Amateur Photographer Review of the EF 11-24 f/4

[privatebydesign]

Thanks StudentOfLight, I shoot with the 6D so that's just what I needed to hear.

Jack

Yes all Canon bodies call it long exposure noise reduction, bare in mind that if you take a 2 minute exposure the camera locks up for two minutes after that while it takes the dark frame. Any exposure over 1 second means the camera will loc up for that same exposure time again after the initial exposure.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Great info, thanks.

Jack

 

[WorkonSunday]

hi all,

more of a general question, any one read any article/reviews that compare the 17mm TSE to 11-24mm ? at full swing the 17mm gives 11mm coverage too, so it will be interesting to see if 11-24mm at 11mm can match the 17mm.

Cheers,

Keith at Northlight did a quick test of this and found the stitched 17mm shots to provide a slightly wider FOV (CTRL-F "10mm" to find it on the page):
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/cameras/lenses/ef_11-24_f4l.html

Thanks for the info! back to decision time!!

 

[Jack Douglas]

hi all,

more of a general question, any one read any article/reviews that compare the 17mm TSE to 11-24mm ? at full swing the 17mm gives 11mm coverage too, so it will be interesting to see if 11-24mm at 11mm can match the 17mm.

Cheers,

Keith at Northlight did a quick test of this and found the stitched 17mm shots to provide a slightly wider FOV (CTRL-F "10mm" to find it on the page):
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/cameras/lenses/ef_11-24_f4l.html

Thanks for the info! back to decision time!!

For what it's worth regarding decisions, assuming a purchase would not create serious stresses within the family, I'd go for it. How often in life do you get to have the fun of being first with something this unique and what is $3 - 4K these days, really. There are few purchases I've made of top quality products (usually tools) where I regretted buying high quality. Of course there are caveats such as not being prone to buy on whims, FWIW.

Jack

 

[privatebydesign]

hi all,

more of a general question, any one read any article/reviews that compare the 17mm TSE to 11-24mm ? at full swing the 17mm gives 11mm coverage too, so it will be interesting to see if 11-24mm at 11mm can match the 17mm.

Cheers,

Keith at Northlight did a quick test of this and found the stitched 17mm shots to provide a slightly wider FOV (CTRL-F "10mm" to find it on the page):
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/cameras/lenses/ef_11-24_f4l.html

Thanks for the info! back to decision time!!

For what it's worth regarding decisions, assuming a purchase would not create serious stresses within the family, I'd go for it. How often in life do you get to have the fun of being first with something this unique and what is $3 - 4K these days, really. There are few purchases I've made of top quality products (usually tools) where I regretted buying high quality. Of course there are caveats such as not being prone to buy on whims, FWIW.

Jack

I understand what you are saying Jack, and you know from my history I agree, but I think WorkOnSunday's point was he had to make a choice between the 11-24 or the 17TS-E, and that is a much more difficult decision.

But, if that is the case it isn't too difficult to narrow down priorities. First off, fov, if you need 11mm (actually if you need much more than 14mm or so, get the zoom. If you are shooting subjects where the movements add more than the fov then get the TS-E. So what is WorkOnSunday shooting? If we know that it is very easy to give sound advice on which lens would serve them best.

I have had the 17TS-E for years now and it is a serious workhorse, the shift allows ultra wide angle shots that no other lens does, it also allows effortless and fast stitching that effectively gives you a larger sensor, the 11-24 doesn't. A full understanding of equivalence implies the 17 can give you amazing flexibility and genuine medium format image quality from a two shot shift stitch, but do you need that? The 11-24 has AF, a different aspect ratio from shift stitches and ultimately narrower fov in either horizontal or vertical angles than a 17 shift stitch, but wider diagonal fov out of the box.

These lenses are both superb lenses, how each of us need to use them is the determining factor in which is best for each of us. There are lots of nuances that actual use open up and end output is key to making a choice, one is certainly not 'better' than the other, they are just different.

 

[Jack Douglas]

privatebydesign, sorry I missed the context. Lots of good advice there and yes for me now, the easy part is done, but that's meaningless unless it gets lots of use as a learning tool. I will now be cooling it as far as lenses go.

One of my bad habits is rolling out of bed in a stupor and opening CR! :-[

Jack

 

[mb66energy]

mb66energy, thanks for that. I'll be trying some of these tricks. Yes there were lots of stars and I didn't think much of it until I noticed "stars" in the side of my garage!

I'm looking forward to some astro landscape and getting out to where it is really dark but there is just so much to learn!!

Jack

Hi Jack, two ideas to check for hot pixels:
(1) Make a 30 sec exp. with a lens cap installed in a dim room with and without dark frame
(2) Make a 30 sec exposure of a night sky with a ~100mm lens: Stars will show as short lines, hot pixels as dots!

Good luck - Michael

 

[Jack Douglas]

Thanks for that. Have a new problem, DPP hung up when I was transferring some files from SDHC to my computer and now CF and SD no longer get recognized in my Win 7 system. Files are still viewable via camera thankfully. DPP seems to have various bugs but this is a first that caused a major problem for me.

Jack

 

[Jack Douglas]

Full power off solved the problem. Any idea when Canon will have the lens profile for DPP, anyone?

Jack

 

[weixing]

mb66energy, thanks for that. I'll be trying some of these tricks. Yes there were lots of stars and I didn't think much of it until I noticed "stars" in the side of my garage!

I'm looking forward to some astro landscape and getting out to where it is really dark but there is just so much to learn!!

Jack

Hi Jack, two ideas to check for hot pixels:
(1) Make a 30 sec exp. with a lens cap installed in a dim room with and without dark frame
(2) Make a 30 sec exposure of a night sky with a ~100mm lens: Stars will show as short lines, hot pixels as dots!

Good luck - Michael

Hi,
IMHO, not a good way... normal noise will show up as dot as well. I usually check by shooting with lens cap on at ISO 100 at the fastest shutter speed... no noise will show up and only dead pixels and ultra sensitive pixels will show up.

Have a nice day.

 

[Jack Douglas]

weixing, thanks, that seems to make sense so I'll do a little more digging to find a resource that deals thoroughly with this. Just haven't had the time so far, not even for more 11-24 shots, and that's pretty bad. To boot I've also hardly used the 1D4 I purchased just prior, or the angle finder or ..... Think I'm stuck in cold Alberta hibernation mode and very inefficient. It was spring last week and then a foot of snow dumped, so it's winter again.

My bird shooting "observatory" has a one way mirror that I look through with the camera mounted left of it and there is a food tray right in front - here's a photo - so I'm going to try for a beak shot of the bluejay inches away at 11mm, although it's like shooting through tinted glass. Should be good for a laugh.

Jack

 

[Pixel]

I could really use a lens profile for this lens from Canon instead of fixing the distortions manually.

 

[mackguyver]

Cool observatory Jack! I see you put it in a nice strategic spot for the woodpeckers as well.

I could really use a lens profile for this lens from Canon instead of fixing the distortions manually.

Agreed and having been through the early-lens adopter thing a few times around, it seems to take Adobe, DxO, and even Canon forever to produce a profile. I keep checking EOS Utility to see if they have a profile so I can at least do an in-camera JPEG conversion, but still nothing. The next ACR update is probably 3 months away as well, but hopefully DxO will have something soon. We could build our own ACR profiles (as PrivatebyDesign has done), but it seems somewhat tedious to me for a zoom and the 11mm setting would be difficult.

 

[privatebydesign]

I could really use a lens profile for this lens from Canon instead of fixing the distortions manually.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5489

It is free too........

 

[ERHP]

Thanks PBD! I waited long enough on several lists and finally found a copy at the local store in San Diego, George's, yesterday. Took my first shots with it this evening and very impressed. Still, much wider aspect than I'm used to having at my disposal and going to be a learning curve to make the most of it.