canon 16>35L
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I've been going backwards and forwards over these two for the last few weeks, and still can't make my mind up if the extra £s are worth it over the 17-40.
It's 1mm wider
It's 1 Stop faster
Being f2.8 it'll use the cross type AF sensors on my camera
It's 82mm filter tread unlike all my other lenses 77mm
It's £500 more expensive
As for IQ it's a little better :|
There is quite a good article here
I can afford the 16-35 and try to buy the best I can afford, but nearly double
Now if you want ultimate image quality from Canon then 17mm TS-E but your taking BIG money
Then of course should I go third party Sigma 12-24 ( must be FF compatible)
It's 1mm wider
It's 1 Stop faster
Being f2.8 it'll use the cross type AF sensors on my camera
It's 82mm filter tread unlike all my other lenses 77mm
It's £500 more expensive
As for IQ it's a little better :|
There is quite a good article here
I can afford the 16-35 and try to buy the best I can afford, but nearly double
Now if you want ultimate image quality from Canon then 17mm TS-E but your taking BIG money
Then of course should I go third party Sigma 12-24 ( must be FF compatible)
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Unless you need the extra stop, why not buy both of these lenses? The 17-40 is definitely better than the original 12-24 (not seen any reviews of the mk II) but 12mm is crazy wide on a full frame....
LongLensPhotography
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Well I think I have had enough of 17-40 and the mandatory f11+ aperture (for landscape and architecture). That doesn't say anything about 16-35 but one would hope it is at least usable at f/8 or even under! I am using 24-70 for everything I can fit in!
I am tempted to get Zeiss 18 or 21, but that also involves terrible price and 82mm
I am tempted to get Zeiss 18 or 21, but that also involves terrible price and 82mm
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The 17-40 is very usable below f11 - I have some stunning pics at f8 and f5.6. I also have some at F4, but the corners are blurred when you look at them big - partly due to the lens and partly due to the fact that even on short lenses, at wide apertures, depth of field is narrower than you expect from the online calculators.
No, it is not as performant at the edges as it is in the centre, but to call it unusable below f11 shows that you chose the wrong tool for the job.
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The Mk II sigma is not that cheap for 3rd party at £645.00 , and as you say there doesn't seem to be any reviews.
I did promise myself only to use Canon lenses ( zeiss are too high a price for me and I like AF
) The main reason I thought about the 12-24 is I'm on APS-H so that'll be something like 15 or 16 mm at the wide end. The 1.3 crop does mean I've less to worry about the edge softness in lenses of course.The big worry is if I get the 17-40, will I always be wondering that I should have gone 16-35
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I have been thinking about these two lenses for when I go full frame next year. I do not own a lens slower than 2.8 so the thought of a slow lens is not very appealing to me. On the other hand, if your buying 16-35 for the wide side (like me) how often will you need it to be fast? When I shoot landscapes I never go below F7 or so. Is this how you guys look at it or am I alone here?
LongLensPhotography
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17-40 has extremely curved field of focus (ie. corners are in focus at say 1m or less when centre is at infinity) and that's why corners are awful at all sensible settings. Even at f/16 it still has some residual unsharpness.
24-70 @ 24mm can produce very good results at f/5.6 and that setting is known to be problematic.
If you had used Zeiss 21mm you would see that it is actually possible to take very sharp landscape pics at f/4 and under!
Don't get me wrong, 17-40 is great on APS-C (and was designed with that in mind) and for PJ style work, but just doesn't quite cut it for high res landscapes.
I thought the 17-40 was designed for FF not APS-C? Canon's 10-22 is the recommended UWA for APS-C sensors.
As for the debate on which of the two lenses... When I replaced my 40D (along with the 10-22) I too had the choice of 16-35 or the 17-40, and plumped for the latter due to a) price, b) would be shooting mainly f/8 and above so paying for that extra stop at the low end didn't seem to make sense to me.
As for the debate on which of the two lenses... When I replaced my 40D (along with the 10-22) I too had the choice of 16-35 or the 17-40, and plumped for the latter due to a) price, b) would be shooting mainly f/8 and above so paying for that extra stop at the low end didn't seem to make sense to me.
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Without fail every post on here about the 16-35mm v 17-40mm brings up the purchase cost issue rather than the image quality. So, looking at the residual values, the 16-35mm is about £1000 new and used it is still £800-£900. If this lens wasn't worth the money it wouldn't achieve the used prices it does.
I have this lens and the image quality re colours and sharpness are excellent. I don't do many landscapes but take a fair few shots indoors in the winter and the 17-40mm cannot compete in this situation. Being f/2.8 the focus speed and accuracy is superior and if I cast my mind back to when I bought the 16-35mm the focus speed was the first thing I noticed.
All my lenses are f/2.8 or faster. I have also had a couple of 24-70mm lenses in my time and the 16-35mm is sharper in the 24-35mm range than the 24-70mm.
There is no point in me showing any test shots so my findings are pretty much based on hands on experience.
If you have the money then buy the 16-35mm.
I have this lens and the image quality re colours and sharpness are excellent. I don't do many landscapes but take a fair few shots indoors in the winter and the 17-40mm cannot compete in this situation. Being f/2.8 the focus speed and accuracy is superior and if I cast my mind back to when I bought the 16-35mm the focus speed was the first thing I noticed.
All my lenses are f/2.8 or faster. I have also had a couple of 24-70mm lenses in my time and the 16-35mm is sharper in the 24-35mm range than the 24-70mm.
There is no point in me showing any test shots so my findings are pretty much based on hands on experience.
If you have the money then buy the 16-35mm.
LongLensPhotography
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17-40 was the standard lens for APS-C (think D30, 10D) until they made 17-55 f/2.8 IS. Yes, it is that old, and back in those days the priority was range and convenience as opposed to resolution
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It is much easier to design wider angle primes than zooms. A zoom is a compromise - especially a relatively cheap one like the 17-40L
You will get shallow depth of field from any lens if you open the aperture and print big enough. It's simply physics and not even Leica or Zeiss can do anything about that.
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I have perfectly sharp landscapes at 50mm f/2.8 over A3. This does exclude some very close foreground from the shot, but anything towards infinity can be sharp from corner to corner. Now [a perfect] 21mm has much more DOF, and to be honest I might get the Zeiss one day to show it.
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For me, it's all about value. 95% of the time I'm perfectly happy with the 17-40mm and f4, and 100% of the time I'm happy with the extra £500 in my pocket. I'm sure the 16-35 is better, but most people don't need better, and the 17-40mm is no slouch.
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Ah, this is where we differ, for me it's all about producing the best quality image I can. If I have top class gear in my bag, then poor image quality is down to me not my tools.
We all have differen priorities and we all spend our money on different things.
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That's exactly how I look at it. I like fast lenses, but rarely do I use the 17-40 at 40mm, and when it's at 17mm the likelihood is that I'm stopping down anyways. And the 500 quid difference is a fair old way towards a really fast prime like a second-hand 35/1.4.
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Ah, this is where we differ, for me it's all about producing the best quality image I can. If I have top class gear in my bag, then poor image quality is down to me not my tools.
We all have differen priorities and we all spend our money on different things.
If you can't get good images out of the 17-40, you're doing something horribly wrong. The 16-35 is there for its extra stop, and for massive gallery prints.
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I didn't say that good images were not possible using the 17-40mm.
It is there for more than the extra stop and the massive galley prints are also down to the body not the lens.