Canon 6D with EF 17-35 L :: Red, green separation

[hoomojo]

Hello everyone,

It's been years since my old 35mm SLR died. I was very excited to buy the new Canon 6D and was looking forward to using my beloved 17-35 L lense. I've taken 1000s of amazing photos with this lens on the 35mm film SLR and was expecting spectacular images from it on the full frame 6D.

Every single photo taken with this lens on the 6D looks terrible. It's easy to see the green and red shifting, especially towards the outer edges.. I have looked online and a few people had very good experience with this 10+ year old lens and their 6D.

Is the lens broken and in need of repair?  Or are the older lenses not truly compatible with the new HDSLRs?

Thanks for your time!

-Hooman

[hsbn]

I don't think there is such a thing as that. EF lens are compatible with the 6D. But newer camera has high resolution; so old lens may show some optical defect that doesn't show up on film. That lens was designed to use with film camera. Some people say that the way light hits film plane and sensor are different; thus, lens designed for film is not stella on digital. Online photo are sometimes processed to "perfection" already so you cannot really tell. We may not be able to solve the problem for you but I don't think your lens is broken or not compatible.

[Tim]

Hello Hoomojo,

The effect that you notice when using this lens is called chromatic aberration. It is most commonly manifested as color fringing along the edges of subjects, or where the is a strong contrast between light and dark. 

For some lenses, this can actually be corrected through the camera and Digital Photo Professional.  Fortunately, the EF 17-35mm f/2.8L USM lens is one of those lenses. 

Thus this may be corrected, at least to a certain extent, through camera and software adjustment.  

If you take a look at the Menu, there is a section under the Camera 2 heading, first subject down, that is for Lens Aberration Correction.  Chromatic aberration on applicable lenses can be adjusted here.  Select Chromatic Aberration and then select Enable, then press SET.  This setting will automatically be applied to the camera and affect any future images you take. 

This should improve future photos.  Remember though, if you play RAW photos back through the camera, they will not reflect the change.  You would need to check Digital Photo Professional to see the changes. 

[hoomojo]

Thanks for the posts guys. The photo I posted already had that option turned on. I tried turning OFF the option, with seeming slight improvement, but not much.

I still don't get how this lens could create amazing images (no abberations) 10 years ago on negative and positive film, but now have abberations on digital censor.

Can you shed some light on this, please?

Thanks!

[hsbn]

You can read more here: http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/digital-lenses.html

Note that there is CA on your film also but it is not as obvious as digital. I used to think of it like this: when you first purchase your HDTV and use it to watch your favorite channel (when there was no HD broadcasting yet), it looks so horrible. It looks perfect on your old TV right!

[hoomojo]

Thanks. the article focused mostly on cropped sensors, but it had a few interesting tidbits.

It's beginning to sound like, digital sensors don't handle the light exactly the same as film, and this become more apparent in UWA lenses. hmmm.

[hoomojo]

I might have found a working solution.

Just tested it in a room with no direct sun shining in and it seems to have worked. There is very slight abberation at f2.8 @ 17mm but the photo is much improvement. How it will perform in sunlight, I am not sure yet.

The photo I posted, the "Lens aberration correction" option in the camera was "ENABLED." However, the "Correction data" was not available.

Because of what you posted, I stumbled on this posting, section Automatic Lens Optimization:

http://kenrockwell.com/canon/5d-mk-iii/users-guide/index.htm#lensopt

The process described is not exactly the same for Canon 6D but I managed to find my way around. Initially the EF 17-35mm f/2.8 L WAS checked on the list of lenses. This is odd since the camera was reproting that the correction data was NOT avaialble.

Having learned work arounds to various weird software behavior from years of work with PCs, I decided to add my other old lens, EF 75-300 f4-5.6 USM which was not checked on the list. I completed the process and quit the EOS Utility.

And now, the camera is reporting "Correction data avalable" for the EF 17-35mm f/2.8 L and the photos seem to be automatically corrected.  Again, I haven't taken it outside yet, but it seems this might just be the fix.

Also, the profile for the EF 75-300 f4-5.6 USM lens is also now loaded into camera.

Here's hoping!

[hsbn]

If you don't mind post processing, 3rd party software like Lightroom, Capture One, etc. do a really good job of removing various kind of CA. Or you can even do it in Canon DPP software after you capture the image. I'm not sure if it works with RAW only or JPG also because I only shoot RAW.

You can see the example for Lightroom here: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2012/04/new-color-fringe-correction-controls.html

It works really well.

[hoomojo]

Thanks for the tip! If i do anything serious, i would consider post processing. I want the highest quality to come out of the camera, so I can quickly edit with Snapseed app and share.

I retested just now saving in RAW format, just to be sure. The automatic corrections are being applied to RAW as well.