Alternatives to Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L

Antonio Correia

I would like to buy one of these toys. However they seem too expensive.
Any decent alternative, if you please ?
Thank you :bow

ziggy53

There are a couple of Russian made tilt-shift/perspective-control type lenses that are much less than the Canon and Nikon counterparts, but they do not have as high a build quality or image quality. The Canon TS-E 17mm, f4L is the only 17mm lens with axis controls on the planet.

What is your application? (How would you use the lens?)

Matthew Saville

The Sigma 12-24, (full-frame) ...and then crop the image! :-P (At least ,for the purpose of perspective correction...)

=Matt=

Antonio Correia

@ Ziggy The use of such lens is for Architecture and to pursue my theme "Urban Decay".

However, the compulsory use of a tripod is something I have to bare in mind as it be comes a time consuming lens, if you know what I mean.

Even if I will not buy one I would like to try it in a couple of shots.

@ Matthew Thank you for your suggestion D BUt... It's not Tilt and Shift is it ??? Not good ! for what I want ! I do have already a 16-35mm f/2.8 so...

900 US$ "better" than Canon.

Matthew Saville

Antonio Correia wrote: »

@ Matthew Thank you for your suggestion D BUt... It's not Tilt and Shift is it ??? Not good ! for what I want ! I do have already a 16-35mm f/2.8 so...

900 US$ "better" than Canon.

...I dunno about the "better than Canon" quote, but the Sigma 12-24mm is the best way to achieve perspective correction at 17mm without actually buying the 17mm TSE.

Explanation: Compose your shot at 12mm, parallel to the axis of whatever it is you want to correct, and then crop up or down for your composition and ~17mm. Voila, poor man's TSE! You'll lose megapixels, as I mentioned, but if you're shooting at 21 megapixels you should have enough to get the job done...

=Matt=

ziggy53

To control perspective distortion with a rectilinear corrected lens, shoot to fill the scene and then, in Photoshop, use the following method to correct the perspective distortion:

Here is a Red Schoolhouse I shot in Indiana:



Note the slant caused by perspective distortion.

Brought into PhotoShop:
Select
...All
Edit
...Free Transform

You'll see control points on the edge of the image frame. On a Windows machine, Ctrl-left-mouse-click on one of the control points and draw out to distort the image. It helps to pull out a Guide Line from the Rulers in order to align an edge to the guide.

Here are the control points and a single guide line:



... and here is the image after the upper left control point is dragged to the left to adjust the building on the left side:



You need to draw the right side as well and probably extend the image vertically a bit to complete the perspective adjustment.

Here is where I wound up:



Pertinant EXIF:

Model - Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
ExposureTime - 1/1000 seconds
FNumber - 8.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 800
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
FocalLength - 13 mm
Quality - RAW
Exposure mode - Av-priority
Focal length - 10 - 20 mm (1 mm)

Lens used was the Sigma 10-20mm, f/4-5.6 EX DC.

I generally use Adobe Camera Raw to upres the image first, which just tends to avoid any visible "jaggies" caused by the perspective correction.

For a very tall structure, shot at close range, I'll also use a panoramic head and vertical stitching technique.

Antonio Correia

I am not that sure about losing pixels as I work in raw and ... Smart Objects ! but ...
Here is an image I just made to compare.
The first one is as shot, the other corrected.
Thank you for your advice.

From the theme "Postal cards"

Antonio Correia

Thank you Ziggy. I do everything in ACR with Smart Objects.
The image above - shot early morning as we can see by the shadows on the facade - was shot with a 5D at 24 mm with a 24-70 Canon f/2.8 L lens, 1/2500 f/4.5 ISO 500.

Antonio Correia

More dramatic changes can be done... with decent reasults just using ACR, CS5 and Smart Objects.
QED

ziggy53

Looking good.

Sometimes you may also want to leave in some perspective if your vantage point seems to warrant the perspective.

Antonio Correia

D

Matthew Saville

Yeah, or you can always do it in post. :-)

=Matt=