I have been working with shift-lenses for architecture photography on Canon full frame cameras for a few years now. After buying the A7R und using it for a while I thought it was time to do an in-depth comparison of these lenses on a 36 MP chip and share the results. I know it’s not medium format but I decided to post it here because as far as I’ve seen most discussions about shift lenses take place in this forum.
Test candidates were the Contax-Zeiss PC-Distagon 35mm and the Canon TS-Es 17mm L, 24mm L II and 90mm. I added a combination of the TS-E 90mm with the Canon extender 1.4x III to the test (which results in a focal length of about 125mm).
As my „test target“ I chose a church with a brick facade. Supporting structures protrude a bit, but the main plane of the facade doesn’t offset much so there is a chance to test for field curvature. #0 shows the uncropped image, red frames mark the chosen areas for the 100% crops.
Technical parameters of the test were:
• Canon TS-Es adapted to the A7R with a flocked Metabones III adapter. Adapter mounted on tripod (not the camera).
• Contax-Zeiss PC-Distagon 35mm adapted with a Novoflex-Adapter. Adapter mounted on tripod with an Astat tripod collar.
• For longer lenses I chose a longer distance to the church to get identical framings for all images.
• Camera was on tripod (Gitzo 3541), backpack with some weight hang under the tripod. Arca D4 geared head. Shutter release with self timer.
• 10mm of shift were applied. The Canons can shift a bit further, but the PC-Distagon is limited to 10mm, so I chose this value for all lenses.
• I took sets of images with apertures from f5.6 to f16 in full stops.
• Exposure times were from 1/500s for f5.6 to 1/60s for f11.
• 3 different zones were analysed:
• Zone A is about 5mm from the optical centre of the unshifted lens.
• Zone B is about 15mm from the centre (about as far as the corner of an unshifted lens).
• Zone C is about 27mm from the centre (very close to the edge of the image circle).
• With each lens I first focused on Zone C and took a set of images with apertures from f5.6 to f11. Then I focused on Zone B and took another set of images. Then I focused on Zone A and took another set. With that I tried to test for the maximum sharpness that a lens is capable of in each zone – irrespective of field curvature effects.
• All images shot within less than 30 minutes. The light didn’t change much.
• RAWs converted with Lightroom 5. Identical white balance on all images.
• Sharpening settings: Amount: 50 / Radius: 0,7 / Detail: 30 / Masking 4.
• No correction of distortion or vignetting was applied.
• Crops shown at 100% (if you look at them make sure that your viewer shows them at 100%, the compiled crops are too wide for some screens)
The questions I tried to answer for myself were:
I: Which one is the best lens?
• Zone A (compilation #1): all lenses are quite good here (as expected), even at f5.6. The 90mm shows a bit more fine detail than the others. The 17mm and 24mm don’t loose much sharpness at f11, the others should be kept at f8 or f5.6 if possible. The 90mm+Extender is best at f8 too, but not as good as the others (as expected).
• Zone B (compilation #2): the 90mm is the best in this Zone, peaking at f8. It shows fine detail I see in none of the other lenses. The 24mm and 17mm are both very good, but need f11 for maximum sharpness. I was astonished that the PC-Distagon falls a bit behind in this zone. Still good, but it seems as if the designers had to make a small tradeoff here to achieve sharpness across the whole frame. The 90mm+Extender is OK at f8 and f11.
• Zone C (compilation #3): here the PC-Distagon shines - great sharpness, peaking at f8. Followed by the 90mm which is best at f8 too. The 90mm+Extender is OK at f11 and still usable at f8. For the wideangles this distance from the center is tough. The 17mm is slightly better than the 24mm, both need f11 that far from the centre. f16 would be better, but that would reduce sharpness in the other zones too much. (The different amount of vignetting makes it a bit difficult to judge contrast in this zone. With the wider lenses you look more from below so the shadow area appears larger. The flat part of the terracotta-relief reflects the bright sky in the back of the camera – again more with the steeper angles of the wider lenses. Impossible to rule this out, sorry).
• So which one is the best lens? This is a difficult question, it depends on what you need. I love the PC-Distagon because there is no really weak point in the whole image circle. The 90mm is the sharpest lens nearly everywhere, but in Zone C it’s a bit behind the Distagon. The 17mm and 24mm are great in most of the image circle, but they have a hard time in Zone C. They cover very extreme angles, so you’ve got to put that in perpective. These are 100% crops from a 36MP sensor.
(continues in part II)