what is meant by "good" lens?

A review of the Canon EOS 5D points out the full-size sensor
makes demands on lenses with respect to edge fall-off and
edge aberrations. The reviewer points out "good" lenses are
needed. But what does "good" mean?

In this context, are the following Canon lenses considered
to be "good?"

16-35 f2.8L
35-70 f2.8L
70-200 f2.8L IS

--David

Nothing Canon makes?
For those FF Canons, you need the best of the best, otherwise, you
shortchange the sensor's capabilities.
Of those you mentioned, the 70-200 is likely the most acceptable. The
wide lenses (despite a modest improvement with the new 16-35mm) are
not terrific with the Canon FFs.
Go to Fredmiranda.com and take a look at the "alternate system"
forum. They discuss using good lenses on Canon FF models.

"J David Ellis" wrote in message
...
A review of the Canon EOS 5D points out the full-size sensor makes demands
on lenses with respect to edge fall-off and edge aberrations. The reviewer
points out "good" lenses are needed. But what does "good" mean?

In this context, are the following Canon lenses considered to be "good?"

16-35 f2.8L

The latest version of this is quite good: 16-35/2.8 IIL.

Getting good sharpness all the way out to the corner is hard with Canon
wides*. You'll find yourself at f/16 a lot. Unless you get the 14/2.8 II L,
which appears to have the best corners of all the Canon wides (although the
24-105/4.0 L should be good in the corners.)

*: Here's the 17-40 at 17mm.
http://www.pbase.com/davidjl/image/73874666/original
See if you are happy with the lower corners.

35-70 f2.8L

No such lens, at least currently. The 28-70/2.8 and 24-70/2.8 are excellent.
As is the 24-105/4.0 IS, which was designed as the 5D kit lens. Being a
cheapskate wimp, I prefer the far cheaper and far lighter Tamron 28-75/2.8,
which produces superbly sharp images on the 5D.

70-200 f2.8L IS

Excellent but heavy. The 70-200/4.0 IS is for cheapskate wimps like me.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 04:25:32 +0000, J David Ellis wrote:

A review of the Canon EOS 5D points out the full-size sensor makes
demands on lenses with respect to edge fall-off and edge aberrations.
The reviewer points out "good" lenses are needed. But what does "good"
mean?

Good here means edge to edge high definition. Crop cameras (x0D & xx0D)
use only the central part of the image circle produced by EF lenses but FF
cameras use the whole circle. Lenses which show high central definition
but significant fall off towards the edges are OK for the crop cameras but
not for FF cameras.

--
gautam

On Nov 10, 7:11 am, Rita Ä Berkowitz ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:
David J. Littleboy wrote:
The latest version of this is quite good: 16-35/2.8 IIL.

Getting good sharpness all the way out to the corner is hard with
Canon wides*. You'll find yourself at f/16 a lot. Unless you get the
14/2.8 II L, which appears to have the best corners of all the Canon
wides (although the 24-105/4.0 L should be good in the corners.)

Jesus ****en Christ! You find that stopping down to f/16 an acceptable
practice for a $1,000 WA lens acceptable to get it to function? Might as
well cover the lens mount on the old 5D with a slice of capicola and stop it
down. So sad! This is why professional Canon shooters opt for the
17-35.2.8 Nikkor. Seems the old Nikkor blows em away at all apertures.

Rita

Pretty sad because you need a FF sensor at f16 to avoid resolution
loss via diffraction. Anyone using a 1.5 can only go down to around
f11 at most. Catch 22? The lenses are even worse on a FF sensor
because of the deterioration in optical quality at the edge!!!!

Thank you for the pointer to fredmiranda.com, a marvelous site.

RichA wrote:
Nothing Canon makes?
For those FF Canons, you need the best of the best, otherwise, you
shortchange the sensor's capabilities.
Of those you mentioned, the 70-200 is likely the most acceptable. The
wide lenses (despite a modest improvement with the new 16-35mm) are
not terrific with the Canon FFs.
Go to Fredmiranda.com and take a look at the "alternate system"
forum. They discuss using good lenses on Canon FF models.

J David Ellis wrote:
A review of the Canon EOS 5D points out the full-size sensor makes
demands on lenses with respect to edge fall-off and edge aberrations.
The reviewer points out "good" lenses are needed. But what does "good"
mean?

In this context, are the following Canon lenses considered to be "good?"

16-35 f2.8L
35-70 f2.8L
70-200 f2.8L IS

Unfortunately, David, your post attracted the two biggest posters with
scant regard for anything but controversy and contention.

Do you have these lenses? Have you been shooting with them on an earlier
Canon DSLR, or a film body?

I have the longer of the three, and have no problem at all with it.

--
john mcwilliams