Topic: Canon 50L f1.2 normal ? (Read 12142 times)

Christopher · « **on:** January 30, 2008, 11:47:35 am »

Hello,
In the last days I shot a few things with my new Canon 50L and found it to be really bad... It is nice and sharp in the center but sucks at the top, now how the hell do you want to shoot a fashion image with that lens if the part there the head goes is like crap @@@@

After my findings I did some more tests here is the Canon against my 21 Zeiss. I know the zeiss is one of the best lenses, BUT the Canon is so bad that it is just sad. I also tested it against my 35 and 28 leica, same result I don't have any other Canon lens with me, but I'm pretty certain that even my 70-200 will performe better...

So is my lens just a bad copy or is that normal ?

here are my test results:

First Image is a overview:
[attachment=4956:attachment]

The second a crop from the middle. (Both lenses are pretty much the same here)
[attachment=4957:attachment]

The third shows the Canon.
[attachment=4958:attachment]

And the last the Zeiss.
[attachment=4959:attachment]

EDIT: I forgot the shooting information:

1DsMk3 tripod live view focus; f5,6 on both

Christopher · « **Reply #1 on:** January 30, 2008, 05:08:19 pm »

nobody ?

Sheldon N · « **Reply #2 on:** January 30, 2008, 05:19:41 pm »

It doesn't look that terrible to me, not sure if that's a typical result for the 50L though. I don't have a 1Ds MIII, but my 50 f/1.4 does better than that at f/5.6 on a 5D.

If you plan on shooting at f/5.6 from a tripod, why not grab a 50mm f/1.4 and/or a 50mm Compact Macro? Both should be sharp at that aperture.

If you plan on shooting at f/1.2 (the real reason to own a 50L) then I would review the lens based more on it's performance wide open than for stopped down corner/edge performance.

There's nothing wrong with owning two 50mm lenses, especially if you have different uses planned for them - one for wide open handheld, one for stopped down tripod work.

daethon · « **Reply #3 on:** January 30, 2008, 06:39:36 pm »

I can't comment on the lens itself, but the samples you put up seem to leave a bit to be desired, enough so that it is hard to tell if this is a good comparison.

Did you use a flash in the Zeiss shot?

The light reflecting on the image is very different in both shots, and it looks like it is even bent/positioned differently in both cases.

That said, the bricks in the Zeiss are so much sharper that it makes me think that you should probably try swapping your 50 for another sample at the store, if that's still possible.

From what I've read, longer focus length lenses will for the most part perform better then wider lenses, so the comparison of the 70-200 vs the 50 is rather flawed.

All this said I agree with Sheldon. Other then construction , what you are really getting from the 50 is the 1.2 f/stop. if you aren't going to be using it at less than 5.6, you might want to consider a slower lens, or might consider a zoom lens stopped down, as the performance between the prime and the zoom will be close enough when stepped down to 5.6.

Oddly enough, I've also read that some lenses are worse stopped down then they are wide open. I'm told the sweet spot is 2 stops below wide open. So for that lens 2.8 would be the sweet spot for sharpest image.

I am no expert, so take my words with a grain of salt...good luck!

David Anderson · « **Reply #4 on:** January 30, 2008, 07:11:23 pm »

My new 50 1.2 was soft on wider settings and was even a bit soft stopped down to 8, but after a calibration at Canon it's come back tack sharp.

I'm very happy with it now.

If you're not happy let Canon have a look.

One Frame at a Time · « **Reply #5 on:** January 31, 2008, 01:35:50 am »

This seems to be a fairly common problem with Canon lenses. I am trying to buy a good copy of the 24-105 lens that is 3x the price of the 28-135 I am replacing. So far, I have tested two copies that need to go back. The first copy was noticeably worse in all tests. The second copy is slightly worse at most apertures and focal lengths. Its hard to understand how a $1,000 lens in two instances cannot out perform (or even match) the $350 lens. How many lenses I will need to buy and return is the 64$ question.

With so many people sending their equipment to Canon for adjustment it makes me wonder how they can make such poor lenses. Or maybe the focal plane in the cameras is off. All this testing, evaluating and returning is a total waste of time and I still don't have the lens I want After 10 - 15 years of being a loyal Canon customer I am really considering going with Nikon for my next camera body. I don't have the patience to get my lenses "adjusted" when new and then again if I upgrade to a newer camera body....

Ken Bennett · « **Reply #6 on:** January 31, 2008, 02:10:11 pm »

I thought the test results at SLRGear were interesting:

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct...uct/1000/cat/10

This site has a "blur index" which shows the center and corner sharpness at different apertures. Fascinating stuff.

The 50/1.2 is sharp in the center wide open, and massively unsharp everywhere else. By f/2, not so bad, but the aperture with the flattest focus is f/5.6.

Just FYI, and of course a trip to Canon service may be able to help your specific focusing issues.

Huib · « **Reply #7 on:** January 31, 2008, 03:30:48 pm »

I needed 5 copies and 2 visits to the Canon repair to get a well copy of this lens. And this is really a good one. Much better then 50mm f1.4. But the others were not.

Instead of buying the new 14mm f2.8 I am prefering to buy the Nikon14-24mm F2.8 G with an adapter
Canon is loosing his name with their big toleration in quality. If you are lucky you get a good lens. But the chage you are getting a bad copy is very big with the 50mm and smaller.

gunnar1 · « **Reply #8 on:** January 31, 2008, 06:33:42 pm »

Interestingly, my 50 1.4 is extremely sharp, even at 1.4. The edges go a little soft, but completely acceptable. It isn't exactly an expensive lens either. My 24-105l is another story however. That lens does just great in my own home tests with the "newspaper tacked to the wall" but I am less than satisfied with the real world results so I don't quite know what to do about it.

Christopher · « **Reply #9 on:** January 31, 2008, 07:34:44 pm »

Quote

Interestingly, my 50 1.4 is extremely sharp, even at 1.4. The edges go a little soft, but completely acceptable. It isn't exactly an expensive lens either. My 24-105l is another story however. That lens does just great in my own home tests with the "newspaper tacked to the wall" but I am less than satisfied with the real world results so I don't quite know what to do about it.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171352\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I will do some more testing today in my studio. Perhaps if i have some time I will post some images.

BruceHouston · « **Reply #10 on:** February 02, 2008, 01:44:04 am »

Christopher, OF COURSE your 70-200mm will do better thank the 50mm f/.2! It is easier to design sharper, longer focal length lenses of nominal speed than a sharp, ultra-fast normal lens.

Have a look at the MTF charts for these two lenses on the Canon website:

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controll...2&modelid=14259

If you have trouble interpreting these charts, please see Michael Reichmann's tutorial at:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...nding-mtf.shtml

The light black solid line is a graph of high resolution contrast with the lens wide open. Notice that for the 50mm f/1.2 this line STARTS at 50% contrast at the center of the lens and snakes its way down to just 20% at the edges. Even stopped down (represented by the light blue line), this lens dips down from near 90% contrast at the center to 80% toward the edges.

Now look at the MTF chart for the 70-200mm f/4 IS USM. The contrast curves beat the 50mm f/1.2 hands down at both focal length extremes, wide-open or stopped down. Now look back at Canon's sample picture of the girl on the 50mm f/1.2 page. Canon is obviously not trying to emphasize sharpness with this lens.

I believe that the problem here may lie with the buyer's expectation. If I pay $1,300 for a normal lens it better be SHARP, right? Well, not necessarily. What you are paying for here is a very specialized "black hole for light." This is a marvel of optical engineering that is achieved at the expense of trade-offs in contrast/resolution. As such, it seems to me that there is not much use buying the f/1.2 rather than the 50mm f/1.4 other than for an application demanding the f1.2's hyper speed or artsy bokeh. But a close look at the MTF curves shows that even bokeh may be superior on the f1.4.

Having reviewed these charts, I can only imagine that Canon must scramble around to adjust these lenses that are returned to them with "sharpness" complaints or may search through their inventories to find a better-than-normal replacement lens to make a customer happy.

It does pay to study the MTF charts before buying, as I am learning.

ElisemkII · « **Reply #11 on:** February 04, 2008, 08:34:42 am »

Can be very difficult to give a correct answer.
I've recently buyed a copy of the 50 1.2 and I was a little bit disappointing concerning the sharpness. The lens is sharp, but less than my expectation for a 1.150 euro lens.
My copy is an average one with no front or back focus problem so I think that a trip to the service will not be decisive.
But this w.e. I've revaluate a lot this lens.
Bad weather with dark clouds...street photography and a lot of my two childs portrait... the camera is a 40d and no one shot really require to go over 200iso, hand on.
Realistic colors and the bokeh are "the state of the art" really really better than the 1.4 owned .
You can shot hand on in very low light with good result really better than the 1.4.... sure this lens is a compromise between big hole, sharpenes, colours, flare resistence and artistic bokeh and that can be unaccettable for a so high priced lens, but it is a compromise that works very well in real life photography so I think that the 50 1.2 can be one of my favorite lens as my 70/200 f4L... sorry for bad e. ciao alberto

ErikKaffehr · « **Reply #12 on:** February 13, 2008, 01:55:17 am »

Hi,

I see the difference. One thing that is obvious is that the Canon has a lot of lateral chromatic aberration, which is easily corrected, you may try to remove that using "Lens corrections" in Lightroom or Camera Raw.

Unfortunately I don't think that the picture would be sharp with LCA removed, sorry.

Best regards
Erik

Quote

Hello,
In the last days I shot a few things with my new Canon 50L and found it to be really bad... It is nice and sharp in the center but sucks at the top, now how the hell do you want to shoot a fashion image with that lens if the part there the head goes is like crap @@@@

After my findings I did some more tests here is the Canon against my 21 Zeiss. I know the zeiss is one of the best lenses, BUT the Canon is so bad that it is just sad. I also tested it against my 35 and 28 leica, same result I don't have any other Canon lens with me, but I'm pretty certain that even my 70-200 will performe better...

So is my lens just a bad copy or is that normal ?

here are my test results:

First Image is a overview:
[attachment=4956:attachment]

The second a crop from the middle. (Both lenses are pretty much the same here)
[attachment=4957:attachment]

The third shows the Canon.
[attachment=4958:attachment]

And the last the Zeiss.
[attachment=4959:attachment]

EDIT: I forgot the shooting information:

1DsMk3 tripod live view focus; f5,6 on both
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170999\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

ErikKaffehr · « **Reply #13 on:** February 13, 2008, 02:11:50 am »

Hi,

According to that test it should be very good at 1:5.6. If the lens is sharp in the center it does not have a focusing issue. It may suffer from decentering (compare sharpness in corners) but it seems to me it has excessive LCA (Lateral Chromatic Aberration) anyway.

Unfortunately a high res, full frame camera takes any lens to it's limits.

Best regards.

Erik

Quote

I thought the test results at SLRGear were interesting:

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct...uct/1000/cat/10

This site has a "blur index" which shows the center and corner sharpness at different apertures. Fascinating stuff.

The 50/1.2 is sharp in the center wide open, and massively unsharp everywhere else. By f/2, not so bad, but the aperture with the flattest focus is f/5.6.

Just FYI, and of course a trip to Canon service may be able to help your specific focusing issues.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171289\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

ErikKaffehr · « **Reply #14 on:** February 13, 2008, 02:17:01 am »

Hi,

It´s a bit off the issue,but I can recommend an article:

http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/infos/Zei...nses/index.html

Comparing Zeiss ZF lenses with Nikon and Canons lenses. It costs a few dollars but is a very good read. It also explain sample to sample variation, which Zeiss ZF lenses unfortunantely have.

It's not Zeiss propaganda but it shows quite clearly that there are advantages to Zeiss lenses at least in some cases.

Best regards

Erik

Quote

Hello,
In the last days I shot a few things with my new Canon 50L and found it to be really bad... It is nice and sharp in the center but sucks at the top, now how the hell do you want to shoot a fashion image with that lens if the part there the head goes is like crap @@@@

After my findings I did some more tests here is the Canon against my 21 Zeiss. I know the zeiss is one of the best lenses, BUT the Canon is so bad that it is just sad. I also tested it against my 35 and 28 leica, same result I don't have any other Canon lens with me, but I'm pretty certain that even my 70-200 will performe better...

So is my lens just a bad copy or is that normal ?

here are my test results:

First Image is a overview:
[attachment=4956:attachment]

The second a crop from the middle. (Both lenses are pretty much the same here)
[attachment=4957:attachment]

The third shows the Canon.
[attachment=4958:attachment]

And the last the Zeiss.
[attachment=4959:attachment]

EDIT: I forgot the shooting information:

1DsMk3 tripod live view focus; f5,6 on both
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=170999\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

wcl4 · « **Reply #15 on:** February 15, 2008, 10:16:32 pm »

Go to FM and read the reviews there. This is not an uncommon issue. I had a 50 for a week before I returned it because it paled in comparison to my 80 1.2 II. I have yet to see a image from a 50 1.2 that matched the 85.

Author Topic: Canon 50L f1.2 normal ? (Read 12142 times)