Review: Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L II at DXOMark

[ahsanford]

How hard is it to make some visuals like Photozone does? Is DXO making an extra effort to pander to people who have far more money than intelligence? "Duh... 20 is a bigger number than 18! I'm getting the one with a number 20 cause it's better! Duh... Drool..."

Photozone graphs are pretty easy to read and show the whole story for different apertures and focal lengths.

I use PZ quite a bit, yes, but even they suffer from the critical flaw of most review sites: 1 copy of a lens only. That's farcical statistically.

So the only data I can take sight unseen as money is Uncle Rog at LensRentals. His rig is resolution-irrelevent, he runs 5-10 copies of each lens, and he gives a boatload more optical info than anyone else.

His downside is that he lacks the TDP / LensTip 'all things considered' factors like handling, autofocus speed, usage quirks, focus breathing, autofocus inconsistency, flare, etc.

But, in the end, for resolution, he's far and away the best lab there is.

- A

 

[Loswr]

Look, people...this is really, really simple. All you need to do is make the conscious, affirmative decision to do all of your photography inside a dimly lit warehouse. Portraits? Tell your subjects to head on in. Birds? Capture 'em and toss them in through the door. Mt. Rushmore? Well, you just need a big warehouse, a construction crew, and the cooperation of the National Park Service. The point is, once you make that decision and stick to it, DxOMark will be of the utmost relevance and utility to your photography. Like I said...simple.

 

[ahsanford]

Look, people...this is really, really simple. All you need to do is make the conscious, affirmative decision to do all of your photography inside a dimly lit warehouse. Portraits? Tell your subjects to head on in. Birds? Capture 'em and toss them in through the door. Mt. Rushmore? Well, you just need a big warehouse, a construction crew, and the cooperation of the National Park Service. The point is, once you make that decision and stick to it, DxOMark will be of the utmost relevance and utility to your photography. Like I said...simple.

I just can't wait for them to either (a) explain that the same old lenses previously regarded as 'meh' are now a resounding 'F yeah' with 50 MP now sitting behind them or (b) abruptly change their entire rating system to eliminate the 'resolution bias of lens performance' before 5DS retesting is reported.

Either way, I'll have a tub of popcorn ready.

- A

 

[raptor3x]

"The DxOMark resolution score shows sharpness performance of a lens-camera combination averaged over its entire focal length and aperture ranges."

I had the same thought earlier but it was pointed out to me that the reported sharpness number corresponds to a local maximum sharpness rather than looking at the entire frame, at least according to DxO.

[quote author=DxO]While the 35mm f/2 has slightly higher peak sharpness, the new 35mm f1/.4 is sharper across the image field wide-open than the 35mm f/2 is at its initial aperture. It’s really only at f/2.8 onwards that the slower model has slightly higher center sharpness (which accounts for the higher peak sharpness results), but what’s so good about the new lens is its uniformity. It has low levels of astigmatism, and this greatly improves the imaging performance in the outer field.[/quote]

It seems like there may be a case of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing over at DxO.

 

[benperrin]

Look, people...this is really, really simple. All you need to do is make the conscious, affirmative decision to do all of your photography inside a dimly lit warehouse. Portraits? Tell your subjects to head on in. Birds? Capture 'em and toss them in through the door. Mt. Rushmore? Well, you just need a big warehouse, a construction crew, and the cooperation of the National Park Service. The point is, once you make that decision and stick to it, DxOMark will be of the utmost relevance and utility to your photography. Like I said...simple.

Very funny Neuro. Really enjoyed that post!

 

[ecka]

How hard is it to make some visuals like Photozone does? Is DXO making an extra effort to pander to people who have far more money than intelligence? "Duh... 20 is a bigger number than 18! I'm getting the one with a number 20 cause it's better! Duh... Drool..."

Photozone graphs are pretty easy to read and show the whole story for different apertures and focal lengths.

Actually, I find their graphs being very misleading, because of the disproportional center and border peaks. Limiting it to show only the 1200-3700 part, makes the border resolution look really bad (twice lower than central).
It should look like ...

 

[grainier]

Canon should have put Sony sensor in it.

 

[StudentOfLight]

"The DxOMark resolution score shows sharpness performance of a lens-camera combination averaged over its entire focal length and aperture ranges."

I had the same thought earlier but it was pointed out to me that the reported sharpness number corresponds to a local maximum sharpness rather than looking at the entire frame, at least according to DxO.

Those are not my words, they are directly from their methodology page. (I just highlighted the red text)

[quote author=DxO]While the 35mm f/2 has slightly higher peak sharpness, the new 35mm f1/.4 is sharper across the image field wide-open than the 35mm f/2 is at its initial aperture. It’s really only at f/2.8 onwards that the slower model has slightly higher center sharpness (which accounts for the higher peak sharpness results), but what’s so good about the new lens is its uniformity. It has low levels of astigmatism, and this greatly improves the imaging performance in the outer field.

It seems like there may be a case of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing over at DxO.
[/quote]
I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time.

 

[DLD]

I am currently using Canon (came from Nikon) the digital picture is far off on a lot of Nikon lenses... their results favor Canon heavily... so I don't think they are any better than dxo mark in regard to favoring brands..

interesting, when you say "far off on a lot of Nikon Lenses" do you mean the reviews or are you talking about the "lens image quality" tool?

The lens image comparisons.

Photozone.de has the most accurate results I have found... however there's limited testing done there as far as lens flare and other issues like contrast which can also improve lens performance... But given how biased or even doctored thedigitalpicture seems to me I take anything they say with a grain of salt... Those image comparisons are just not what I'm seeing, or reading elsewhere...

 

[Larsskv]

I am currently using Canon (came from Nikon) the digital picture is far off on a lot of Nikon lenses... their results favor Canon heavily... so I don't think they are any better than dxo mark in regard to favoring brands..

interesting, when you say "far off on a lot of Nikon Lenses" do you mean the reviews or are you talking about the "lens image quality" tool?

The lens image comparisons.

Photozone.de has the most accurate results I have found... however there's limited testing done there as far as lens flare and other issues like contrast which can also improve lens performance... But given how biased or even doctored thedigitalpicture seems to me I take anything they say with a grain of salt... Those image comparisons are just not what I'm seeing, or reading elsewhere...

I agree to some extent, that TDP rave about Canon, but I also thing their reviews are very accurate. When TDP rave, it usually is deserved, I think. Further, everything negative about a product is usually mentioned.

if you compare say the Canon 50L review, to the Zeiss 50mm f/2 Macro Planar review, you will see that TDP gives a lot of credit to other brands as well. TDP also have a lot of positive things to say about Sigma Art lenses.

It's hard for me to understand that the lens comparison tool is unfair to Nikon. What is it that TDP does wrong?

 

[StudentOfLight]

I am currently using Canon (came from Nikon) the digital picture is far off on a lot of Nikon lenses... their results favor Canon heavily... so I don't think they are any better than dxo mark in regard to favoring brands..

interesting, when you say "far off on a lot of Nikon Lenses" do you mean the reviews or are you talking about the "lens image quality" tool?

The lens image comparisons.

Photozone.de has the most accurate results I have found... however there's limited testing done there as far as lens flare and other issues like contrast which can also improve lens performance... But given how biased or even doctored thedigitalpicture seems to me I take anything they say with a grain of salt... Those image comparisons are just not what I'm seeing, or reading elsewhere...

The magenta hue in the blacks is due to longitudinal Chromatic Aberration. Which is also identified in the photozone review:

I believe that with resolution testing the methodology is to focus bracket and choose the sharpest image. Now pixel peeping at that photozone shot. It looks like with 3 increments of backfocus you actually produce marginally sharper detail than if there is no LoCA. Maybe this is why TDP chose the purplish shot as the highest resolving one out of the set of bracketed shots.

Also, with field curvature you if you don't see it in the centre of frame then you will definitely see it in the corners. From the TDP crops the corners look very good with no LoCA. In real world shooting however, with 3D subjects, the LoCA will affect your wide-open, shallow-depth-of-field shots whether you like it or not.

What I gather from the TDP crops (http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=106&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=791&CameraComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0) is that the resolution of fine-detail on the Nikkor 85mm looks very good from centre to corner and it thoroughly trounces the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 in mid-frame and the corners when shooting wide open. Do you have another example that shows TDP's "bias" towards Canon?