Canon 24-70 2.8 II

[fremen9]

Last year I sold some lenses so I could buy the 24-70 2.8 II.  I had really liked the Tamron 17-50 2.8 on my Rebel, but now that I had a Canon 6D I needed a full frame lens. The 24-70 was great...however, I found that I had to shoot at F4 to get really sharp pictures...and I was never too happy with it at 2.8.

I remember people told me it was probably user error..and I know that occasionally I'd get tack sharp photos at 2.8 but just not always.   

anyway,  recently I bought the Sigma 50mm 1.4 ART.  I found that I needed to use microadjust about -4 to get most of my shots in in focus.  Its amazing.  I'm often shooting at F2 or 2.8 and getting beautiful and IN-focus pictures. 

This makes me realize now, that its not user error...if i'm able to get tack sharp photos with this sigma lens at F2.0 and 2.8...then I should also be able to get in-focus shots at 2.8 on the Canon.  I'm not expecting the Canon to be as sharp...I'm talking about the focus just being off.

So I'm finally taking the lens into Canon service center tomorrow to see what they can do.  I should have done that from the beginning...but without another lens to test it against or try out...it was easy to believe it was just user error. 

Just sharing this story in case it helps anyone.

[fremen9]

Ok just got email that my lens is ready to pick up, but no idea what they did to it.

Will find out tomorrow.

In the meantime...I wanted to point out, that while I understand how it may be useful to send in the camera AND lens so they can be evaluated as a pair...keep in mind, I don't expect to shoot this lens with ONLY this one camera...I often rent other camera bodies as backup, and sometimes I'll use this lens on the backup body.  Does everyone else just keep one lens with one body and never mix them up??  I never thought of doing that.

[ebiggs1]

"Does everyone else just keep one lens with one body and never mix them up??"

Pretty much I do.  I usually take several bodies, never less than two and usually three or four.  So a given lens is pretty much on a single camera.  Could be two be not more than that.  I don't like creating problem areas.

My second shooters rarely change lenses at all.

[fremen9]

I was able to do some basic testing with it last night.  It appears to be focussing more reliably now but I've only tested it with one of those lens align charts.  I will test in a shoot later this afternoon.

Interestingly, it appears to need almost the same MFA that my Sigma 50mm needed.  That was at tele (70mm), but at wide(24), it appears to not need any MFA at all.   So luckily the 6D supports two MFA values, one for tele and one for wide.  Can't wait to try this thing out at a shoot today...ofcourse I"m bringing my Sigma just in case it flops....and an extra pair of reading glasses since the **bleep** LCD is harder to see these days for me 🙂

[fremen9]

Just in case anyone was still tracking this.  I got the lens back, and tested it.  

Its amazing to me how much better it is.  For the first time, I'm actually shooting with it wide open and loving the results.  Its actually sharp at 2.8 now....I'm kinda disappointed in myself for not realizing when I first bought it, that not being sharp at 2.8 was a problem and not the norm for this lens.   

Anyway if you're curious, here are some shots from my first outing with it....

oh I did end up setting MFA to -2 on tele. and 0 on wide

http://fremen.smugmug.com/photos/i-CX8L3jJ/0/X3/i-CX8L3jJ-X3.jpg

[ebiggs1]

"Its actually sharp at 2.8 now...."

That is a nice shot but is it really f2.8?