The brown truck cometh - with another toy!

Scott_Quier

I went through the Where To Buy thread looking for all the stores that people recommend and came up with a list of 8 that were recommended by at least 2 different people. Then I started visiting the listing for "my" lens at each of these sites - not really thinking that I would stumble across a copy any time in the near future. But, I was wrong!! :ivar :barb

The man in brown (and my USP friend is a guy!) is coming in about 6 days :cry with MY copy of the :lust TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II :lust that I found at Pictureline.com.

BTW - Pictureline folks are really friendly, professional, courteous, and knowledgeable.:deal :bow

kdog

Congratulations, Scott. So what's your primary motivation in selecting this lens? Architecture? Panos? I've never used a TS, but they do intrigue me. Did you consider the TS-E 17mm at all?

Cheers,
-joel

Scott_Quier

Why 24mm over the 17mm

kdog wrote:

Congratulations, Scott. So what's your primary motivation in selecting this lens? Architecture? Panos? I've never used a TS, but they do intrigue me. Did you consider the TS-E 17mm at all?

Cheers,
-joel

My primary motivation for selecting this lens is for landscape and landscape/pano work (to my mind, there is a bit of a difference). Cityscapes, at this time, don't do a lot for me, but I love the colors, textures, tension, and beauty that is offered up by nature on a daily basis.

A number of factors were included/considered when deciding between the 24 and the 17:

• Using the shift feature and a good pano rail (a copy of which I have in the mail to me right now), Andy has produced a large number of beautiful images with his TS-E 24. I would like to do something like that.
  
  
• Choosing the new 24 vs. the older 24 - it all came down to the optics. Pathfinder is right when he said, "you really can shoot landscapes without the latest version of a tilt shift lens" but, as in carpentry, sharper tools are better. I also asked Marc Muench (in a PM) his opinion as to whether he thought the MII was worth the $1,000 premium over the MI version of the 24. His response mentioned
  • Image sharpness
  • larger image circle - this is important when shifting the lens
  • The gears on the lens are much improved over the MI
  and then he referred me to his blog (see next point).
  
  
• 24 vs. 17 - Marc Muench posted up a short review of the 17mm in his blog and I also remember seeing some example images produced by the 17 in the Muench University (can't find the particular post right now. I also borrowed a friend's EF 17-40mm f/4L USM and played with it at 17mm and compared the resulting images with stuff from my EF 24-105 f4L USM at 24mm - trying to determine which FOV I favored most. After looking at all the images (his and my test shots), I determined that I would probably have a MUCH more difficult time coming to terms with the 17 than I would the 24.
  
  
• Finally, one of the big points in the consideration is that the 17 will not take a filter - have you seen the pictures of the front element of this lens? And, since I wanted to be able to use either ND or CP filters (probably not at the same time though), this pretty much put the ball in the 24mm court.

BTW - the price of the 17mm ($2,499) vs 24mm ($2,199) really didn't enter into the equation. At those price points, the $300 difference (about 13%) was pretty insignificant. I performed my "due diligence" and made my selection - price wasn't even a factor - it was going to hurt in either case!

kdog

Good points and rationale, Scott. The 17/24 decision wouldn't be as clear for me because I shoot wider than 24 most of the time when I'm doing landscapes. Probably half of my landscapes are 16mm even. I can see the 24 being better for panos though. The filter situation wouldn't bother me with the 17, because you seldom want to use a CP when shooting that wide, and never want to use one when doing panos. For GNDs, most folks hand-hold them anyway. I guess one could use a Cokin kind of setup with the 17 for regular NDs.

I hope you left some money in the bank for travel expenses.

Cheers,
-joel

Scott_Quier

kdog wrote:

Good points and rationale, Scott. The 17/24 decision wouldn't be as clear for me because I shoot wider than 24 most of the time when I'm doing landscapes. Probably half of my landscapes are 16mm even. I can see the 24 being better for panos though. The filter situation wouldn't bother me with the 17, because you seldom want to use a CP when shooting that wide, and never want to use one when doing panos. For GNDs, most folks hand-hold them anyway. I guess one could use a Cokin kind of setup with the 17 for regular NDs.

I hope you left some money in the bank for travel expenses.

Cheers,
-joel

I agree with you about CP and panos - no workie.

As for GND, nope, not talking about these; I'm much more likely to take 2 exposures and blend them in post or, if the dynamic range of the scene does not exceed that of the camera just work up the RAW file in ACR at two different EV to get the two parts.

For ND ... I'm thinking 3-, 6-, or 9-stops ... that sort of thing for longer exposure times. Thanks for mentioning the Cokin idea. I'll have to look into it to see if there's something there for me. Might turn out to be just as effective but less expensive than the alternatives.

divamum

Wheeee! It's all that good karma you've earned working in your favour. Glad you found what you wanted so quickly - enjoy!!!

Sam

Congratulations! I just checked and it's not in stock, you must have got the last one.:cry

Sam

Scott_Quier

divamum wrote:

Wheeee! It's all that good karma you've earned working in your favour. Glad you found what you wanted so quickly - enjoy!!!

I work very hard to keep my Karma in balance

Sam wrote:

Congratulations! I just checked and it's not in stock, you must have got the last one.:cry

Sam

Yup - I'm having fun visiting the websites of the various stores and noting that it's still on back order at all of them. Is it mean for me to be that way? Will it mess with my Karma? I hope not, 'cause it's so much fun :lol

I've also noticed that the TS-E 17mm f/4 rolls in and out of stock quite easily. I'm guessing Canon is having a tough time keeping up with demand.