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Customer Reviews for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Diagonal angle of view of 84° on a full-frame camera
Ergonomically-designed and easily operated tilt and shift knobs
Enhanced range of tilt movement of up to +/- 8.5°
TS rotation combine tilting and shifting axis' within the range of +/- 90°
Average Customer Rating:
(13 Reviews) 13
Rating Snapshot (13 reviews)
5 stars
11
4 stars
0
3 stars
1
2 stars
0
1 star
1
11 out of 13(85%)reviewers would recommend this product to a friend.
Customer Reviews for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Review 1 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: bikeatt
Location: UE
Used this product for: more than 1 year
Expertise Level: Advanced Amateur
Canon Enthusiast: 11 to 20 years
Product replacement: No
Expensive but soooo worht it
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
4
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:February 8, 2012
Pros: image quality, creative flexibility, build quality
Cons: bit expensive
I agree - it is not your everyday lens, not even your every week lens. To be honest, if you do not have a need for it will quickly become your once-in-a-quite-long-long-while lens. Then you may feel disappointed, but it will not be because the product is not good, it will be because you didn't bother to think whether you really need it when buying it.
It is also a demanding lens to use - you most probably will use a tripod (unless you have super steady hands), be patient, and take some time to learn how to use it. Btw - architectural and landscape photography, where this lens finds most applications will require a tripod and some patience (when composing) in most cases anyway.
However, when you do need features of this lens and take time to learn how to shoot with it - nothing comes close to quality you will receive.
If anybody claims that he/she can do the same with regular lens and some post processing while retaining the same quality, he/she either never really used this lens or doesn't really needed such lens and doesn't want to spare time to learn how to use it. If a bit of PS magic would give you the same effects / quality no one would buy TS lenses any more and manufacturers would stop producing them. Somehow, Canon not only has not stopped, but they are refreshing (24 mkII) and expanding (17) TS lens line).
Asking for a fast autofocus in this lens - when at least 50% (if not more) of joy from using it comes from manipulating the focus pane, point and DoF - is like asking for a big trunk in a sports coupe. With respect to infinite DoF by tilting instead of gong down to f16-22 and loosing detail due to diffraction - please refer to YMHARNC review.
Expensive? Definitely yes. But are other special application tools that you know of or use - when compared to regular items of their category - cheap?
It is also a demanding lens to use - you most probably will use a tripod (unless you have super steady hands), be patient, and take some time to learn how to use it. Btw - architectural and landscape photography, where this lens finds most applications will require a tripod and some patience (when composing) in most cases anyway.
However, when you do need features of this lens and take time to learn how to shoot with it - nothing comes close to quality you will receive.
If anybody claims that he/she can do the same with regular lens and some post processing while retaining the same quality, he/she either never really used this lens or doesn't really needed such lens and doesn't want to spare time to learn how to use it. If a bit of PS magic would give you the same effects / quality no one would buy TS lenses any more and manufacturers would stop producing them. Somehow, Canon not only has not stopped, but they are refreshing (24 mkII) and expanding (17) TS lens line).
Asking for a fast autofocus in this lens - when at least 50% (if not more) of joy from using it comes from manipulating the focus pane, point and DoF - is like asking for a big trunk in a sports coupe. With respect to infinite DoF by tilting instead of gong down to f16-22 and loosing detail due to diffraction - please refer to YMHARNC review.
Expensive? Definitely yes. But are other special application tools that you know of or use - when compared to regular items of their category - cheap?
31 of 32 people found this review helpful.
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Review 2 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: jpcgpdx
Location: Portland, OR
Used this product for: 6 to 12 months
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Canon Enthusiast: 1 to 5 years
Product replacement: Yes
Great lens!
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
3
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:November 6, 2011
Very crisp and clean images. Tack sharp. Improvement on the Gen 1 version of this lens. Can be used for a variety of things: Architecture, landscapes, macros, shift and stitch panoramas. Fantastic versility. If you've shot large format and miss the controls, get this lens. Yeah, it's expensive. Mostly for pros.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Review 3 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: Pro Photog
Location: Sacramento CA
Used this product for: more than 1 year
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Mostly used for: Business
Canon Enthusiast: more than 20 years
Product replacement: Yes
Extremely useful for handheld photography
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
5
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:October 24, 2011
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images
If you have looked up resolution on this lens on The-Digital-Picture you already know it is incredibly sharp and distortion free. It has become my favorite lens for the type of industrial work that I do for heavy industry.
However, I want to address a caveat that several reviewers have made: that it is essential to use a tripod with this lens especially when the tilt function is used. Nonsense. I have taken many pictures with the tilt function hand held. It is not that difficult to set up focus from near to far by going back and forth a bit with the tilt function. When you get it right, all that's necessary is to maintain the same camera angle to the subject. You can stand up, squat down, pivot left or right and the tilt function will work just fine as long as you hold the camera in your hand with the same angle.
This ease of use makes the tilt function amazingly useful for many sorts of photography that are commonly encountered in factories, mills, mines, pipelines, and such. I rarely use a tripod for any photography and hardly ever need to use one with this lens.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Review 4 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: AaronD
Location: Kansas City
Used this product for: more than 1 year
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Fantastic lens
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
5
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:October 23, 2011
Rock solid, razor sharp, virtually no distortion or CA. But understand why you need one before you buy one. If you won't use a tripod then buy something else and be happier.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Review 5 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: Fiat Lux
Location: California
Used this product for: 3 to 6 months
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Mostly used for: Landscape/Nature
Canon Enthusiast: 1 to 5 years
Product replacement: No
Best Tilt/Shift
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
4
out of
5
Price/Value
3
out of
5
Quality
4
out of
5
Satisfaction
4
out of
5
Date:June 24, 2011
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images
Due to its focal length, the tilt capability does not come into play unless the subject includes something very close. Nonetheless, when one has such a subject tilting is indispensable. For architecture, or any tall subject, being to use rise (i.e., shift up) is almost as good as a view camera. It is always best to get verticals vertical in camera to avoid stretching discernible subject elements such as circles out of shape as post processing may do. To give an example, one can stand across the street from a three-story building and capture the whole building with no distortion. Even if you cannot keep the subject vertical and need to rejigger in Photoshop, you're still better off than if the camera needed to be pointed up even more.
The lens is not totally without chromatic aberration, particularly at its extremes. But one can deal with that if needed.
Now I hope that a 90mm T/S II is in the works.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.
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Review 6 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: Fabio Bosco
Location: Mineola, NY
Used this product for: 6 to 12 months
Expertise Level: Advanced Amateur
Mostly used for: Family & Friends
Canon Enthusiast: 1 to 5 years
Product replacement: No
Fantastic, even for family pictures
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
5
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:April 29, 2011
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images
I mainly take pictures of my kids and this is another tool I use on my arsenal. Going to do some bowling? Use the tilt capabilities to keep the whole lane in focus even at f/3.5. The combination of tilt and shift ca be used to produce some very unique pictures of the family. Colors and picture quality are fantastic! Highly recommended.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Review 7 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: YMHARNC
Location: Central Oregon
Used this product for: more than 1 year
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Mostly used for: Landscape/Nature
Canon Enthusiast: 11 to 20 years
Product replacement: Yes
Know Your Facts
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
4
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:December 30, 2010
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images, versatile movements that cannot be mimicked in ps
Cons: expen$ive, takes practice to master
I've used this lens, which replaced the marginal Mk I version I owned previously, for over a year. Awesome doesn't begin to describe the image quality you can get with it. Canon engineers hit a home run with this lens.
My extensive experience with t/s lenses and my particular experience with this lens leaves me scratching my head at a few of the comments I've read about the use of tilt-shift lenses and this lens in particular.
My favorite feature of this lens is its ability to create a seamlessly sharp image from close up to infinity using the tilt feature. This takes a little practice. Some will argue that you don't benefit from this with a 24mm (wide angle) lens because of its inherently deep depth-of-field. This is simply not true. Wide angle lenses are often used close up, and the closer you are to your subject, the more you will need to employ tilt to bring the background into focus - even at narrow apertures with a wide angle lens. What's more, if you are able to achieve seamless foreground-to-background focus w/o tilt, you're probably doing it at f/16-22. If you can achieve the same thing using tilt at f/8, you will end up with a significantly sharper image because of the diffraction that occurs at f/16 and beyond.
It is worth noting that this infinite focus effect is NOT something you can easily achieve in software (although PS does have a function requiring multiple bracketed-focus images that attempts to do so).
Some suggest that you can't hand hold this lens so you might as well shoot with a standard lens and use software. It is true that you need a tripod when using TILT. It is laughable that the work around is to hand hold a standard lens and use software. You can't mimic infinite focus unless you start out that way; and if you're going to try to use focus-bracketed shots with PS to get close, you still need a tripod for your bracketed shots.
When using SHIFT, the feature that allows you to maintain straight vertical lines with architecture and tall trees, you ABSOLUTELY CAN hand hold it. You will achieve the same results (by which I mean blur from camera shake or slight focus inaccuracies from minor movements as you take the shot) as hand holding a standard lens at the same shutter speed and f/stop - minus the keystoning. The same is true when a t/s lens is mounted on a monopod and shifted.
When you shift a t/s lens, it is accurate to say that you lose resolution during the process. How much depends on the quality of the particular lens (which, in the case of this lens is outstanding), how far you are shifted, and at what aperture you are shooting. If you shoot at f/8, the loss is minimal even with an extreme shift, but it is there. However, to suggest that a work around is to use a standard lens and correct the distortion with software completely ignores the fact that you lose even more resolution -- significantly more -- by "stretching the pixels" in software after capture.
So am I suggesting that a standard 24 has no advantages over its tilt-shift brethren? Not at all. The t/s is heavier; its manual-only focus system make it unsuitable for situations requiring fast focusing, and it lacks the image stabilization and/or wider apertures available in other lenses. It comes down to choosing the right tool for the job. My point is that the TS-E 24 II is a very good tool; for anyone to suggest it is "useless" is bringing their own knowledge and credibility into question.
When I was shooting with the original TS-E 24, the Mk I, I realized that I was making a trade off. I was using a lens with some notable weaknesses in order to take advantage of the benefits that come with being able to tilt and shift. With this lens, that trade off is gone. The image quality is phenomenal and the tilt-shift actions give the lens a versatility that, in many ways, cannot be mimicked with software. Yes, this lens is expensive. Use one for a day and you'll understand why. Is it worth twice as much as the first version? Absolutely!
84 of 85 people found this review helpful.
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Review 8 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: JohnL
Location: Northeast, OH
Used this product for: 6 to 12 months
Expertise Level: Hobbyist/Enthusiast
Product replacement: No
I'll stick with Perspective Correction Software
Overall Rating
Features
4
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
3
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
2
out of
5
Date:November 16, 2010
Pros: very sharp
Cons: useless out in the field, photo editing sw almost as good, extremely expensive
Physically and optically this lens is about as good as it gets. However, unless the camera and lens are mounted on a tripod, the lens is basically useless. I tried using this lens to photograph audio equipment to sell on ebay but I am forced to get too close. For architecture, I use a monopod so manipulating the lens controls and focus is a pain. I find that my EF 16-35mm F/2.8 L Ver II used with photo editing software containing perspective correction capabilities handles 95% of my needs. Plus, the zoom is fast with autofocus. You just have to remember to back off slightly to allow for the software to cut off sections around the edge.
Finally, the latest versions of Canon's L lenses are REALLY expensive.
10 of 82 people found this review helpful.
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Review 9 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: A
Location: Kansas City, MO
Used this product for: more than 1 year
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Product replacement: Yes
Fantastic lens
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
4
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:October 31, 2010
Darn near the sharpest lens I've ever used. No CA, no distortion. Extreme shift gets fuzzy at the edges, but you can work around with multiple shots if it's critical...
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Review 10 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: ppro
Location: North-Easterner
Used this product for: 6 to 12 months
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Product replacement: No
View Camera capabilities...
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
5
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:August 30, 2010
Pros: sharpness, contrast, color accuracy, control of perspective control in-camera, maximum control of depth-of-focus
Cons: large filter size, no auto-focus, no image stabilization
As soon as I learned how to use a view camera, I became disappointed in my 35mm because it lacked some of the controls available in large format. Notably, one could not correct perspective distortion or achieve a deep field of focus under some conditions.
With this lens, control returns. Although it is possible to correct some perspective distortion in image-editing software, this is achieved at the expense of sharpness, and results in incorrect proportions. Also, using image-editing software to achieve correction results in losing image area - the more correction applied, the more you lose.
There is no way to achieve the kind of depth-of-focus possible with this lens through image-editing software. While it may be possible to get great depth-of-field by stopping down, sharpness starts to fall off as diffraction sets in.
The tilt and shift features of this lens allow great flexibility and control. The ability to rotate the axis of operation of these features is a big bonus.
This lens is incredibly sharp, produces images with great color and contrast, and offers the side-benefit of sharing the filter size of the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM.
I feel like I have my view camera back. I don't have to stretch images in an image editor to correct perspective distortion - I can do it in-camera, maximizing the image area recorded.
The ability to tilt the lens for increased depth-of-focus opens up new ground for my landscape photography. Now I can shoot at large lens openings and get everything from the flowers at my feet to the mountains on the horizon in perfect focus, without diffraction or loss of sharpness!
41 of 42 people found this review helpful.
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Review 11 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: Frank
Location: Kansas City
Used this product for: more than 1 year
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Product replacement: No
24 and 17mm T/S aren't useful.
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
2
out of
5
Price/Value
1
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
1
out of
5
Date:July 17, 2010
Pros: fantastic build quality
Cons: leave perspective correction to editing software, wideangles have too much dof to need tilt, resolution becomes quite poor when shifted
The lens does two things that are practically unrelated, and both of which are borderline useless in the extreme wideangle.
Firstly, the shift mechanism allows perspective correction. This was a critical part of photography in the days of large format, and I used this lens to get the same benefit on film when I started out with Canon. However, if you are working digitally, it is far easier and cheaper to correct perspective while editing.
Second, It allows tilting of the plane of focus, which allows near/far compositions to simultaneously be in focus when simply stopping down doesn't do enough (or isn't desired for other reasons such as stopping subject motion, etc.) However, these extreme wide angles, with small apertures even wide-open, have extreme DOF already and it'd be a rare photograph that needed more DOF than a normal lens could accomplish at 24mm (or even more so, 17mm). On the other hand this ability would be very attractive at 45-90mm. (A related trick is to tilt focus in the opposite direction of your composition to minimize DOF. But again at 17 and 24mm, I'm sorry but nothing gets very defocused anyway.)
As far as other details of the lens go: the construction is the very best Canon makes, comperable to the 70-200Ls or better. The image quality unfortunately suffers as you shift off-center, as the lens resolution falls off as with every lens. (There is also extreme cos^4 vignetting, though that can be fixed in your editing software.)
17 of 83 people found this review helpful.
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Review 12 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: CanonFan
Location: CA
Used this product for: Less than 1 month
Expertise Level: Hobbyist/Enthusiast
Product replacement: No
Excellent Lens
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
4
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:January 12, 2010
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images
Cons: manual focus only
Being my first TS lens - the picture quality - sharpness, color reproduction and contrast is exceptional. I own several L lenses and this has definitely one of the most sharpest pictures!! Playing with the Tilt and Shift does take time getting used to but learning this lens is fun. Would definitely recommend this lens.
15 of 18 people found this review helpful.
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Review 13 for TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II
Nickname: scjurgen
Location: New York, NY
Used this product for: 1 to 3 months
Expertise Level: Professional or Expert
Product replacement: No
get to the higher planes
Overall Rating
Features
5
out of
5
Performance
5
out of
5
Price/Value
4
out of
5
Quality
5
out of
5
Satisfaction
5
out of
5
Date:October 20, 2009
Pros: Super-sharp images, Superior build quality, extreme focus plane control
I was first a bit skeptical, but after being out in the field and getting used to the endless possibilities of tilting and shifting the focus plane I can't do without it.
Landscape and architecture get a new meaning, but also portraits/wedding can get that nice addition if you use the TS intelligently.
Perfectly sharp (sharper than the corresponding prime, IMHO) the superiority is easily visible on my 5D mkii.
Not having an auto focus (no, I am not complaining), I would suggest also to add a manual diaphragm control for quicker control.
64 of 65 people found this review helpful.
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