I received my 11-24L last week and did what was SUPPOSED to be a quick writeup (ended up taking longer than I anticipated -- I even drafted up a few points before I received my lens) of my new toy on my site here:

http://www.bgateb.com/2015/03/canon-ef-11-24-f4l-usm-lens-review/

There are a few (okay, maybe more than a few) things I did wrong, but I plan on revisiting these issues in a future post.

Foxdude said:

So, I sold the Sigma, and have been using the EF 35 IS about 2 months now.
To compare them, here are few my thoughts. First, I didn't use them side by side, but I feel they are equally sharp, even wide open. Or at least the difference is that small I can't see that on 40 inch TV, or zooming in in computer.
F 1.4 would be nice sometimes, but I haven't missed that too much. I much prefer the smaller size and weight. You definetely feel the difference, it is so much nicer to carry around. IS is also nice to have. Bokeh seems to be a little pleasant in Canon.
I agree, there is pretty bad coma, until you stod down to F4. Doesn't bother me, though.
I have no regrets at all, I also pocketed some money when sold Sigma and bought the New EF35 IS.
With all that hype around Sigma Art lenses, I would say this Canon is just as good. Even better overall, when we think versatility, weight, IS, size, price...
Unless you really need the F1.4, or you like to shoot test charts wide open and print them large, I would say the Canon EF 35 IS is a better choice. Just my thoughts

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I see quite a few people switching over now. There is a guy in the Flickr group for this lens that just switched from the Sigma and he's pretty much said exactly what you did. His main issue with the Art was the size of the lens. If you want to see the discussion you can have a look if you like https://www.flickr.com/groups/canon35mm_is_usm/discuss/72157644351053006/
Glad to see you're happy with the Canon 35 IS, I know after one year of owning mine I love it to bits!

skoobey said:

I you want to be seriously good, neither.

Invest in art books, trips to museums and libraries.

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You should explain this comment a bit - so the OP (very young) understands WHY you say it. That will help.

Mitch.Conner said:

Impressive. I sort of want one of those Hoya glass cakes. Coolest paperweight ever.

I honestly never stopped to think about what Hoya makes beyond filters.

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I agree, I'd love a glass cake too.

LensTip has completed their review of the 24 Art:
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=25443.0;topicseen

Worth a read!

- A

On the higher end Canon had some C300 / C500 on features they only did action shots and not many, why they were used on these films was due to some good marketing by Canon shall we say! The C300 is a capable camera and at the time filled a gap in the market and our lower end rental fleet has them. The pictures however from the F5 / F55 family if treated properly far exceed the C300, and the FS7 has the same family roots, less noise, more dynamic range and a bigger colour gamut.
The C300 sales have dried-up and as stated elsewhere the Sony FS7 is on back-order and for a good reason its a superior camera technically.

However at the high-end neither Canon or Sony look likely to challenge Red or Arri who remarkably dont even have a 4K camera. Reasons are complex but Sony, Canon, Panasonic et al dont understand simple, dont understand how crews work on film sets or TV drama sets they over complicate their cameras rather than devoting that time as Arri do to perfecting colorimagery and in an aspect ratio filmmakers want (4:3 for anamorphic & re-framing).

If Canon want to remain serious in Cinematography, listen to end users first long before the engineers get involved, 4K is a number not a right of passage and resolution is but one element.

NNature said:

Here is a link to a review.
https://photographylife.com/shooting-hand-held-with-the-sigma-150-600mm-sport

I took this image yesterday @ 600mm/6,3

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Welcome to the forum, and thanks for posting. Very nice. But please post details of its crop size etc or leave the EXIF data on the jpeg. What camera was it on, what iso, what speed? Is it a 100% crop, is it reduced in size or what? Otherwise it is so difficult to judge the quality. If you get close enough, which the secret of high quality images, all lenses give good results. I look for lenses that give sharp images from a 1000x800 central crop of a small bird at 20 metres. The Sigma does look first class so far.

Thanks, Mt Spokane. This is a great explanation of how AF works and what might go wrong. Much appreciated.

IMG_0001 said:

By the way, Ph.D is itself an acronym for a specific stem of PTSD. Permenant Head Damage, never fully recoverable...

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I had not heard that one. ;D

To me a PHD meant Piled Higher and Deeper.

takesome1 said:

jdramirez said:

So is it wrong I didn't bother reading the requirements... I have something like $10,000 in gear... and I had a crap ton of points... so I signed up...

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You will have to take that up with your Priest / Rabbi / Minister. Hopefully it will not go on your permanent record and count against you some time in the future.

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I don't bother with PRMs... or church... I've lost interest... there's a lot less guilt. Though I wouldn't mind hanging out with a flying spaghetti monster...

privatebydesign, thank you very much for that. I think right now my interest would be more in the ND filters but I've got a lot of information to assimilate.

Jack

jefflinde said:

Maybe I am just clueless but what is the point of doing this? Other than to say that you can? Is there some advantage to holding a camera like this? People complain about not having a viewfinder and how unimaginablely difficult it is to frame a shot but with this you have to look down and not even close to where your subject is. Please let me know if I am missing something. Honestly I am curious what the draw to this is

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This is great for street photography. You want to avoid eye contact as you want to avoid interacting with the people you photograph as a street photographer to preserve the authenticity of the situation. You do not want people to pose but to act as normal as they do when they do not know that they are photographed.

Re: Using the 11-24

keithcooper said:

The 11-24 is so good that the rectilinear distortion of such a wide angle could look very wrong. What I've not tested with this lens is using FE Hemi on an 11mm lens where I've deliberately added some barrel distortion (see the review of FEH on my site for an example with my old 16-35) There is also DxO's Viewpoint to try.

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I shoot a lot (I mean a LOT!) with my Sigma 15mm fisheye on full-frame. It's vertical field of view is about the equivalent of the vertical field of view of an 11mm rectilinear. It's horizontal field of view is much wider.

Lightroom has a profile for the 15mm fisheye. If you select it, it corrects vignetting and distortion, effectively making it an 11mm rectilinear lens. I find virtually no use for that.

However, there's a really cool feature that the distortion correction has a slider. It goes from 0 to 200, with 100 the default if the profile is active. I've recently been playing with that slider a lot, and even going back to many old pictures and playing with it.

What I've found is that I almost never like 0 and I NEVER* like 100 (rectilinear). I usually settle somewhere between 20 and 50 with an occasional 70.

* There is one case where I like 100 - where I crop to 14mm equivalent rectilinear or greater.

What I'm saying is that the idea of adding something like barrel distortion, fisheye projection or what Fisheye Hemi does (which can also be done in Hugin) may well improve many shots taken below 14mm on the 11-24.

drindrin said:

hey guys just wondering what you guys think about this lens? I'm new to the camera world, and just want a wide lens to take some cool photos is this a good lens, i have a 600d.

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I have one, but never tried to mount it on my EF camera, it's still used only on the (film) FD cameras it was designed for. It is a decent lens, but not a stellar performer. Back then, zooms didn't achieve yet the performance they reached in the past years thanks to improved computer design and process making special glasses less expensive.

Moreover as other explained, the design of the new EF mount makes impossible to use the older FD lenses without an adapter using an optical element and still achieve infinity focus (because they were designed to be mounted closer to the focal plane) - and an optical element means 1) magnification - making the lens even less "wide" (and on a "crop" body a 28mm is not wide at all) 2) image degradation, especially if the optical element is not "perfect". Also, FD lenses used mechanical couplings to set the aperture, while EF use a electric couplings. If you're new to photography, it means a much more complex procedure to meter exposure and focus. You will spend more time fighting with the camera/lens combo than learning photography.

And all those lenses are, after so many years, getting "old", it could be difficult to find one still in good working conditions (and some collector-quality lens can be expensive) - and that specific lens was one of the first using extensively plastic instead of metal in its construction, it was light but not regarded very "sturdy".

My suggestion is to buy one of the wide angle zoom designed for the EF cameras, there are non-Canon branded ones as well, in the used market should not be difficult to find one without spending too much, and it would even be easier to re-sell it later if you want to move to something else.

The Digital Picture now has the 11-24 up. I am really impressed at how it looks wide open at 11mm. When stopped down, it's crazy sharp! The distortion looks about the same as the Nikon 14-24, which is around 4%. Pretty good considering it's 11mm!

What do you guys think? Better or worse than expected?

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=977&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=615&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

janewolowitz said:

hi.. I am new here.,,,,

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Welcome on CR

If you might have a question you can always start a thread and of course you can answer and give your opinion on others to. Have a nice time over here.

I guess my next question should be, "Do you speak Vietnamese?"

Hopefully you have other lenses and can still get some good shots and enjoyment from your travels. Terrible time for a fail.

But, since you are welcoming guesses, sounds like a bad AF motor and/or gear. I've traveled in Vietnam. If you can walk in to a true Canon service center, sounds good--if you have the time to wait. But nobody can tell you how long or how much except the techs at the service center you go to. I understand the anxiety and waiting until Monday, though.

But, wow, finding somebody who can tell you about a repair in Vietnam, based on your description...Even if a US CPS tech were here to chime in, that's a bit of a stretch.

If you have ever used CPS, you know the price could be pretty much anything they decide, and then it might change upwards.

Hope the rest of your trip goes better.

Re: Free Firmware Upgrades For Canon XF205 and XF200 Professional Camcorders Deliver Improved Basic

"Slow- and fast-motion video capture in MP4 formatWhen recording in the MP4 format, users will be able to slow down the action up to 40 percent or speed up video up to 250 percent, facilitating the creation of high-impact and expressive footage."

I am surprised that those cameras did not already do that, since the XA20/25/G30 had the ability to do that from the start.

Well, I removed the sticker to see if the screws were loose and they all seemed to be tight and secure. So I put the sticker back on. Did some limited testing and I don't see any major issues. I stopped down to f8 which maybe skewed the tests a bit but I figure if there was something really wrong with the lens it'd show up regardless of aperture.

One thing I noticed is that when zoomed to 105, the front assembly is much tighter than it is at 24mm. I wouldn't say 100% like my 16-35 but very close to it.

Pretty sure I'm out of warranty so I'll let it rock for now. Appreciate the help!

Seems to me, this price point at 4K will have a huge market, (selling to people like, I don't know, perhaps... me?):
http://shop.panasonic.com/cameras-and-camcorders/camcorders/HC-X1000.html

I realize it's not the sensor size of a C500 or FS7, but I think Canon ignores this 4K price/performance point at its peril.

Am I wrong? Thoughts?

Friends in Australia… I am in the process of selling my 1dc and am wondering if there would be a market for a used 1dc in Australia. My sister is visiting me from there and can carry it with her and put it up for sale on ebay/amazon. My other option is to sell it in USA but then I will have to ship it such other complications. Any thoughts? Will it sell for a decent price there?

Mitch.Conner said:

I was just reading that Nikon might be coming out with a 24-70 f2.8 VR. It might be a PF lens, which would make it lighter than usual (PF is Nikon's version of DO).

It got me remembering that the supposed reason Canon has yet to release a 24-70 f/2.8L IS is due to it being large and heavy. Then I thought, "Isn't the new 11-24 f/4 large and heavy?" So far I don't see people really complaining.

Do you all speculate that a 24-70 f/2.8L IS would be larger or smaller than AND weigh more or less than the 11-24? Or would it be about the same?

Obviously, this would be mostly pure speculation. Perhaps the Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 VC could be used for comparison though.

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I'll be honest after some experience with it, I wouldn't buy an IS version of the 24-70 II if it were bigger/heavier. It is pretty much perfect as-is. And I was an advocate of incorporating IS at some point into it, too.

Also, one of the big reasons I bought the 16-35mm f/4L IS over the 11-24mm f/4L for landscape was due to the too-large/too-heavy size of the 11-24. I waited until the 11-24 came out before I bought either and once I saw the size/weight I knew it was too cumbersome for my landscape stuff.

The only lens I have I'd say that I would say there is not much option but to deal with the extra size/weight is the 70-200 f/2.8L II IS. Due to the focal length both f/2.8 and IS are much appreciated if not often needed.

It's a plastics conference, and Canon Virginia (manufacturing not cameras) will be one of the companies I'll be interviewing while doing video coverage there. Not exactly amazing, but I'm pretty excited.

Any rumors about injection molds you all would like me to ask?

I have a 1DX ;D and a 5D3 ;D.

I cannot for the life of me see why I would want to drop $4K (gripped) for these offerings . . .

You pay sales tax on that so in California where i'm from, it will cost a little under $780.
I'd much rather go through Canonpricewatch and pay the street price of $810 total shipped and get the full Sigma 3 yr warranty for just $30 more