Dear Mr. Chamberlain, DDS:
Methinks you are missing out on a lot of fun in life, because you are
such a nit picker.
Relax, darling, and your world will be a lot better place.
Obviously photography is your hobby (after all you are a oral and
maxillofacial surgeon)... so relax about the price and quality of the
equipment and have a good time.
If you get nothing but grief out of your hobby, maybe you need to
change hobbies... maybe collecting antique dental equipment ???
With kind regards and great concern for your health,
Renate Volz
On Tuesday, Nov 8, 2005, at 19:18 US/Eastern, Joseph Chamberlain, DDS
wrote:
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
