of the lens flange. Does it look like that material could be removed easily.?

I'm wondering about converting this lens to a sony mount.

thanks,

Mike

 

[tokengirl]

Mike,

The camera was stationary, in landscape orientation. One shot shifted all the way up, one shot with no shift, and one shot shifted all the way down. No tilt was used. The three images were stitched in Photoshop CS4.

As to your other question, I don't know about "easily removed" as I am not that adventurous. All I know is my warranty would be "easily voided".:shocked:

 

[docmaas]

LOL. Roger the warranty issue and thanks for the info.

Mike

 

[tokengirl]

Perhaps you might consider the original 24mm TS-E for your experiment. They're half the price new, and you can probably find a used one for even less as quite a few people have upgraded to the new version.

 

[pfigen]

I have a great condition 24mm vI for sale, in box with manual, pouch and hood, if you're interested.

I think on my vertical shot posted above, I only shot two frames, one shifted up and the other down. I did, as I remember, tweak the focus on the bottom shot so the bottom would actually be in sharp focus. You can see the difference even at f/11 on a 17.

 

[wayne_s]

Exactly how did you take your 3 images. Was the camera stationary and you used the shift function with the lens tilted or what?

Also in pictures of the lens I see that there is material surrounding the rear element between the glass and the inside of the lens flange. Does it look like that material could be removed easily.?

I'm wondering about converting this lens to a sony mount.

thanks,

Mike

I doubt you could convert this to Sony since Sony A-mount is smaller in size than Canon and so I bet the lens bayonnet would not probably fit inside the A-mount. Also, to get infinity focus you would need to reduce the register length of the lens by .2cm.
Maybe it can be done and it would be awesome to see work.
Looks harder though than getting my ZA 135/1.8 to work on my Canon 1ds3.

 

[pfigen]

You'd also have to reverse engineer the electrical instruction for aperture selection. If you were adventurous and owned a lathe, it's probably with the realm of possibility to get these to mount and operate on something else, but it would a lot easier and maybe less expensive in the long run to just buy a Canon body for these lenses.

 

[docmaas]

Register difference is .6mm so I doubt that would be a problem but the lens apparently does not have an external manual aperture ring and that will be more of a problem that I would want to deal with. I don't have a lathe but I have a local hobbyist who does and who can do almost anything that can be done in that respect but the lens aperture and electronic protocols would definitely be a problem.

Back to the drawing board. I'll have to check the ts-e 1 to see whether it is possible on that otherwise it may be time to look at the FD 35mm or perhaps just stick with the tilt only 50mm f4 flektogon I currently have.

The idea of tilt, shift and a lens that would serve well as a 24mm normal lens was looking very attractive. 17mm is too wide for me and 35 a little narrow without the shift.

The II version looks a good deal sharper on the comparison I saw in one test on the web which is why I was looking at that one vs the I version.

thanks for calling my attention to the aperture issue.

Mike

You'd also have to reverse engineer the electrical instruction for aperture selection. If you were adventurous and owned a lathe, it's probably with the realm of possibility to get these to mount and operate on something else, but it would a lot easier and maybe less expensive in the long run to just buy a Canon body for these lenses.

 

[pfigen]

As far as I know there are no EF Canon lenses that have a manual aperture control. You are right; the new 24II is a remarkable piece of glass and works just as well as a normal manual focus 24, as long as you don't need anything faster than 3.5 - and it's way sharper at 3.5 than the 24 1.4 is at 3.5, especially in the corners.

The Red video camera can use both the latest Nikon and Canon glass, so it can't be THAT hard to figure out the electronics. It's just that I've never heard of an individual trying it themselves. But really, how hard would it be to read all the combinations coming off the contacts to figure it all out. And there's the Conrus guy in Canada who does the fully functional Zeiss to Canon conversions retaining AF and AE all the way. I've thought of working this out myself, but, really, I'm too busy shooting and in post, but I have though about it.

Peter

 

[tokengirl]

it would a lot easier and maybe less expensive in the long run to just buy a Canon body for these lenses.

That's what I was thinking. (make sure you get a model with Live View - invaluable tool for obtaining critical focus)

 

[Diane B]

Mike,

The camera was stationary, in landscape orientation. One shot shifted all the way up, one shot with no shift, and one shot shifted all the way down. No tilt was used. The three images were stitched in Photoshop CS4.

Just a quick note---shooting a pano (either vertical or horizontal) with a TS-e using shift couldn't be easier. They stitch perfectly--you can also work out a 3 over 3 pano using the shift.

Diane

 

[Diane B]

As far as I know there are no EF Canon lenses that have a manual aperture control. You are right; the new 24II is a remarkable piece of glass and works just as well as a normal manual focus 24, as long as you don't need anything faster than 3.5 - and it's way sharper at 3.5 than the 24 1.4 is at 3.5, especially in the corners.

There are no EF Canon lenses that have manual aperture control. Because I have dealt with this for use on my m4/3rds (my 45 TS-e), you can set aperture on an EOS body, then hold the DOF preview button and it will 'hold' that aperture to use on another system. The trick, of course, is carrying an EOS body to make those aperture changes LOL. Might as well use that EOS body directly.

The FD lenses all have manual aperture control and there is a 35mm TS I believe.

Diane

 

[docmaas]

I did contact Conurus about providing an external box for his conversions so they could be used on another mount than canon. As it turns out his chip reverts to manual mode if it doesn't find a canon protocol when mounted and at that point the external aperture on the lens works. What one would have to do for those lenses is provide the power through the contacts on the non-canon mount or from an external source.

Sigma and Canon protocols are largely identical, the stabilization is different for sure and there may be other minimal differences but converting a canon lens to sigma is pretty trivial and maintains all the aperture and auto focus functionality.

I suspect the lens functionality resides in a single chip and could be removed from a camera and housed with a power supply to work with other mounts but it's something I'm completely in the dark about and not something I'm interested in pursuing.

I bought a Hartblei superrotator 55mm 4.5 on ebay this morning. The 55 was originally designed as a shift lens and has larger elements and a bigger image circle than the other hartblei lenses. It provides 12mm of shift. Like some others I'm interested in getting max dof and shift at shot time rather than using fusing in post.

That 24mm was sure an attractive option until the aperture issue came up. I looked at the Nikon and it probably could be converted as long as the external aperture ring works in manual mode all the time and not only when on the camera like the Contax N and 645.

A canon camera is not really an option for me as I already have quite a bit of minolta stuff and I'm seriously thinking of removing the aa filter which I don't believe can be done on a canon as 1/2 (the horizontal IIRC) of the AA serves as the coverglass on the sensor and is not easily removed (think of solvent baths!).

BTW that machinist had to rebuild the aperture lever inside the lens on a kiron 105mm conversion from FD to digital pentax.

Mike


Mike

You'd also have to reverse engineer the electrical instruction for aperture selection. If you were adventurous and owned a lathe, it's probably with the realm of possibility to get these to mount and operate on something else, but it would a lot easier and maybe less expensive in the long run to just buy a Canon body for these lenses.

As far as I know there are no EF Canon lenses that have a manual aperture control. You are right; the new 24II is a remarkable piece of glass and works just as well as a normal manual focus 24, as long as you don't need anything faster than 3.5 - and it's way sharper at 3.5 than the 24 1.4 is at 3.5, especially in the corners.

The Red video camera can use both the latest Nikon and Canon glass, so it can't be THAT hard to figure out the electronics. It's just that I've never heard of an individual trying it themselves. But really, how hard would it be to read all the combinations coming off the contacts to figure it all out. And there's the Conrus guy in Canada who does the fully functional Zeiss to Canon conversions retaining AF and AE all the way. I've thought of working this out myself, but, really, I'm too busy shooting and in post, but I have though about it.

Peter