I am still looking for the ideal 35mm lens for canon… I am a big fan of (old) manual lenses, since they offer many advantages for high resolution panorama photography, mainly they are tiny and light, and usually really sharp, and they don’t shift focus or zoom based on orientation.
My biggest problem are sodium-pressure street lights, the worst light source ever invented by men. They will simply produce the mostly horrid lens flares you can imagine, and I am still looking for a lens that handles them in a graceful, controllable and manageable way (or in my case, can I remove the flares with enough overlapping shots and some alpha masks or with other masking techniques).
Below are some results from different lenses, most of them are not ideal yet… so far, the Olympus 24mm has produced the best results, but I need a bit longer lens for my purposes, namely a 35mm…
Misc Canon lenses:
The first 3 are the Canon 16-35, the 4th is the Canon 24-70, and the last one the nifty-fifty
Zeiss 35mm:
The Zeiss 35mm is a gorgous lens, everything would be perfect, but the Zeiss advertises “reduced flares” for this lens, and from what I can see, it’s about as bad in terms of flares as all the others, certainly not worth the price in terms of flare reduction.
Olympus 35mm f2.8:
This is a $90 lens (used), generally sharp enough, but unfortunately, big blotchy flares, hard to remove in a pano.
Olympus 24mm f2.8:
Great lens, great sharpness, good flare control, so far I am very happy with this lens, but it’s too short for what I need.
Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 at 35mm on 1.6x camera:
This was my previous main lens, on a 1.6x Canon. I always had the impression that the flare management was OK, but looking at those fresh samples, I have my doubts. The main disadvantage of this lens was the 1.6x crop only, and an absolutely finicky focus system.
3 comments
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klappa
December 25, 2009 at 3:59 (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In my experience with Nikon, the “kit zooms” (e.g. 18-70/3.5-4.5) have much less flare with street lights than Nikon PRO zooms (e.g. horrible 17-55/2.8, haven’t tried the nano-coated 24-70 yet) or primes. And since shooting around f/8 produces similar sharpness, I’d recommend trying maybe some Canon “kit zoom” alternatives (although I think Nikon “kit zooms” are usually better in general).
k.
jose
February 19, 2010 at 9:12 (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wow,
Great analisis.
I use all Canon for my work and have been encountering the exact same problems with flare. I removed the sky filter to reduce one element but most times it makes no difference as the 16-35 is very wide and “absorbs” all the flares available. I’m currently using panorama factory and it works fine and I usually shoot at f22 to enhance the star effect on the street lights. What I’d like to know is how do you produce theses super sharp and flareless images of the rooftops in New York. Do you post produce with some kind of refining software? I would love to have this effect on my images. If its no “state secret” please, do share. Take care
Mike
March 16, 2010 at 13:47 (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hi Joergen,
in Astronomy H-Alpha CCD Filters are used to reduce the emission of Sodium streetlights. Maybe you want to experiment with those filters…
Cheers, MikeNYC
P.S. Love your panos – have a great view to the city from LIC but unfortunately no balcony…
CANON 16 35 | Electronics Find
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ZEISS 35MM | Electronics Find
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