sharpness and ts/pc lenses

[stacibeth]

I have a canon 24mm ts lens which is sharp at times but not great, so I recently bought the schneider 28mm pc lens but now for some reason it isn't looking too sharp either. Any recommendations on a better ts or pc lens?? I shoot a lot of architecture and interiors so sharpness is key!

Thanks

[250swb]

Just a thought, but I think you will always have a dichotomy with pc lenses. On the one hand your sharpest aperture will be in the f5.6-f8 region, but you will be needing to stop it down more than that for adequate DOF when the lens is 'adjusted', and therefore may fall well into the trap of diffraction at anything over f11.

Steve

[Peterretep]

I have a canon 24mm ts lens which is sharp at times but not great, so I recently bought the schneider 28mm pc lens but now for some reason it isn't looking too sharp either. Any recommendations on a better ts or pc lens?? I shoot a lot of architecture and interiors so sharpness is key!

Thanks

The Zeiss 35mm PC is a very sharp lens though expensive. For interiors I find it not wide enough in many situations and usually end up using the Canon 24 tse lens. One thing I don't like about the Zeiss is the way the user must shift the lens. Instead of having turn screws as on Canon and Nikon lenses, one must push the lens to shift it. My copy is pretty snug so care must be given not to move the camera while shifting for those images requiring stitching.

Maybe I have a great copy of the Canon 24TSE because the images from it are very good, looking good and sharp in prints I take up to 36 inches and larger. This is on both a 1Ds and 1Ds2. Yes there is softening of the edges when shifted and CA that has to be corrected, but not going beyond the red zone gives very good images. For interiors I shoot around f11 - f19. Are you certain there are no other factors in your equipment or technique adversely affecting focus?

Peter

[David McCaughan]

We use all three of the canon TS-E lenses as well as the nikon 35mm PC, and the canons are all capable of producing very sharp images and to a lesser degree the nikon. We primarily shoot interior editorial so absolute sharpness is not critical, but we use a 1Ds III so we see everything. After several years I have found that even a tiny flare shows up very quickly on these lenses. When the camera is in a dark room shooting to a light one contrast and perceived sharpness increases dramatically. When we are really concerned, we surround the lens with Matthews flags.
Dave