Dear colleagues: I wanted to post some questions and first reviews on my new equipment to obtain some feedback from you as well as have you share your own experiences. This past weekend I took my new Canon 1Ds Mark II out for the first real serious shooting session and did some tests with two lenses I purchased along with the camera. The lenses are the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM zoom and the EF 24mm f/1.4L USM. I am surprised with the low quality of the images I got from both lenses. I am coming from film cameras and used two very similar lenses with my Nikon Pro film body. My expectations for both Canon lenses were that they would meet Nikon's quality since they are both "L" lenses and the price is about the same but they don't even come close. My Nikon lenses are the 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S Zoom-Nikkor and the 28mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor. The performance on these lenses is just outstanding. The zoom is an all-around great lens that I like to take with me to places where I may want to capture a large area and may not have the room to stand back and embrace my landscape. The 28mm is a great lens for low light situations where I don't like to use tripod and/or flash. They are both very sharp and even with the zoom opened to 17mm coverage, there is the natural distortion found at this type of focal length but the image is extremely sharp. I thought it might be just my impression and decided to check a few sites. I couldn't really find one that had objective tests with a specific technical protocol for testing lenses, but found several sites with reviews from other users and photographers such as Fred Miranda's site. It seems all reviews corroborate my initial impressions about flaws with Canon lenses. The 16-35mm is claimed to be a disappointment but many who reviewed it and the 24 f/1.4 also has its flaws including lack of sharpness. What is the deal with Canon lenses ? I can't believe I've just purchased a $ 10,000 + digital set up with what should be the best high end digital SLR system in the market and this is the type of photos I'm getting from these lenses. My opinion about the camera couldn't be any better. It is indeed very well built and a work of art in terms of engineering. The lenses, on the other hand, don't seem to even come from the same manufacturer or to have been designed with serious photographers in mind. One of Fred Miranda's review compares the sharp quality of Nikkor's 28mm lens to a Leica Vario-Elmar 21-35mm zoom lens. This is how good Nikon lenses are. The other option of lens I had in mind for my camera was the new EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens because of its versatility and the ability to use it as the preferred lens for those photo shooting situations where you can only take one lens with you. After searching for this lens I found out that it has been pulled from the market because of some serious design flaws that caused flaring and other problems. Canon could follow Sony's approach. Since they realize they don't have the expertise required to design and build truly professional grade lenses, they went to Carl Zeiss. Now that Kyocera decided to discontinue its Contax line of cameras and is only keeping the Yashica line, Canon could very easily approach Carl Zeiss to produce its lenses as Kyocera did in the past. It is hard to accept that after a $ 10,000+ purchase the results I'm obtaining are not matching those I was able to obtain from my Nikon $ 2,000 film setup. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I was under the wrong impression when I presumed that Canon's lenses were of similar quality to those made by Nikon. The bottom line is that one company gives you great lenses but still can't seem to develop a decent body with full frame sensor that doesn't change the characteristics of all the lenses you invested your money on. The other produces great bodies with outstanding resolution, full frame sensor and great overall performance but the lenses are of average rather than professional grade image quality. It seems that digital photography is not ready for prime time yet. Close - but no cigar ! I am sorry for the long post - just needed to share my frustrations. Best regards, Joseph --- Dr. Joseph Chamberlain Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
