Customer reviews from usa.canon.com
Canon - TS-E17mm F4L Tilt-Shift Lens - Black
Average customer rating
5
(12 Reviews)
Rating breakdown 12 reviews
5 Stars
12
4 Stars
0
3 Stars
0
2 Stars
0
1 Star
0
100%of customers recommend this product.
(
10 out of
10)
Customer Reviews for Canon - TS-E17mm F4L Tilt-Shift Lens - Black
Customer Rating
5
Best digital solution vs 4x5
on March 4, 2011
Posted by: Lock,Load & Shoot
from Birmingham, AL
I'm a professional architectural photographer and a semi-pro landscape photographer. With extensive 4x5 film experience, this lens gets me back to 99% of the capability of a 55mm lens on 4x5 using film.
Some people on other forums have suggested that the bulging front element would cause endless flare problems. It doesn't. I'm often required to shoot interiors with light cans recessed in the ceiling overhead. There is a certain angle approximately 20 to 30 degrees in front of the camera, and 5 or so degrees behind, that will occasionally cause minor flare. In every instance so far I've been able to shade the lens with my hand and eliminate the flare completely. Setting the camera up with illumination directly overhead has never been a problem. I've had extensive experience with the Canon 17-40mm zoom and it has far worse flare issues regardless of the focal length used. I suspect having to tilt that lens up when shooting exteriors contributes to this problem.
Others have suggested that there is a steep learning curve in using this lens effectively. Without 4x5 experience you will have to spend some time getting familiar with the Scheimflug principle in order to use the tilt feature correctly, but the shift feature alone will be usable right out of the box. In shooting architecture, shift (Rise & Fall) is all you will use 95% of the time. Product, tabletop and landscape shots will benefit the most from using tilt. There are abundant resources to help understand the whys and wherefores of using tilt to manipulate the plane of sharpest focus if you don't have experience.
Quite honestly, until this lens came along, I had little inclination to invest in a 35mm or digital solution that got no wider than 24mm. My specialty has always been architectural interiors and too often 24mm just isn't wide enough. That being said, the Canon 24mm Tilt-Shift will be in my gear case very soon because it is a very necessary focal length also. In fact, I just upgraded to a larger rolling case to accommodate the additional Canon Tilt-Shift lenses I will soon own.
Some have suggested that the lens is heavy, bulky and therefore difficult to use handheld. If you are planning to shoot without a tripod this is not your lens. Hiking long distances to shoot scenery and carrying the bare minimum of weight might eliminate this lens, but be aware that there are many landscape photographers willing to carry extra gear to ensure the best possible image. With the lightweight carbon fiber tripods available today, taking the handheld approach simply doesn't make sense to me. There are many light weight zooms available for a handheld approach and I think would be better tools for the job if you want to shoot this way. For the landscape photographer willing to carry the additional weight of this lens, the benefits will be astounding. Employing tilt to ensure sharp detail from foreground to infinity using f/8, as opposed to stopping down to f/16 or f/22, will yield far superior images. Image sharpness gained with using the 17mm Tilt-Shift lens this way will far surpass any conventional lens on the market.
If you ever look at the cross section of a conventional 4x5 wide-angle lens designed without the constraints of a mirror box and lens flange, you will be further amazed at what this lens is capable of. 4x5 wide-angles typically do very well with just 8 elements arranged symmetrically as opposed to the retro focus design employed for SLR cameras. And yet, there is near zero barrel distortion or chromatic aberration. This eliminates at least three steps in post production.
I haven't talked about keeping verticals vertical, but the gain in image quality by doing this in camera is reason enough for me to own this lens.
Last but not least, to suggest that the price/value is less than 5 stars due to the high price tag requires that you don't take into account the amount of gear required to set-up and shoot conventional 4x5. If you compare this len's capability shooting digitally as opposed to using a digital view camera solution, your savings in weight and cost are measured by several pounds and tens of thousands of dollars. Looked at in this light, this lens (along with the Canon 5D Mk II) is at least 10 stars!
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images, ease of use
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
The lens I have been waiting for
on February 10, 2011
Posted by: Aginbyte
from Falmouth, Massachusetts
This is simply a magnificent piece of glass. Can be used as a 17mm prime lens and performs better than any other wide angle prime in the Canon lineup. Great quality, no chromatic aberration, solid build. As an architectural lens, it cannot be matched. Shooting European cathedrals and basilicas is very challenging and this lens changes the game. Top to bottom, front to back captures, both portrait and landscape. Replaced the old 24mm standby and the improvement is enormous. Pricey, both worth it.
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Reason Alone to Switch to Canon
on December 30, 2010
Posted by: YMHARNC
from Central Oregon
Canon has hit a home run with this lens. Setting aside the tilt-shift functions for a moment, it is a fundamentally stellar optic: incredibly sharp; minimal flare despite its bulbous front element; minimal chromatic aberration; and NO corner softness or vignetting in an unshifted, untilted configuration. As a standard prime, I've never used a higher quality 17mm lens.
But this isn't a standard prime. It is a tilt-shift - a 17mm (!) tilt-shift with a huge image circle that enables users to shift farther with less vignetting than ever before with any 35mm-format tilt-shift lens. To be clear, I'm talking about two different and very important characteristics: the 17mm angle of view; and the larger image circle. This last characteristic is particularly important because the primary benefit of this 17mm lens is its ability to shift. A larger image circle enables you to shift farther while maintaining a high level of image quality.
In my experience, a 24mm lens is, more often than not, simply not wide enough to photograph architectural interior and exteriors; a 17mm lens is. This 17mm lens allows you to do so while maintaining straight vertical lines that prevents the need for resolution-robbing, time consuming correction to compensate for the keystone distortion that occurs whenever you point any standard wide angle lens up. This translates into significantly higher image quality and a huge savings in time spent post-processing. For me, the time savings alone justifies the not-insigificant cost of this lens.
The lens is not just for architecture either. Anyone who has tried to shoot a grove of giant Sequoia trees has experienced the same thing. The trees are all leaning in toward the center of the frame. Sometimes this effect can be an artistic element in a composition but most of the time it's just a problem -- a problem that the TS-E 17 solves beautifully.
It is worth noting that the 17 -- indeed, any t/s lens -- offers this ability without the need for a tripod. Tripods are essential when tilting; for shifting, the lens can be hand held in any situation where a regular lens can be hand held. So feel free to imagine yourself using this lens in situations where tripods are either not allowed or not appropriate.
When it comes to tilting, this lens produces stellar results as well. I use tilt often with my landscapes. Having said that, any 17mm lens has an inherently large depth-of-field making the need to shift the plane of focus to expand depth-of-field less necessary while, at the same time, reducing this lens' ability to achieve selective focus as compared to tilt-shift lenses with longer focal lengths.
Like all tilt-shift lenses, the TS-E 17 is manual focus only. Given that this lens is best suited to a very deliberate style of photography, I don't consider this a con even though I list it as one. The focusing action is buttery smooth. Anyone who has never used a manual focus lens will find that it is not the hardship one might imagine, however live view is definitely your friend when it comes to using the tilt function.
By now it's obvious how much I like this lens. It's heavy compared to other primes; it's [beautifully smooth] manual focus only; it's scary with that front element sticking out; but it does things NO other lens can do and with a level of image quality that is unsurpassed in a 17mm lens. If you shoot landscapes and/or architecture and can afford it, the TS-E 17mm f/4L is a great addition to your photographic tool set.
Pros: Superior build quality, Super-sharp images
Cons: heavy vs. other primes, expen$ive, necessarily manual focus only, scary exposed front element
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Best ultra wide angle lens available for Canon
on August 26, 2010
Posted by: Chimay
from San Diego, CA
Having a 17mm tilt-shift lens means I'm able to get shots that no other standard DSLR can achieve. This is an amazing lens, and I'm thrilled by the tack sharp details I get out of this lens with my 5DmkII. This lens was made for architectural photography, and it's absolutely perfect for that. I only wish I could fit a polarizing filter to it, but the design of the lens makes that an impossibility.
Pros: ultra-wide with little distortion, one of the sharpest lenses i've ever experienced, widest tilt-shift available
Cons: price, bulbous lens means not able to fit a filter, difficult to use without a tripod
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com