Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

June 12th, 2015

Canon has made a habit in recent of years of not building the lenses that we all guess they are going to build while often announcing and then swiftly releasing lenses that few people expected. After Canon refreshed a number of its smaller, non-L series primes (24mm, 28mm, and 35mm) with critically acclaimed (and image stabilized) new designs, the common expectation was that Canon would next address its aging yet popular EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. So what did Canon do? The opposite of expectations, of course, and instead released a refreshed version of its “plastic fantastic” aka “nifty-fifty” aka EF 50mm f/1.8 II. That new lens is the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM, and it is a significant upgrade in a number of ways over its older predecessor. Here is a summary of those updates from a preview article I wrote (we will elaborate further on many of these):

Redesign of the aperture iris. It is now 7 rounded blades as compared to the 5 straighter blades before. The previous design would cause bokeh highlights to be a bit ugly (I often use the term “cartoonish” if the lens was stopped down much. Expect the new lens to have better bokeh when stopped down and I wouldn’t be surprised if highlights stay circular until at least f/5.6 or so. This wasn’t the case even at f/2.8 with the older design.
Shorter minimum focus and maximum magnification. The older lens had a 1.5 foot minimum focus distance and thus a maximum magnification of .15x. This is pretty much the standard for 50mm lenses, but is definitely an Achilles’s heel for them. That isn’t a very impressive magnification figure. Canon has addressed that here, however, with a new minimum focus of just 1.1 feet and a maximum magnification of .21x. This is a much more useful figure and will allow for even more diffused backgrounds and more creativity when shooting “macro” type shots. This is a big deal to me, personally, as I really enjoy using a 50mm lens in this fashion.
Better build quality, including a metal mount. The redesign of the lens includes a more robust build quality (no more “plastic fantastic”) around a metal lens mount (the MK II of the lens had only a plastic mount). The original version of this lens has long been prized for its more robust build quality, and this new lens should prove a modernized version of that.
Better focus ring. The 50mm f/1.8 II might as well as not had a focus ring at all. It was terrible. Tiny, scratchy, and not at all fun to manually focus. The new focus ring will be a bit wider and definitely smoother, and STM does allow for full time manual override (unlike previous versions of this lens). Just know that STM is “focus by wire”, meaning that it is an electronic connection and not a physical one, meaning that the camera must be on for manual focus and that there can be a bit of a lag between your input on the focus ring and the actually movement of the elements. Not my favorite system, but here it will be an improvement over what was there before.
Better coatings. While there isn’t a big change to the optical formula, there has been some “tweaking” along with modern, improved coatings to help the optical performance. This from Canon’s press release, “Composed of six elements in five groups, the new Canon EF 50mm f/1.8mm STM lens features an optimized lens placement and Super Spectra Coating (SSC), translating into less ghosting and flaring than the previous model, while at the same time helping to enhance light transmission and optimize color reproduction accuracy.”
Even more compact size. The “nifty-fifty” was never a very big lens, and while the new lens isn’t the pancake lens that some had hoped for, it is a truly compact lens. The previous lens was about 41mm long while the new lens is about 38mm. The new lens weighs about 30grams more, but that is still only 159 grams, and that is a great news as it reflects the more robust build quality of the new lens. By comparison, the EF 40mm f/2.8 pancake weighs 130g and is 23mm long.
Exact same price. Perhaps most shocking is the fact that all of these improvements come at zero cost penalty to potential buyers. The new lens can be ordered from B&H for just $125, which is an amazing price for what will be a very competent little lens. It’s hard to miss at this kind of price point.

So after spending some quality time with the new nifty fifty, let’s jump in and discover the reality of the new lens. The new 50STM is a very nice lens for its extremely low price point. It feels like a real lens rather than the toy-like quality of the “plastic fantastic”. I let my wife and children handle the old 50mm f/1.8 II, and they were shocked at cheap and “plasticky” it felt in comparison to the usual volume of lenses flowing across my desk. The 50mm STM is small and light, of course, but it feels like a real lens. It’s not a Zeiss, of course (or even a Takumar), but it has a much more reassuring “denseness” compared to its predecessor. When compared with the 40mm f/2.8 STM, the 40mm feels a bit more dense. It weighs less (130g vs. 159g) but is also only 60% as long (23mm vs. 38mm), so overall it is about 25% more dense.

The new 50STM has a finish that is more of a matte look than any Canon lens I’ve reviewed before. The look works, though, and while the design is simple (STM lenses eschew focus distance windows and any kind of hyperfocal markings) it is clean and works nicely. The focus ring is still on the smallish side, but is wider than the focus ring on either the older 50mm f/1.8 or that on the 40mm STM.

[Show as slideshow]

One negative carried over here from the previous generation is that the lens is NOT internally focusing. The internal lens housing does extend during focus. It is most pronounced at minimum focus and is fully retracted at infinity focus. Most annoying is the fact the lens housing does not retract when the camera is powered down, and the nature of STM technology means that you cannot manually retract it when the camera is powered off. That exposes a vulnerability, as it might be possible to damage the lens by something hitting that front barrel when it is extended. It makes the purchase of a lens hood an important consideration. The lens hood would prevent that happening in most all situations. Yes, nearly $27 for a piece of plastic is a bit ridiculous, but considering the bargain price of the lens, just consider it part of the investment.

Some photographers were hoping that this lens would be a “pancake” like the 40mm f/2.8 STM. While it isn’t really a pancake, for all practical purposes it is almost as good. It should easily slip into a jacket pocket and be very easy to bring along, and will add next to no discernible weight to most photographer’s bag. I should also note that the compact size of the lens and its use of STM makes it a very natural lens to use with the EOS M line of camera bodies via the EF adapter. It balances nicely there and focuses fairly close to native EOS M lenses in terms of speed. This lens might even replace the 40mm f/2.8 STM as my most used EF lens on the EOS M.

The reality is that Canon has given us far more lens and charged us no more for it, making this lens officially one of the best bargains (if not the best) in DSLR photography. Canon’s margin on this lens is probably initially going to be fairly small (despite recycling a fair portion of the optical formula), but I have a feeling that they will make up for it in volume. This lens is cheap enough that many photographers will buy it even if they don’t intend to use it that often. I’ll probably do it myself, and that’s why Canon was very smart to keep this lens priced so aggressively. It also deflects the attack from Chinese maker Yongnuo with their “clone” of the 50mm f/1.8.

Autofocus

The key component of this upgrade is found in the name: STM. STM standings for “Stepping Motor”, and it is a newer focus motor technology that began with the EF 40mm STM lens. While speed is always a factor with autofocus motors, STM technology is more about the way focus is achieved. Specifically, “stepping” technology is about smoothness in focus, and smooth transitions from one focus point to another. Its major application is in video capture when AF Servo focus can be used to achieve smooth video focus without hunting. A lens with STM used with, say, a Canon 70D like mine will even do smooth, natural “focus pulls” where extreme focus changes are made from a foreground to a background subject. STM motors also tend to be quieter, particularly when compared to the older micro-motors used in many of Canon’s lower end (non USM) lenses. Take a look at the difference in the focus quality and sound during AF Servo video capture on a Canon EOS 70D body.

This 50mm lens is only the third full frame compatible lens that Canon has released with STM technology, and it makes far more sense than the last one that I reviewed (the 24-105mm STM). The use of STM makes perfect sense in Canon’s lower end and crop-sensor specific lenses (EF-S), as most of the recent Canon crop sensor bodies can leverage that technology (the Canon 70D and 7DMKII most effectively because of the Dual Pixel AF technology) and the fact that STM is an improvement upon the old micro-motor technology. Its use in full frame lenses is a little more puzzling, however, as to this point no Canon full frame body employs Dual Pixel AF or supports AF Servo video capture. I viewed the 24-105mm STM as more of a lens designed for future bodies, because its focal length is simply not a natural one for crop sensor bodies (the 18-135 STM makes more sense if you are shooting crop). I’m not as concerned here, because the low purchase price of the “nifty-fifty” means that a lot of crop-sensor shooters are likely to use it in addition to full frame shooters. The 50mm focal length is equally loved by full frame and crop sensor users, where the 50mm focal length becomes an effective 80mm (full frame equivalent). This puts it into a real sweet spot for portrait work as well as general purpose.

Full frame shooters get the advantage of a better/quieter/faster focusing lens even if their camera body can’t leverage the AF Servo video focus function. Some crop sensor shooters with the right body will get the full functionality.

The older 50mm f/1.8 II lens was one of the most notorious examples of the downsides of micro-motor focus. Its AF was loud, buzzy, and had a scratchy sound like it was working through a bit of grit every time. Micro-motors do not support full time manual override, so you would have to select manual focus on the side of the lens before attempting to manually focus with the tiny manual focus ring that seemed to be barely attached to the very front of the barrel. Not great. It felt much like its price – cheap.

The STM version is a big step up. The focus motor is noticeably quieter (though not silent nor as quiet as other STM lenses that I’ve used), and it is much smoother. Faster? Not noticeably, but definitely smoother. Check out this video for a look at the build, motor, and focus sound.

Unsurprisingly the focus shines the brightest when used in a way that the technology was designed for. I added a 70D to my kit for just this kind of evaluation, and in video AF Servo mode the lens smoothly transitions from one focus point to another. It also focuses very quickly when utilizing the Dual Pixel AF in Live View mode. On my 6D body the focus is also nice and accurate, although the speed is unimpressive when compared to a variety of modern lenses using either USM (Canon), USD (Tamron), or HSM (Sigma) ultrasonic/hypersonic motors.

I should note that the copy of the lens that I reviewed did require significant AFMA adjustment (focus tuning) on the bodies that I used it on (save the EOS M, obviously). This included two Canon 6D bodies and 1 Canon 70D body. On all bodies the AFMA was at least -11. That is one of the more extreme adjustments that I have had to make on a modern lens, but on a positive note the result was consistent across multiple bodies and was repeatable in multiple tests.

If you have a body that does not support AFMA adjustment and find that your copy of the lens is not focusing consistently (accurately), you might consider sending the combination (body + lens) to Canon for calibration. It might cost you a bit of money but will save you a lot of heartache.

By comparison, the older 50II needed less extreme adjustment but with less consistent results. I got a number of errors even trying to run the program, so I do think that overall focus accuracy has been improved.

Probably the biggest challenge for this type of lens is going to be in portrait use. We portrait photographers tend to like sharp, accurately focuses results. I typically focus on eyes, and I demand the focus there to be accurate. You will probably find that this type of shooting (typically at wide apertures like f/2.8 or larger) will expose focus inconsistencies more than general shooting. I was initially disappointed with the focus accuracy of the copy on my primary camera body that I was using after a series of portraits (thanks to my lovely wife for jumping in to model for me).

[Show as slideshow]

I knew the lens was capable of better results, so I redid the AFMA adjustments in better lit conditions (always important when using an automated AFMA program like Reikan FoCal). It settled in a result of -10 on that particular body compared to a previous figure of -14. This result solved my problem, and the next series of portraits (all at f/2) at various distances proved much more accurate.

[Show as slideshow]

This allayed my concerns over focus accuracy. Word to the wise: do the microadjustment (AFMA) and then field test your results before using any lens for important work. The second series proved that focus accuracy was dialed in at a variety of focus distances. I would now be far more confident using the lens for professional/important work.

One anecdotal observation: On a recent outing I added an older Hoya circular polarizer from my vintage kit (a lot of legacy lenses used a 49mm standard filter). The circular polarizer made a noticeable difference in a couple of ways.

It definitely improved the images (used correctly a polarizer usually does!), but I also noticed that the lens hunted more, particularly at close distances. It was most noticeable with Live View shooting on the Canon 6D, but I noticed it a bit even with traditional AF through the viewfinder. I don’t recall any lens being quite so affected by the addition of a circular polarizer before. The lens seems to focus fine in lower light conditions as a bare lens, so it may have been a fluke. It could also be the nature of the circular polarizer in some way; I’ve never used it on a modern AF lens before (I’ve never had a 49mm front filter thread on an AF lens!!

In summation, the lens focus accuracy is good on all four of my camera bodies (including the EOS M), although the lens is far from the fastest focusing that I’ve ever used. It may be slightly (if at all) faster than the older 50mm f/1.8, but the major upgrade here is the manner of focus (and its accuracy) than the overall speed.

This lens has not changed my mind about manual focus or MF override in an STM lens. The camera has to be awake and prepared to accept input from the lens before it will do anything at all, and even then, there is a lag when making manual adjustments because the manual input is sent to the focus motor that actually makes the adjustment. This is sometimes called “focus by wire”, so true manual focus is nonexistent. Forget pre-focusing. It is always the focus motor that drives adjustment, not a physical coupling to the lens elements like other type focus motors. This is pretty hard to accept for a guy who loves Zeiss lenses (frankly, I hate manually focusing this lens), but, in this case, it is unquestionable that the overall focus and even the focus ring are an upgrade over the previous version of the lens. By the way, no STM lens to date has included a distance window or hyperfocal marking, so you know that manual focus is definitely not a priority in these applications.

Image Quality

Canon has not made a lot of claims of improved optical performance from the lens, even coming out and saying that it uses the same optical formula as the previous lens. It seems like they are being modest, however, as I do perceive a very slight bump in resolution (particularly towards the center) along with noticeably better contrast. What Canon does claim is that the optical formula has “optimized lens placement”, and that has produced a better image overall. It is very modest jump, but when one considers that we are getting a vastly improved lens in other ways for the same money, it still feels pretty good. Better contrast helps to create the impression of slightly better resolution. In some situations the image quality looks identical, while in others I do see a bit of an improvement from the new lens. Here are some crops that show direct comparisons. I notice a considerable difference in the center on a crop sensor in this comparison:

I see less difference in the center on this full frame comparison, but there is a slight improvement across the frame, mostly in the perception of less “haze” due to reduced contrast and resolution.

Here is an outdoor series comparing the 50mm STM, 50mmII, 40mm STM, and SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4. Here is a series of shots + center crops from the 50STM (this series will also give you an idea of overall look of images from the lens at apertures including: f/1.8, f/2, f/2.8, and f/4)

[Show as slideshow]

You can compare that with the same series from the EF 50mm f/1.8:

[Show as slideshow]

Now let’s take a look at an f/2.8 and f/4 series from the 40mm STM pancake (note the framing difference from the 40mm focal length):

[Show as slideshow]

Finally, for the fun of it (and because I know that some of you are interested), here is what the vintage SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 does in the same setting: (this series replaces f/1.8 with f/1.4):

[Show as slideshow]

You will note the nicest bokeh here is from the older SMC (Super Multi-Coated) Takumar. That isn’t just due to the wider aperture (f/1.4 vs. f/1.8); the bokeh has less of a hard edge (as we will see in our aperture comparison), and, as a result, the overall look of the bokeh region is softer. Remember that in its day the SMC Tak 50mm f/1.4 was a premium lens. It is actually sharper in the center at f/2 when compared with the new STM lens:

The sharpness advantage reverses when you move out into the corner, with the 50STM the winner there. This next series does a similar comparison as the previous series, but now the subject has been moved into the extreme upper right corner. I chose this at random, but haven’t noticed a centering issue with any of our competitors. First, the 50STM at f/1.8, f/2, f/2.8, and f/4). In this series I will only show the full image wide open to show placement of the subject, and then the crops at each aperture.

[Show as slideshow]

Now from the 50mm f/1.8 II:

[Show as slideshow]

Now, the 40mm STM (f/2.8 and f/4):

[Show as slideshow]

Finally, we will take a look at the corner performance of the SMC Takumar lens:

[Show as slideshow]

This series should also help you see how vignetting clears up as the lenses are stepped down. All of the 50mm lenses vignette fairly heavily with the 40mm lagging only slightly behind. The SMC Takumar surprisingly exhibits a little less vignette despite being an f/1.4 lens with a tiny 49mm front element.

The good news is that the image quality was already pretty good with the older lens; it was the other areas like the build, aperture, and focus motor that were higher priority needs, and Canon has addressed those.

Aperture Iris Improvement

Probably the best way to examine the update to the aperture iris is by viewing this video:

The video highlights a clear advantage for the new lens. The older version of the lens had 5 straight aperture blades that quickly began to produce a pentagonal shape in bokeh highlights. My feeling is that even by f/2.8 this look was somewhat cartoonish (not a fan of “creative apertures). The new lens has a vastly improved (modernized) aperture iris with 7 curved aperture blades. As a result the aperture stays quite round through about f/5.6, and only then does the shape of the blades become apparent. This is a huge improvement and addresses one of the fundamental flaws of the earlier lens. You can also check out this aperture comparison series. First, from the new STM lens:

[Show as slideshow]

Here is a similar series from the older 50mm f/1.8 II:

[Show as slideshow]

Finally, just for comparison, here is a look at the vintage SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4:

[Show as slideshow]

Here are a few observations:

Wide open the bokeh looks nearly identical to the older lens, which supports what Canon has said regarding a largely recycled optical formula.
By f/2.8 the difference in the bokeh quality from the old lens to the two is extremely dramatic. The roundness of the bokeh highlights on the STM lens is actually improved over the wide open look.
The STM lens keeps largely round bokeh highlights through f/5.6, and while you can see the shape of the aperture blades then, the look is still pleasing.
The Takumar lens has more blades (8), but they aren’t as rounded. It shows a octagonal shape even by f/2, though that shape is preferable to the pentagon shape of the older 50mm II.
The Takumar bokeh has less of a hard edge towards the outer edges, resulting in softer looking bokeh in field use.

The overall quality of the bokeh character in the new STM is unchanged, though there is a vast improvement to the shape of bokeh highlights when the lens is stopped down. Overall bokeh quality is decent but unexceptional, with harder edges and less creamy softness of the better lenses. Still, in field use the bokeh is far from displeasing in most settings:

Here is a gallery of other bokeh images at differing focus distances:

[Show as slideshow]

Other Optical Observations

Chromatic aberrations are also noticeably more controlled. I am seeing very little chromatic aberrations in field use, and that is a big step up. The reduction of CA (probably through improved coatings) helps improve the bokeh quality, as bokeh highlights are frequent places where green or purple fringing show up. I have seen a bit of that at 100% magnification, but for the most part I’ve seen very little chromatic aberrations at all.

[Show as slideshow]

It is clear the optical formula has at the least been optimized, particularly when considers that they also managed to reduce the minimum focus distance from 1.5 ft to 1.1 ft while improving the maximum magnification from .15x to .21x. Something has changed! If this the same optical formula (and direct comparison tells me it probably is), the improved coatings and optimization of element placement has produced the ability to take images that at least appear to have higher resolution.

Speaking of that closer focus distance: my findings are a mixed bag. Then lens does focus closer, but image quality at wide apertures near minimum focus doesn’t seem quite as good as less extreme distances. I’ve seen stronger performances near minimum focus than what this lens gives (like, for example, from the 40mm f/2.8). Still, I don’t think the lens is any worse than the previous version at minimum focus, and in my aperture comparison I noted a slightly better result for the newer lens.

Canon 50STM (f/1.8 and f/2.8:

[Show as slideshow]

Canon 50mm II (f/1.8 and f/2.8):

[Show as slideshow]

Canon 40mm STM (f/2.8):

[Show as slideshow]

SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 (f/1.4, f/2, and f/2.8):

[Show as slideshow]

Stopping down the lens a bit helps close focus sharpness, and with the addition of extension tubes the lens will open up a world of macro photography (though with the limitations that extension tubes bring). That improved magnification figure is certainly another plus.

Flare resistance is also dramatically improved due to Canon’s new coatings on the lens. It will produce a few ghosting artifacts when the sun is in the frame, but the veiling is nearly gone and those artifacts are far less disruptive. It is subtle improvements like this that really make the lens a much better value.

Distortion was already very low for field use, and that is unchanged here. In field use the tiny amount of barrel distortion should be imperceptible.

Image quality overall is quite good for the money. I’ve recently reviewed the Canon 50mm f/1.2L and the Zeiss Otus 1.4/55mm, so the fact that I’m not completely disappointed is a compliment in and of itself. I’m impressed with what I’m seeing from this little lens overall. Do understand that my evaluation is relative to the price point; it isn’t about to challenge the Otus or the Sigma ART. There is still some haze at apertures wider than f/2.8 when you examine images at 100%, and color fidelity isn’t likely to threaten Zeiss anytime soon, but the images I’ve gotten from this lens are punching well above its bargain basement price. It is providing very strong optical performance for the price, and the fact that image quality is quite good wide open from the lens helps eliminate some of the sting of not having an f/1.4 aperture. Stopping the lens down helps eliminate the haze and also extends the sharpness into the corners. At f/2.8 and beyond the image quality is impressive by any standard. This is great news for those of you that are looking to use the lens for general purpose work. I tend to use primes like this in specific ways (and usually at wide apertures), but I recognize that everyone has different needs.

Though modest, that little bit of optical improvement is going to be enough to make a lot of photographers happy (see a number of other photos at the Image Gallery), but it also still leaves plenty of room for Canon to do something very impressive with their update to the 50mm f/1.4. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that lens get a bit larger (something like the awesome 35mm f/2 IS) and a little more expensive (ditto). Canon has left themselves with a little wiggle room and reasonably low development costs on this lens due to leveraging the existing optical formula and other existing technologies (STM motor).

The Holy Grail…and Conclusions

The quest for the “Holy Grail” of 50mm lenses continues. I’ve yet to use one that really checks all the boxes for me. I am still looking for a 50mm lens with the attributes and size factor of the 35mm f/2 IS. Namely, 1) Fast, accurate USM AF, 2) Excellent wide open sharpness, 3) A moderate size 4) Quality drawing and bokeh. IS (image stabilization) would be the icing on the cake. I’ve reviewed and used more than 17 50mm options, both modern and legacy, and none of them have quite hit the sweet spot for me. My hope is that Canon’s replacement for 50mm f/1.4 will be the lens I’ve been looking for. By the way, if you shoot a crop sensor camera and want an upgrade over the 50mm STM, get the 35mm f/2 IS. It becomes the best general purpose 50mm lens (equivalent) that I could recommend.

But I’m spoiled by owning a large kit of excellent lenses and getting to constantly use the newest and the best as a lens reviewer. The target audience for this lens isn’t me; it is the millions of users who have a limited budget but want a competent wide aperture prime lens…and the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM is exactly that. It is hard to be critical when Canon has updated a number of key areas of this lens while leaving the price at a bargain basement level (only $125 in the United States). The “nifty fifty” was already one of the best values in photography; the new lens raises the value even higher. It is pretty much better in every area while remaining the exact same price. Kudos to Canon for giving us so much for so little!

Pros:

Amazing value for the money
Improved build quality, including a metal bayonet mount.
Vastly improved aperture iris (modern design)
Autofocus quality and accuracy through STM
Slightly improved optical performance in key areas
Improved flare resistance, chromatic aberration control, and contrast
Improved minimum focus distance and maximum magnification

Cons:

STM performance here slightly below the standard of other lenses
Optical improvement marginal
Manual focus with STM
Bokeh quality isn’t exceptional

Should I Upgrade to the 50mm STM?

Expect the used market to become pretty flooded with the MKII version of the lens as, for a lot of people, the answer will be yes. If you are happy with what you have already, then know that optically there isn’t a big change. If you have issues with the aperture shape or want to shoot video and need quieter, smoother focus, then the answer is a big yes. If you’ve not yet purchased and want a cheap prime for portrait work or general purpose shooting, then this is an easy choice. It’s not that it is exceptional at anything, but the 50mm STM is good enough at everything that most users will be satisfied. If you don’t mind manual focus, consider picking up an SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 off the used market. The 40mm f/2.8 pancake remains a solid alternative as well.

Review Notes: I want to thank B&H Photo for providing me with this retail sample for review purposes. Please consider purchasing through these links; its costs you nothing, but provides a little income to me that helps me keep these reviews coming and this site maintained.

Updated Code:
Gear Used:

Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera (Body Only)
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens
Adobe Lightroom CC Software for Mac and Windows (Boxed Version)
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Alien Skin Exposure 7 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

In Canada? Take a look here at Amazon.ca to purchase the lens: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

50mm Shootout

Dustin Abbott

March 10th, 2015

Which Fifty is the Most Nifty?

People have been using 50mm “normal” lenses for most of the past century, and no focal length has been more popular. 50mm lenses are called “normal” because they roughly approximate the typical human field of view. That makes the focal length very popular because people find it very easy to visualize and compose with a 50mm lens. It is often the first prime lens (and many times only prime) that people own. Due to decades of engineering and a relatively simple design, 50mm lenses are often quite inexpensive, with Canon’s own EF 50mm f/1.8 only costing about $125. There are some newer designs that have pushed the envelope in terms of optics, size, and price (Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 and Sigma ART 50mm f/1.4). The newest 50mm to hit the market is from Korean manufacturer Samyang/Rokinon. The Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 AS IF UMC lens has a lot of “old school” sensibilities. It is manual focus only, has a genuine aperture ring, and absolutely no electronics (in all mounts save Nikon F). But it is also thoroughly grounded in the present, with a fairly large build, weight, and front element. It also has some killer optics. Because it is new, it will cost a bit more than the old fellows, but it is cheap enough for people consider it as an alternative to vintage glass. You can read my full review of that lens here.

But since it has some throwback sensibilities I thought throw it into the ring with some of my vintage favorites for a 50mm Shootout. These are some of my favorite vintage lenses, including:

SMC (Super-Multi-Coated) Takumar 50mm f/1.4 (M42)
SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 (M42)
Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 (M42)
Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm (M42)

Using vintage lenses comes with a few quirks that you should be aware of. For example, the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 and the Helios 44-2 will hang on the mirror of the camera (a full frame Canon EOS 6D) near infinity focus, so you have to be careful to switch to live view if you want to focus to infinity (all of these tests were done with live view 10x focus anyway). The copy of the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 that I ordered for this comparison arrived in extremely disappointing shape. It was full of internal fungus that probably adds a bit of haze. In fact, it had been obviously disassembled by someone and they mounted the aperture ring upside down when they put it back together!

My preferred old school mount is M42 (screw mount), because the mounted adapts very solid and securely because of the threads. My Zeiss lens is a native Contax/Yashica mount, a bayonet mount, and I don’t find that the bayonet mounts are as secure in their adapters. My adapter, for example, allows the lens to sag just a little, which effectively (and exasperatingly) limits infinity focus. I discovered just how much it was affecting this during the test and remedied it afterward with some double sided tape between the bayonet mount and the adapter. I wish I had done this sooner, as it provides a much more secure adapting.

Finally, the Helios 44-2 (an old Soviet lens [mine says “Made in USSR in English!!!”] that has an Biotar optical formula originally stolen from Carl Zeiss Jena) is a “preset” lens, which means that it does not have traditionally defined hard stops on the aperture ring but instead functions like a “declicked” cine lens. In theory one could set move it to the position of traditional aperture values on a second dial, but on my old copy that ring is loose and leaves one guessing. I have learned to eyeball the aperture as compared to other lenses and I think I must get it fairly close as the shutter speeds seem to match.

These issues certainly affect the outcome, and obviously having a native Canon mount is one clear advantage for the modern Rokinon. One disadvantage, however, is the very clear philosophy change in modern lenses that makes everything, well, massive. The Rokinon is easily twice the size of all of the other options, and its filter size is 77mm compared to 49mm for most of the old lenses. The largest of the vintage glass is the Zeiss, at it is only 55mm.

So can the modern giant easily defeat the vintage competitors? Let’s take a look.

Test Notes: Canon EOS 6D mounted on a tripod (Vanguard ABEO Pro 283AT Tripod + GH-300T Head), focused via Live View 10x (mirror up), 2 Second Delay to eliminate vibration. All shots done in Medium Fine JPEG setting (no post production). Note that one of the lenses is 55mm and another is 58mm, so the framing in all of these tests won’t be identical.

First Test: Close Focus – Contrast and C/A Testing

Order: 1) Rokinon, 2) SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8, Helios 44-2, Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm

[Show as slideshow]

Our first test is an excellent one for determining a few things. This simple test is of a page of text with a bright white background. There is a huge amount of contrast between the white paper and the black text. This test is great for revealing chromatic aberrations or bokeh fringing that is very common to large aperture lenses. It also quickly shows the amount of contrast the lens is capable of. Because the depth of field is so small the bokeh fringing in the fore and backgrounds is easily revealed. A great result, obviously, is one that shows bright whites, deep blacks, and little to no green or purple fringing in the out of focus areas. The best result that I have seen in this test is the Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4. One of the worst performances was from another Zeiss, the Planar T* 50mm f/1.4. I often just do this test wide open, but I thought it would be interesting to see these results at a few apertures – wide open, f/2, and f/2.8. For one thing, we have a total of four different maximum apertures (2 @ f/1.4, 1 @ f/1.7, 1 @ f/1.8, and 1 @f/2). I did a series of three shots for all lenses save the Helios, for which I did two. The reason for this is that maximum aperture for the Helios is f/2.

The winner here wide open is the Rokinon, in a pretty strong performance. Its advantage isn’t huge, however, and it shows perhaps the most purple fringing before the plane of focus. The clear loser here wide open is the Zeiss, with noticeably less contrast than the others. Both of the Takumar lenses fair quite well, too, as does the Helios. The Takumar 50mm f/1.4 is losing some light (due to the fungus and aging of the glass?), and is noticeably dimmer at the same exposure value as the other lenses (save the Helios, which should be compared to the f/2 values of the other lenses). The Zeiss’s light transmission doesn’t seem any different than the Rokinon’s light transmission. I expect DXOMark to rate the T-Stop of the Rokinon at something closer to 1.6. One final observation is that almost all of these (save the Zeiss) show a huge leap forward in contrast when stopped down to f/2; the result is noticeably better with much crisper contrast between the page and text along with reduced fringing. The Zeiss doesn’t make its quantum leap forward until f/2.8. Still, a close comparison shows the win even at f/2.8 belongs to the Rokinon, although the Zeiss delivers the most light transmission at f/2.8 of any of the lenses (Zeiss’s coatings have always been very good!) Here are a look at the crops from the wide open examples here:

[Show as slideshow]

Order: 1) Rokinon, 2) SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, 3) SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8, 4) Helios 44-2, 5) Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm

Second Test: Portrait Length Performance

In the second test I set up our “portrait subject” six foot away from the camera. I felt this was a fairly typical distance for using these lenses for portraits. Using an actual portrait subject is next to impossible for this type of test because of their movement, so I used a static subject that has a fair amount of detail. I used a solid background that would also give us a peak at vignetting. Once I again I used the same aperture values as before, so there is only two from the Helios.

Order: 1) Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm, 2) SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, 3) SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8, 4) Helios 44-2, 5) Rokinon

[Show as slideshow]

The Rokinon is again the clear winner in the overall image quality save one detail that I’ll note in a moment. It shows the best sharpness and contrast. That large front element shows its value here as the lens clearly shows the least amount of vignetting. This is a very good performance; viegnetting is clearly not an issue with this lens. The light transmission between the Zeiss and the Rokinon is again near equal despite the Zeiss having a maximum f/1.7 aperture vs. f/1.4 for the Rokinon. The most heavy vignetting is from the SMC Tak 1.4 and the Helios, with the Zeiss and the SMC Tak bringing up the middle.

As I have noticed previously with other Rokinon lenses, the lens renders colors fairly warmly when compared with other lenses. The most accurate (neutral) color unsurprisingly comes from the Zeiss. The Helios is definitely the coolest, while the two Takumars are warmer than the Zeiss but not as much as the Rokinon. This is, to me, is the only mark against the Rokinon here. When pixel peeping the f/2.8 images the details are better (much) on the Rokinon, but I prefer the overall look of the image from the Zeiss, which just seems more balanced. Ironically the Rokinon gives the appearance of more vignetting at f/2.8, and the Zeiss has better light transmission here. It is the great look from the Zeiss that makes it my typical choice when I am shooting video for my video reviews. One final note: only the Zeiss exhibits any noticeable focus shift as it is stopped down. When one is shooting RAW, white balance is less of an issue.

The SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 delivers the best overall performance from the vintage lenses in terms of resolution and contrast and is reasonably close to the Rokinon, but the Rokinon delivers a clearly brighter image, less vignetting, as well as better contrast. The SMC Takumar f/1.4 delivers the “haziest/dreamiest” image here, and while the fungus is somewhat of a culprit here I do know from previous copies that this is somewhat typical for the lens. Some like this particular look for portraits, but I personally prefer a sharp, contrasty look out of the lens. One can easily reduce contrast in post, but creating contrast and resolution is a far more difficult task. The Rokinon is your choice for portraiture, although the Zeiss produces an overall very pleasing look.
One final thing: I love the Helios for portraits, and the reasons won’t show up in this test. At the 6-10 foot distance with the right background the Helios will produce a unique, “swirly” bokeh that is the signature look for the lens. It’s an aberration, yes, but an awesome one that creates very unique and artistic results. It has long been my favorite vintage portrait lens.

Here are the center crops from the wide open results.

[Show as slideshow]

Order: 1) Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm, 2) SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, 3) SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8, 4) Helios 44-2, 5) Rokinon

Third Test: Real World Resolution at Infinity

In our third and final test of the 50mm Shootout we will examine how that contrast and resolution works out in the real world. I wanted to test the lenses at infinity focus and see how they perform when stopped down further. It was here that the infinity focus issue with the Zeiss became clear. I shot a series of four shots each: wide open, f/2.8, f/4, F/8. The wind was just whipping in gusts over the open expanse of the river, and the light was in a constant state of flux. During some sequences the wind would be driving snow and some of the snow resolution could be obscured. Despite that variability I feel confident in drawing a few conclusions.

The focal point here was the lighthouse, so in the wider apertures it is that plane of focus that we will examine the closest.

Order – 1) Rokinon 2) SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8, SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, Helios 44-2, Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm

[Show as slideshow]

The first conclusion is that the Rokinon really, really showed off in this setting. The f/1.4 image is somewhat diminished by the limitations of a maximum shutter speed of 1/4000th on the 6D body that I was using. It could have used a faster shutter speed. The f/2.8 and f/4 images both look amazing, however. The closest competitor is the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, which makes an amazing jump from wide open to f/2.8 in terms of contrast and resolution. Both the f/4 and f/8 images from it are very impressive. This was very revealing to me considering the fungus in the lens, although I do find the color a bit muddier here than any of the other images.

The first two images from the Zeiss are complete throwaways. It was extremely bright out there and pretty hard to see the LCD screen, but I could tell that something wasn’t right with infinity focus. I discovered the “rocking” issue with the mount in between the f/2.8 and f/4 shots, and you can see a huge difference between them that has nothing to do with native resolution. The Zeiss ends up showing some of the best contrast in the focal plane objects (lighthouse and ice shacks), but for some reason doesn’t show nearly as much detail in the snow. The Zeiss has great color, but comparing the Rokinon and the Zeiss shows a very clear win for the Rokinon. My favorite image of the whole series is the f/4 result from the Rokinon; it is a fabulous looking image. If I were sharing one of these images and adding it to my personal portfolio, it would be that one.

Amongst the vintage lenses my favorite image is the f/4 result from the SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4. I was quite surprised by this result and how it performed from f/2.8 on. It is a remarkably sharp lens when stopped down. I would expect a better example of the lens to perform even better. As I go over the images again, however, I realize that the shifting light made a huge difference from image to image on how the foreground textures in the snow would render. The Rokinon f/4 results look much crisper than the f/8 results, but the actual resolution difference between those two apertures is probably minimal at best. Processing the images to recover highlights and enhancing shadows would minimize these differences. The real world isn’t very “scientific”, but we all shoot in the real world.

I’ve included both the wide open crops along with the f/4 results here:

[Show as slideshow]

Order – 1) Rokinon 2) SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8, SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4, Helios 44-2, Zeiss Planar T* 1.7/50mm

Real World Conclusions and Mini-Reviews

I wanted to conclude by showing you why I love these old lenses. Here is a little mini review of each lens along with a gallery of favorite images I have taken with it. Many of these images are processed; some are not. I want you to see, however, the character of the images that can be achieved with some of these old lenses.

The Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 AS IF UMC is easily the best lens of the bunch in terms of its optics. After close examination I would say that it is very close to rivaling the optics from the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART series lens (I think CA is a better controlled on the Sigma). The Rokinon has better looking bokeh than the Sigma. Ironically the challenge for both of these lenses is getting them focused. The Rokinon is a fairly demanding lens to manually focus; the Sigma has sometime erratic autofocus. The Rokinon has better contrast, resolution, and consistency than these older lenses. It also has beautiful drawing and bokeh that matches and even bests the old fellows, and does a better job of retaining round bokeh highlights when stopped down. I wish its price were $100 less; I would enthusiastically endorse it if this were the case. The modern size has helped to overcome some of the optical shortcomings of the older lenses, but I really like the fact that it has beautiful drawing and look to the images that feels old school at the same time. As this gallery shows, it is easily capable of producing stunning images.

[Show as slideshow]

The SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4 is a beloved lens by a lot of people for a reason. It’s got personality, including a “radioactive” thorium element in some copies. It is somewhat dreamy (low contrast) wide open, but has nice bokeh and color and sharpens up drastically when stopped down even one stop. It is also tiny for a f/1.4 lens, with a 49mm front element and a size so compact that is very easy to drop it in a pocket and bring it along. It has a beautiful build quality as well, with a very smoothly focusing metal focus ring that is usually damped just about right. I’ve owned three or four copies (all much better than this one), and will probably replace this one (I’m sending it back to the seller) with a better copy. Just know that if you are using it on a Canon full frame body you will probably have a minor issue with mirror hang at or near infinity focus. This is one place where mirrorless bodies are much better! There will also be some vignetting, but this is both easy to fix in post and often produces a very stylish effect for portraiture. A decent copy will typically cost between $75-$150 on Ebay. Some of these have 8 aperture blades which helps a bit in keeping apertures rounder until f/5.6 or so.

[Show as slideshow]

The SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 in many ways scarcely seems like an old lens (other than the fact it is really tiny). It has few optical imperfections. I wouldn’t mind it having a bit more contrast wide open, but it produces beautiful images. It also focuses down very close, and is a great lens to throw an extension tube and use as a cheap macro option. It resolves very nicely near minimum focus, and stopped down a bit produces contrasty, sharp images. Nice color rendition. It functions perfectly on modern bodies. No mirror hang issues, focuses to infinity fine, and has moderate vignetting. Light transmission seems pretty good. My only real beef optically is that bokeh highlights get hexagonal pretty quick because of the six non-rounded aperture blades. It is the worst of the group in that regard. It too has a beautiful build that has lasted decades without issue. The focus ring is very accurate and beautifully damped. Best of all, you can find a copy any day of the week from Ebay for under $50. I’ve mounted mine on at least six different cameras and gotten some great pics on all of them. It stays around because it is low risk, fairly high reward.

[Show as slideshow]

The Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 has been my favorite vintage prime for one main reason – it produces incredibly unique images that people tend to fall in love with. Almost every image I have shared on photo sharing sites from the Helios have had a very enthusiastic response. I paid less than $30 shipped for mine (straight from Russia!). It is a great portrait option, a great fine art lens, and just a fun lens to play around with in general. It has any number of optical aberrations (swirly bokeh, highly flare prone) but these all seem to have a lot of artistic merit and end up being, to me, strengths for the lens instead of weaknesses. One of my common criticisms of many modern lenses is that they are too sterile, too clinical, and lack personality. The Helios has that in spades, and if you can get your hands on the 44 (85mm f/1.5), it has even more (but at a price usually 10-15x higher). Like the 50mm f/1.4, it will hang near infinity on the full frame bodies I have used it on. On the rare occasions I am shooting at or near infinity, I just switch to Live View (make sure to back focus off infinity before exiting Live View). If you do hang on the mirror a bit, don’t panic. I’ve done it dozens of times before with no damage to my camera or the lens. My copy looks like garbage, but shoots like magic. By the way, the Helios was before its time with curved aperture blades that stay quite round until around f/8 or so, so the bokeh is pretty great from this lens. This one probably won’t ever leave my kit. It costs me little and produces images like nothing else I own. (There are two galleries from this one because I have so many favorites!)

[Show as slideshow]

[Show as slideshow]

The Zeiss Distagon T* 1.7/50mm is my newest vintage lens addition (the gallery will be a little smaller for it). I’ve been reviewing a lot of Zeiss lenses in the past year, and I wanted to try an older Zeiss lens (it was first manufactured in 1975; I’m not sure when mine was produced). I’ve noted some of its strengths and weaknesses throughout this review, but in many ways I am very pleased with it. I’ve long noted the strength of Zeiss lenses when it comes to their color fidelity. This lens doesn’t have the biting contrast of some more expensive Zeiss lenses that I have reviewed, but the images just have a look about them that I’m partial to. I paid a little more for it than any of these others, but I still got it for about $170, which is, by Zeiss standards, quite a bargain. I love it as a video lens. It produces very nice, very crisp video with great color rendition. I typically use it at about f/2.8 to f/4 for this setting. Bokeh is quite good but not the best I’ve seen, and by about f/5.6 it will start to go hexagonal, but it does keep a round shape longer than the SMC Tak 55mm. Images from the Zeiss are just very pleasing for that indefinable reason, so I expect this lens will be hanging around my kit for that reason. The damping on my lens’ focus ring is quite light, so while I don’t like the weight overall as well as the Takumars, I do find the lens very quick to make extreme focus changes. It doesn’t feel as robust as the other vintage lenses, but also feels more modern in a number of ways. It has better flare resistance than the other lenses, and the Zeiss coatings (T*) have long been amongst the industry’s best. This lens has no issues on a modern full frame body with mirror hang. If you find a good deal on one, it would be worth getting and playing with. The one challenge is that if you are a couple of hundred dollars into one you are halfway to the cost of the modern Rokinon, which is clearly a superior lens in every way save overall color rendition.

[Show as slideshow]

One final reason for sharing these galleries is to inspire you. There is a lot of character and a lot to be loved in some of these old primes from yesteryear. They are easy to find, inexpensive, and can produce some marvelous images on modern digital bodies. We get caught up in optical perfection and test charts, sometimes, but there is more to great images than optical perfection. I note that some new lenses are almost too perfect for their own good. I call them “clinical”. They are digital, not analog, and lack some of the character and charm of these old lenses. What endears the new Rokinon to me the most is that it seems to have some of that same charm. It is the “winner” amongst these lenses, but really, they are all winners.

Gear Used:

Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera (Body Only)
Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 AS IF UMC Lens for Canon EF Mount
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Software for Mac and Windows (Boxed Version)
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Alien Skin Exposure 7 (Use code “dustinabbott” to get 10% off)

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52014 in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Review

Dustin Abbott

March 31st, 2014

A Canon Underdog?

I have a soft spot for underdogs. That probably serves me well, as I often review Tamron and Rokinon products, and these are manufacturers that are long time underdogs. So as I hold this beautifully made Canon in my hand, why does it seem like once again I am reviewing an underdog?

Sigma, that’s why! Specifically, the launch of the new Art Series and Sigma’s new “Global Vision”. The Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Lens immediately seduced photographers with its slick, Zeiss-like appearance and excellent sharpness. It undercuts the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM Lens in price by a significant margin, and the improved sharpness from the Sigma caused even some 35L users to make the switch. The Sigma was a press darling, and I too felt that it very possibly was the next addition to my kit. Just shortly after the Sigma, Canon also released a new lens, the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM It was an update to a decades-old tiny prime, the EF 35mm f/2, but the new lens promised a superior optical formula, Image Stabilization, and an upgraded focusing motor. Canon had recently done a refresh to the 24mm and 28mm f/2.8 primes, and those lenses had been roundly praised for excellent optics and IS, but were considered to have been priced a little high (somewhat of a theme with Canon in the past several years). The lens was no different, with a price only $50 less than the Sigma ($849 USD). It launched to minimal fanfare, while the Sigma has been discussed ad nauseum and has almost certainly outsold it by a wide margin.

So why did I end up buying the Canon to add to my kit?

First, a word on the Sigma. As I have already said, I was pumped for the Sigma. I actually owned the EF 35mm f/2 (I am borrowing it back for comparison purposes in this review) and liked it despite its many flaws. But the Sigma is a sexy looking beast, and that sharpness was appealing (not to mention the [near] extra stop of light). I had been eying the 35L as a companion to my other fast primes (most notably the 135mm f/2L), so the potential of a better lens at price hundreds of dollars cheaper was very appealing. The S35 (Sigma 35) tests really well. It is very sharp. Much sharper in fact that the 35L. I know of many happy users of the lens. But one of the things I do besides reading reviews when I am doing research before purchasing is to look at pictures taken WITH the lens. I realize that there will always be a very wide disparity in the quality of photos because of the skill level of the photographer. But after a while you start to get a sense of how the lens performs in a variety of situations.

Lenses are more than the sum of their parts or even review scores, and I find that particularly true with fast prime lenses. The 35L, for example, produces images with a frequently beautiful “feel” to them that goes beyond technical merit. The images frequently look “pro” or “magic” (and that’s a good thing!) I kept waiting for the WOW images from the Sigma…but I rarely saw them. The Sigma just seems more clinical. It tests very well, but for one thing (and this is huge with a wide aperture prime), the bokeh (out of focus region) never impressed me. The transition to the defocused area lacks that incredible creaminess that the best lenses produce. In short, I just haven’t seen the “magic” I was looking for. The Sigma is also quite a large lens. It isn’t as large as my Tamron 24-70 VC, for example, but it isn’t significantly smaller, either. It wouldn’t be a lens that you would just throw into the bag as an extra.

My ardor for it was waning.

The final straw came when Sigma’s old nemesis began popping up – AF accuracy. Some people had focus issues early on, and others have found that their lens focused great…initially, and then it seemed as if AF accuracy began to decrease. In all fairness to Sigma, I doubt that the reports are quite as dire as they seem, and some people that I trust (like Roger Cicala at LensRentals) have reported that the Sigma seems improved in regards to focus reliability. Still, having owned a Sigma with such issues before (the 50-150mm f/2.8), I wasn’t really interested in going down that path again.

Meanwhile, I read the reviews on the net of the new Canon prime. There are still relatively few of them out there (which tells me the buzz hasn’t been all that high on the lens). The “modern science” of a Google search on the Canon vs. the Sigma shows basically a 2:1 margin for hits on the Sigma, and many of the Canon top returns are actually reviews of the OLDER 35mm f/2 lens.

Price Drop

Despite the relatively few reviews, they were universally very good. The lens was an improvement in every way over its predecessor and (quietly) was also sharper than the 35L. The single knock on it was price. At an early list of $849, it was high. Too high. The Sigma was only $50 more, and included both a padded case and the lens hood. The Canon (in typical miserly fashion), included neither. The killer app for the Canon was the inclusion of a very good IS system (more on that later), but many people questioned how necessary a stabilizer was on a wide aperture, wide angle prime. Videographers were excited, of course, because IS makes a huge difference when shooting handheld video. The Canon was smaller, nearly as sharp, and had better bokeh, but the Sigma featured a larger aperture (f/1.4) and seemed to be a little more professional grade. The Sigma sold well; the Canon…well…not so much. I was interested in the Canon, but thought the price too high. I did continue to see pictures from it, and in the hands of the right photographer I could see some of that magic I wanted. I couldn’t let it go entirely…but wasn’t ready to drop that amount of money on the lens.

Then one day Canon woke up and realized they were asking too much.

The price began to drop…quickly. A promotion going into the 2013 Christmas season saw the price hit $549, and that’s when my antennae went up again. Three hundred dollars off and the lens became a whole different value proposition. I started looking seriously at the lens again and made the choice in December of 2013 to take the plunge. Man, am I ever glad I did!

The Vital Statistics

: Looks great on the camera

: Not the smallest…far from the biggest

: Subtly contoured design

: Stabilizer Switch

: Nicely ribbed focus ring.

The Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM is the kind of lens that photographers like to stick on their cameras. It is not a large lens, but has that thick and stubby “prime” design that looks so stinkin’ great on a camera. If you are familiar with the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM Lens lens, then you have a pretty good idea of the construction of the 35mm f/2 IS (from henceforth known as 35IS). It is made of engineered plastics, but in no way feels “plasticky”. It feels dense and solid, and has an identical texture to the 100L. There is really only two differences: the 100L has both a rubber gasket for weather sealing and a red ring. Everything else feels the same. The switches feel the same, the focus ring has a similar texture, and the overall feel of the lens in your hand is very similar. The lens feels great. It is internally focusing (the length always stays the same), has a metal bayonet mount, and the front element does not rotate at all (good for using polarizing filters). Because it is an internally focusing fixed length lens there should be few opportunities for moisture or dust to penetrate the lens despite it not being officially weather sealed. There is really nothing to complain about, other than the decision to not include the rubber gasket to improve sealing (Canon has not included this feature on any non-L lens). The three recent non-L primes (24mm, 28mm, 35mm) are so well made that many were surprised that they weren’t added to the L series.

One nice upgrade is that the lens features Canon’s new center-pinch cap – a vast improvement over the older design.

The lens is reasonably compact, but is definitely not nearly as small as the lens it replaces. It grows 4.4 ounces/125 grams (from 7.4/210 to 11.8/335) and is 3.1”x 2.5” (77.9 x 62.6mm) in length compared to 2.6” x 1.7” (67 x 43mm) for the older 35mm f/2. The filter size also grew from 52mm to 67mm. For comparison sake, the Sigma weighs 23.5/665 (twice as much) and is 3.7” x 3” (94 x 77 mm) – approximately a third longer. That means the Sigma weighs only about 5 oz. less than my Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 DI VC USD Lens and is less than an inch shorter. That was my problem – the Sigma is closer in size to my standard (f/2.8) zoom than it is to my smaller primes! The Canon, however, strikes a much better balance. It isn’t small enough to throw into a pocket like its predecessor, but it is small enough to put in a small space in a camera bag and take it along.

To give you some size perspective, here is the “line-up”. You can see that the new 35mm is substantially larger than it’s predecessor (and the other two “pancake” lenses that represent the most compact lenses available for a Canon system), but is still dwarfed by a standard zoom. The Sigma is much closer in size to the Tamron zoom than it is to the EF 35IS.

From left to right: EF-M 22mm f/2 STM, EF 40mm f/2.8, EF 35mm f/2, EF 35mm f/2 IS, Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 VC

The lens has two switches on the side of the barrel. One is the AF/MF switch (though this lens does have true full time manual override and can be manually focused at any point.) The second is for the Image Stabilizer, and is an on/off switch. There is no panning switch as this is a newer generation hybrid IS system that automatically detects panning motion and turns off one axis of stabilization.

The lens also has a focus distance window. The final feature is the focus ring, which is about a half inch wide and has a nice rubber feel. The manual focusing ring is a bit more heavily damped than what I would like, but the action is smooth. I wouldn’t mind the ring being a little wider, but, in all fairness, there isn’t much room left on the lens for the focus ring to be wider, and it is a notable improvement in every way over its predecessor.

Another great positive for this little lens is a very significant maximum magnification figure (.24x), which is better than basically all the primes it is competing with. It can focus down to 9.4”, and that magnification comes in very, very handy. You will be able to take pictures with this lens that people will think were taken with a macro lens. Add an extension tube and you will quickly enter true macro territory. This is not something to be overlooked for those of you looking for a one lens solution. I find that maximum magnification is sometimes overlooked, but just know that this really adds to the versatility of the lens. At that distance you can throw just about any background completely out of focus and produce some very unique shots. Furthermore, I know there will be times that I won’t have a macro lens along, and this lens will do a credible job in those situations.

The lens seems tough and well made…but time will tell the tale. First impressions were good, and after several months of use in a lot of challenging weather, my impressions are still good. My copy says “Made in Japan” on it, and that still means something to me.

Why This Lens?

The old lens held an odd soft spot in my heart. It is a tiny little prime with a build only marginally better than the EF 50mm f/1.8II (which isn’t saying much). It does not feature a USM motor with full time manual focus but rather has a buzzy micromotor. It focuses reasonably quickly but not blazingly fast, and certainly not quietly. It has fairly massive amounts of chromatic aberrations and was not particularly sharp in the corners at wide apertures.

Confused yet?

What it did have was excellent center sharpness (a big deal for my typical style with wide aperture primes), focus accuracy, a very close minimum focus/large maximum magnification, and beautiful color rendering. All of this in a very small and compact package that was very easy to bring along. When stopped down it became a very sharp landscape lens. I eventually replaced it once I got the EF 40mm f/2.8 STM prime.

But what I missed was the unique magic that comes from a wide aperture prime.

I’m very happy to report that the new 35IS has filled that void very well. It improves upon its predecessor in just about every way. If you are in the market for a versatile prime lens in the 35mm focal length, then this new little Canon may just fit the bill for you. Furthermore, this lens will also double as a truly excellent “normal” lens if you are shooting a crop sensor body like Canon’s new 70D.

Optical Performance

The 35IS improves on the already excellent center sharpness of the older prime while expanding that optical goodness out towards the edges of the frame. It is sharper at equivalent apertures than the excellent 35L. In an absolute sense the Sigma 35 is sharper, but the level of sharpness throughout the frame on both lenses is so high that sharpness is not really a legitimate concern with either. If you are interested in chart testing, take a look at Photozone’s results here. If you want a real world example, take a look at the degree of detail from this crop of my son reading a birthday card. That is wide open, using only available light. Pretty amazing!

Now look at the 100% crop…and you will see what I mean! (Also note the very nice defocused region in the foreground):

While both the older and newer versions of this lens are marketed as f/2 primes, the new lens is considerably brighter, and has a t/stop (actual light transmission) of 2 that matches its marketed f/stop. According to DXO (which is a little obsessed with this kind of thing), that also helps close the gap a bit with the Sigma, as its light transmission is actually f/1.5. I should add that this isn’t a mark against the Sigma, as its tested T-stop performance is actually better than all of its f/1.4 rivals. The Samyang 35mm f/1.4 Wide-Angle US UMC Aspherical Lens, by comparison, has a T-stop of 1.8, which makes it barely brighter than this Canon f/2 that we are testing here. I only bring this up to comment on the fact that the older Canon f/2 prime has a T-stop of 2.3, which means that the newer lens lets in considerably more light. That adds to the overall picture of optical improvement here.

Vignetting will be visible wide open (around 2 stops in the corners), but honestly, these days vignetting can be corrected either in camera for JPEGS or in any RAW software so easily that this is hardly an issue. The newer lens has less vignetting than the older Canon lens and less wide open than the Sigma, although when the Sigma is stopped down to f/2 it exhibits better performance in this area than the 35IS. The performance in this area can only be described as “as expected”.

More important is the fact that the chromatic aberrations (green or purple fringing around areas of high contrast) are MUCH better controlled on this new lens than the old timer it replaces. That was my least favorite aspect of the older lens. I have not noticed CA in field use at all, even in high contrast scenes. The new optical formula and coatings have done the trick! The image below was shot directly into a winter sun so bright that I could scarcely compose the shot. This image has been toned in post, but no extra CA work removal has been done. The primary subject was ice-covered branches.

What really matters to me is that this lens is extremely useful wide open, which makes it great for portraiture (nice sharpness and delineation from backgrounds) and also for my event work, where it has a “look” that is a nice match for other excellent lenses like my EF 135mm f/2L or EF 100mm f/2.8L IS. This also opens up a lot of creative options when closer to objects to throw backgrounds out of focus while having great sharpness on the subject.

I have been consistently pleased with image quality I am getting from this lens. It has that special quality I was looking for.

Bokeh

This was the chief reason that ultimately bumped me in the direction of the Canon over the Sigma. I was not overly impressed with photos that I saw from the Sigma when it came to bokeh, particularly in the “transition zone”. The Sigma is incredibly sharp, but to my eye it seems like there is an imbalance between sharpness and “creaminess” in the defocused region. The scales are tipped a little too much in the favor of sharpness. As a result there are few images (to this point) that I have seen that really WOW me, and often those that are impressive to me tend to be stopped down, sharp landscape shots that have little to do with narrow DOF.

But I had the opposite reaction to the Canon. It seems more balanced to me. It, too, is very sharp, but the transition to defocus is very, very nice, particularly for a wide angle focal length. The transition is nicely smooth, and the out of focus bokeh highlights are far less “busy” than the old prime. This shot shows the nice bokeh as a “normal” lens on a crop sensor body:

The 35IS has 8 rounded aperture blades that allow circular highlights to retain their shape even when stopped down. Unlike other lenses in the class the highlights are essentially completely free of artifacts or concentric circles (onion bokeh). Bokeh highlights near the edge of the frame will show a slight bit of the “cat’s eye” shape, but unfortunately that is pretty common.

Here are few samples of “bokeh” shots, both with highlights and also showing the very nice transition from focus to defocus.

: Very smooth blurring of hard lines

: Nice transition bokeh

: Turkey bokeh?

: Soft defocus area

: Beautiful highlights

: Slight “cat-eye” effect

Autofocus

The 35IS got a major upgrade with the addition of the USM (Ultrasonic Motor) drive. This enables full time manual override (just grab the ring and focus) and also increases the speed while reducing the sound. The lens does focus quickly and others have reported it as being extremely quiet, but I find that I can hear the sound the elements shuffling as they move. I don’t know if this is specific to my copy, but I may explore the issue with Canon. It isn’t loud, but it isn’t my quietest lens, either.

Most importantly, the lens focuses very accurately. I am consistently pleased with the sharpness and consistently of focus. This is a lens that I shoot wide open a lot, so nailing focus when the depth of field is so shallow is extremely important. I was able to get highly repeatable results when doing AFMA on my bodies that have been equally consistent in the field.

Image Stabilization

This lens stands unique as the widest aperture lens currently available on the Canon system to include Image Stabilization (IS). It is, technically, the most “handholdable” lens you can get for the system, making it a truly excellent option for those interested in shooting video. Shooting at very low shutter speeds is possible (you could achieve a decent keeper rate at even close to 1 second with good technique). To be fair, however, there aren’t a tremendous amount of viable reasons to need that kind of shutter speed, but it does open both some creative options (when you want to contrast some minor movement with a static object, for example) but, more importantly, means that you almost never to worry about more useful shutter speeds (1/25^th or 1/15^th second) being affected by camera shake. Just remember that IS does nothing to your subject – a moving subject is still going to create motion blur at low shutter speeds. I was able to shoot this image handheld (at 1/10th of a second) very easily, which gave me the creative option of using the light from a parking lot spotlight to illuminate the falling snow and creating a very cool in-camera effect (I’ve only changed the color temperature to this image).

This application of Canon’s IS system automatically detects whether you are shooting normally or are using a panning technique and will adjust accordingly.It is an effective system, and in many ways helps make up for the nearly 1 stop advantage of its f/1.4 competitors in a far more compact package.

Is This Lens for You?

This is really where the “rubber meets the road”. In the Canon ecosystem there are several options for a 35mm prime:

This lens – Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Lens
The more expensive big brother – the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM Lens
The new Sigma – 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Lens
Samyang/Rokinon 35mm f/1.4 Wide-Angle US UMC Aspherical Lens
Several Zeiss options: 35mm F/1.4 Distagon T Lens or Distagon 35mm T* f/2 ZE Lens (manual focus only and very expensive – particularly the former).

By my count that is at least six options, not including the older Canon 35mm f/2 (now discontinued, but readily available used). The 35mm focal range is a very popular one. The least expensive option is the Samyang 35mm f/1.4 at just a little over $400. It is a manual only lens, which means that there are some applications that it will probably not work for. The same applies to the Zeiss options, although there are probably few people that are cross-shopping these lenses. The Zeiss optics are impressive, but they are both expensive and manual focus only.

Most shoppers will be considering the three options with AF, in this case the two Canons and the Sigma. The older design of the L lens is under serious attack from the newer Sigma, and if absolute sharpness is your goal, the Sigma is definitely your choice. The L lens has a beautiful rendering, however, that, in my mind, is more artistic and less clinical than the Sigma. It is the most expensive option of the three, but if you must have the red ring and that “L” look, the 35L is your choice. The Sigma is the middle option in terms of price and is a very nice lens – it is currently the popular choice in the segment. It is the new “little” Canon, however, that gets my vote, as I feel that it is a very nice balance between the two other options. It is very sharp, and yet the bokeh is nicely soft. It is (by far) the most compact of the choices in both absolute size and weight. If you want to do video work, the 35IS is definitely your choice. The fact that it is now the least expensive option of the three is an added bonus.

My research lead me to the Canon, and I haven’t been disappointed. To sum up:

Pros:

Modern design and optics
Very sharp
Smooth bokeh – perhaps the best of the 35mm options
Effective IS system
Reasonably compact yet sturdy build
Reasonable price (now)
Great color rendering
Chromatic aberrations well controlled
Fast, accurate AF
Close focus distance and high maximum magnification

Cons:

Moderately high vignetting
No inclusion of hood or case
Maximum aperture of f/2 rather than f/1.4
Not weather sealed

As you can see, there aren’t a whole of lot of real cons to the lens. The single biggest one was that it was initially overpriced, but a 35% price drop has nicely solved that problem. Every early reviewer was forced to conclude that this was a really nice lens whose single great caveat was its high price tag. It is really a shame that Canon overpriced the lens to begin with, as it seems like it never garnered much “buzz” and seems likely to be resigned to “hidden gem” status. Those who own it, however, seem to really love it. Count me amongst that group. This is a great lens that strikes a great optical balance. I look forward to using it in the more colorful seasons to come!

The Big Gallery: Click here to go to the Image Gallery for the Lens

You can watch the video review here:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU2CGLEJOK0&list=UUrmU_ja6Ea7G1RYGfy3zeVA]

Gear Used:

EOS 6D DSLR Camera (Body Only)
EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Lens
EOS-M Mirrorless Digital Camera with EF-M 22mm f/2 STM Lens – Black

Recommend Reading:

Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD review

Canon EOS 6D Review

Snap Art 4 Tutorial (featuring the 35mm IS)

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]

Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 Wide Angle Review

Dustin Abbott

October 1st, 2013

How wide can you go?

I am a Canon shooter. I don’t see that changing any time soon. Canon is renowned for its range of telephoto lenses that are considered to be the best. Period. The truth of the matter is that Canon has been on a roll with many of its recent lens releases, starting back with the 70-300L, the new 24-70mm f/2.8L II, the amazing 200-400mm f/4L IS + 1.4x, refreshes on several of the other super-teles (300mm f/2.8L II and 400mm f/2.8L II), and even a series of non-L primes that have been very well reviewed (24mm f/2.8 IS, 28mm f/2.8 IS, 35mm f/2 IS, and 40mm f/2.8 Pancake). Great, right? It is, until you get to the other end of the equation – the wide angle…errr…angle. This has become perhaps the greatest challenge for Canon shooters, because frankly all of the options come with certain liabilities. My personal experience is that I have owned the Canon EF-S 10-22mm, a Tokina 12-24mm f/4 (both while shooting crop sensor bodies) and (currently) the EF 17-40L. All of these are good lenses, by the way, but none blew my mind. Another favorite is the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II, but despite its lofty price tag it has its own optical limitations.

Other current options are some 3^rd party zooms from Tamron, Sigma, and Tokina, but none of them are considered superior to the options I’ve already presented. That leads us to prime lenses, of which there are some excellent options, including some Zeiss lenses, the Canon tilt-shift lenses (a bit more specialized), and Canon’s own 14mm f/2.8L II. If you can afford these, there are some great choices there, but most of these lenses start near the $2000 mark. None of that is a problem if you are a professional landscape photographer or have a lot of paying architectural work (or, I guess, are just rich!), but for many people the high asking price of these lenses effectively removes them from the equation. The vast majority of photographers simply don’t shoot extreme wide angle enough to prioritize that type of lens in their spending budget. And, as I wrote in this opinion piece for PhotoNewsFlash, an UWA (Ultra Wide Angle) lens is almost never going to be someone’s sole or even primary lens.

For these reasons and others, one of the most compelling options that I have come across in the arena of UWA’s is the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 Aspherical. It has an extremely low price for its optical quality, and 14mm on a full frame body is EXTREMELY wide. The field of view on a full frame body is a whopping 114°. To give you a point of comparison, here is the difference between my 24mm Tamron (84°) 17mm Canon (104°) and the Rokinon at 14mm (114°). The difference even between 14mm and 17mm is stunning. I set up the tripod at a distance where the 24mm Tamron barely covered the bench. Look at how different the angle of view is with each successive shot:

: Tamron 24-70 VC@ 24mm

: Canon 17-40L @ 17mm

: Rokinon 14mm @ 14mm

I recently shared this nightscape that I took with the Rokinon featured below, and one of the common questions I got was, “How many frames is this shot?” The assumption was that I HAD to have taken multiple frames and stitched them together into a vertorama to get this much information in the frame. When I responded that this was a single frame taken with the Rokinon, the immediate response was, “That is my next lens purchase.” Yep, if you want go to wide, really wide, I think this Rokinon may just be your best choice, but it is not for everyone. In this review I will do my best to be very frank about both the strengths and liabilities of this unique lens.

By the Numbers

First, let’s take a quick look at the basic design of the lens. I am reviewing a Rokinon branded lens, technically called the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 ED AS IF UMC Super Wide Angle. I say Rokinon branded because the exact same lens is sold under a variety of brands, including Samyang, Bower, Vivitar, Pro Optic, Walimex…yeah, there’s a few! The parent company here is Samyang, based in Korea, and in the past 10 years this company has put some serious pressure on several established lenses because of the combination of great optics and low price…with certain caveats. We will address these more as we go, but you should know before we proceed that Samyang/Rokinon lenses to this point are always manual focus only lenses. In fact, this lens has no electronics in it, not even to control aperture or to convey any kind of information to the camera. Your camera will display a “f/00” where it typically shows aperture, and all focus and control of the aperture/iris are done manually. That may be a deal breaker for you right there, but if you read on you may discover it is less of an issue than you think. This is, of course, part of the reason why Rokinon has been able to undercut its competitors on price so much.

The lens construction itself is anything but cheap. The design, by nature, is probably dissimilar from any other lens in your bag. The barrel of the lens is actually quite slim (approximately the circumference of the EF 50mm f/1.8), but it swells out to accommodate the large, bulbous front element. Its lens cap, for example, is almost identical in circumference to my Tamron 24-70 VC lens which has an 82mm filter size. The lens is still relatively compact overall, but when you pick it up you will probably be surprised by its heft. It has a density that belies its dimensions due to a very sturdy construction of metal and higher end plastics. It weighs in at 552 grams, which places it between the 17-40L (475 grams) and the 16-35L II (640 grams). It comes in about a tenth of an inch shorter than the 17-40L. Its overall dimensions compare quite closely with the Canon 14mm f/2.8L II, although it is roughly 100 grams lighter. It feels substantial and far from “budget”. The finish has a light “flecked” design and the focus ring is nicely wide and the rubber feels like quality. It is nicely damped overall, although my copy has a point about midway through that has a bit of extra resistance. I have not heard others report a similar issue. The aperture ring appears to be plastic, but moves well and has nice, definite clicks for each aperture position. Only full stops are shown on the scale (from f/2.8 to f/22) but there are also clicks for half stops on the aperture ring. I have no reservations at all about the build quality of the lens; I feel like it will serve well for a long period of time. There is a distance scale between the focus and aperture rings.

: The Rokinon

: Many letter designations, but solid build quality under it all.

: The lens cap is, well, huge!

: Bulbous front element.

: Nicely rubberized focus ring.

: Metal hood is permanent.

Another aspect of the lens’ design must be discussed, and that is the bulbous front element. It is curved, meaning that the first principle drawback of the lens is exposed: it cannot take filters in a conventional way, and, in fact, any system of filters for a lens design like this will be an expensive workaround solution…and probably won’t cost a whole lot less than the lens itself. I tried to just hold one of my square Cokin based filters (Cokin P system) in front of the frame and found that even without a filter holder the filter only covered about 70% of the frame. The lens design has a built in petal shaped hood (made of metal), which is important because it provides the only protection for that protruding front element. You can’t put a UV filter over it like I do with all of my other lenses. The upside to this design is that whatever minor glare blocking that is provided by the hood will actually be of benefit; with each of my other wide angle options I have almost never had the hood with me; they tend to be wide, shallow, and not provide a lot of protection from stray light. I have considered them to be mostly a useless bother and have left the hood home in the box. I don’t know that the hood here actually shades the element any better, but at least it will be around while using the lens. I think my chief concern long term with the lens would be keeping that element protected in the field. It does come with a very deep (1 ½ inch/3.5cm) lens cap that slides over the outer hood assembly and locks in place in basically only one position. The lens cap is effective, but that leads me to another minor frustration for field use: I typically put the lens cap of the lens I am using in a pocket (pants or jacket) in the field, but the depth of this lens cap makes it a bit difficult to store. It is less of an issue if you have a camera bag with you, but it certainly is NOT convenient to store if you don’t have something like that along. A pants’ pocket is out of the question, and even a jacket pocket will be bulging with this puppy in it.

The lens mount is metal and is very sturdily constructed. It does not claim weathersealing, but its very lack of electronics makes me personally less concerned about the effect of weather on it. I have often shot with many of my vintage lenses in all kinds of weather without fear (or adverse effect) because of that very reason. You will have to make your own judgment call on that one, but I don’t intend to allow a lack of weathersealing to affect my use of this lens at all.

I shot for an extended period in persistent rain.

NO Electronics?

Unlike most all other modern lenses, there is no circuit board on the mount providing information to the camera body. I have used legacy lenses on my modern camera bodies quite a bit, and so I am very familiar with the process of manually focusing and manually controlling aperture. If you haven’t shot like this before, let me give you a rundown on how the process goes. First, while there isn’t electronic communication, you don’t have to worry about metering. Your camera will meter fine in all modes (even Auto mode), as it does not rely on a lens to provide that information. You will, however, have to manually set your aperture. This is, by the way, probably one of the best ways to actually learn the purpose of aperture settings. My understanding grew significantly when I began to use manual lenses. On modern lenses with automatic diaphragms you don’t actually see the iris open and close; aperture is just a number. But as you click through the aperture settings on a manual lens you see the correlation between an aperture setting and the opening size of the iris. As you begin to see how this affects shutter speed and depth of field while shooting you will probably learn a few things. One minor issue is that lenses with an automatic aperture control actually always meter with the lens wide open (largest aperture) and then close down when the shutter is clicked. The brightness in your viewfinder is whatever the maximum aperture of the lens is. Because you are stopping down in advance with the Rokinon, the viewfinder will darken slightly with each aperture position. There will be a marked difference between the viewfinder brightness at f/2.8 and f/22, but chances are for most typical aperture settings in the field you will hardly notice this (I certainly don’t). Live View is not effected, because your camera will be metering for the light source already and this will be reflected on the LCD screen. For most applications of this particular lens, however, you could set the aperture on f/5.6 and pretty much forget about it. The lens is incredibly sharp at this aperture and the depth of field is huge.

That last point helps address one of the other principle concerns about the lens – manual focus. For many applications I feel that the best approach is to just to prefocus the lens. Just think about your distance from your subject, and unless you are trying to shoot something up close, setting the focus ring at somewhere right before the 2 meter/7 foot mark means that pretty much everything from a couple of feet out to infinity will be in focus. It is when you are trying to use the lens wide open (f/2.8) and trying to focus on a subject ten feet or less away that focus becomes a challenge. In this sense, the lens is more challenging than any manual focus lens I have used before. Your magnification of your subject is so low that it always feels like you are far away, meaning that it is hard to visually confirm focus through the viewfinder. Live view focusing works much better for this type of shooting because you can increase magnification and fine tune focus.

I personally feel that the best way to use this lens for most applications is to familiarize yourself with its use and then primarily prefocus. Before serious use in the field, I would first put it on a tripod, start Live View on your camera, and starting from minimum focus work your way out and see at what point things come in focus in relation to the distance scale. I say this in part because quite a few users (myself included) have found that infinity focus actually comes sooner than the distance scale indicates. I don’t know that I would always trust the distance scale and its distances in the real world. But if you become familiar with approximately when things come in focus on your copy, it becomes very easy to replicate that in the field. Even after only a couple of weeks of use I have essentially a 100% keeper rate in terms of focus. If my subject is anywhere from five feet out to infinity, I just set the distance scale on my copy roughly just short of the 2 meter marking and never worry about it. Everything will be in focus. If I am using the lens to focus on something closer than that, I use Live View to fine tune focusing.

I really miss not having EXIF data. I often look for/sort images by the lens I took them with or some other piece of data in Lightroom, and there will be nothing to distinguish shots taken with the Rokinon. Shots simply show up as “Unknown Lens”. It will report ISO and shutter speed (both internal to the camera body), but nothing about aperture or focal length.

I should note that there is a version of the Nikon mount (AE) that comes with a focus confirm chip that will light up the selected focus point in the viewfinder when focus is achieved and will also report EXIF information (like the aperture, etc…) Some have reported success adding an inexpensive focus chip off Ebay that accomplishes something similar. They simply superglue the chip onto the mount at the appropriate spot to make contact with the body’s electronic contact points. Whether or not this is worth it will be up to you.

Optical Excellence

It is here that we get to the good stuff. The review to this point may seem like this lens is more trouble than it is worth, but that is far from being true for me. Rokinon states this lens’ optical design is 14 elements in 12 groups, including 2 Aspherical elements and 2 ED (extra low dispersion glass – to reduce chromatic aberrations.) However they put it together, the end result is AWESOME! This lens resolves more detail than any wide angle that I have seen. I am not a chart tester, but if you are interested I would recommend you compare the Samyang results in resolution to that of the Canon 17-40L and the Canon 16-35L II at Photozone. The Samyang/Rokinon just destroys them, particularly in the corners. And that is the primary reason that many landscape photographers are frustrated with those lenses; they just aren’t all that sharp in the corners, and that is often more important on this type of lens than, say, a wide aperture prime. The lens even displays a higher resolution at equivalent apertures than the Canon 14mm f/2.8 II, a lens that costs $2500 (the Rokinon typically costs less than $400). On a practical, field level, I can tell that it is just amazing to zoom into a huge scene full of detail to a pixel level and find individual leaves in sharp definition. It will leave you wishing that you could share your images in as large a format as possible so people could see all of that goodness.

If you look beyond sharpness alone the lens continues to impress. Color rendition is excellent. Natural yet rich, without an oversaturated false look. Microcontrast is also excellent, which further enhances the apparent sharpness of the lens. Images come out looking stunning! I am considered a skilled post processor, and most the images in this review have been processed in some way. That being said, here is an image that is completely untouched to show just how good images can look straight out of camera:

It is also worth noting that a typical shortcoming for a wide angle lens is chromatic aberrations. The lens design also shines here, as chromatic aberrations barely register in chart testing and are simply nonexistent in field use. This is very important considering that this is a lens that will often be used in areas of high contrast. The optical design strongly deserves praise here. This more than 100% crop from a spot high up on the previous image shows both the excellent sharpness and complete lack of chromatic fringing around the branches.

Another area of strength is the lens resistance to flare. I like to shoot into the sun, and some lenses just fair better than others. Some reviewers have complained about the lens’ lack of flare resistance, but I simply haven’t seen this AT ALL. I have found the lens very resistant to flare. I have seen very little ghosting, and contrast holds up very well. In fact, the difference between having the sun in the frame or just outside of it seems to make little difference to contrast, as seen in this series of shots. All of these shots have been left unedited to show the full effect of shooting into the sun at different times of day and in different lighting conditions. In each shot the sun is either in the frame or just outside of it.

: Small ghosting object is the most I have been able to create

: Evening sun – slight veil at the bottom .

: Sun in the frame

: Sun just outside the frame.

: Sun just above the left corner of the frame

: Morning sun

I have purposefully shot into the sun a lot, and have nothing to complain about in this regard. At most I have seen one small ghosting object that so far has been painless to remove in post – far different than my 17-40L. A slight veil can be seen on the bottom left in the second shot of this series. If you move the camera a bit you can completely eliminate this effect (move the effect out of frame), but I like it in some instances for the artistic value.

Distortion and Vignetting

It is here that the reign of terror comes to an end. The Rokinon has its share of distortion – over 5% barrel distortion which means that it has significantly more than the Canon zooms (around 3.5% at their widest focal length) and is nearly three times worse than the Canon 14mm f/2.8 II’s 1.73%. To further complicate things, the distortion is a fairly complex one, commonly referred to as a “mustache style” because of its shape. The means that there are better choices for architecture out there. For many applications, though, a simple preset in Lightroom or Photoshop (I downloaded one through Adobe Lens Profiler) will correct the vast majority of this. Here is what a good ol’ brick wall shot looks like before/after the application of that preset (I have made no other changes). A helpful reader provided a link to a great profile that is labeled for a Nikon D600 but works a treat for full frame Canon cameras too.

: Distortion Example

: With Profile Correction

If you look closely, it still isn’t perfect after applying this profile. There are better ways to correct the distortion, but for most of my applications that is good enough. There are times, of course, that distortion has artistic value. Here are a couple of cases in point.

: Your palace is leaning, O King!

: In the Land of Giants

Vignetting is also fairly heavy, although once again a profile corrects this very easily in post. I haven’t actually noticed this a lot for field use, but I do automatically apply the preset on import into Lightroom so I don’t really see it much. Be aware that it is there, however, particularly wide open. I will shoot this lens most often at f/5.6, and it is no longer really a field issue by that aperture.

If there is a silver lining here, it is that due to the extremely wide field of view it is fairly easy to leave enough room with, say, an architectural type shot, to be able to correct distortion in post. You typically lose some of your edges when correcting distortion, but the angle of view is so wide that this probably won’t present an issue most of the time. I will say that I have not found either of these issues to be a deal breaker with the kind of photography I typically do, but I would not recommend this lens to someone whose primary interest is architectural work. I definitely do not recommend it to someone who wants to shoot interiors for real estate – the loss of time spent correcting distortion would quickly make you wish you had paid for the right tool for the job – a tilt-shift lens.

Close Focus? Kind Of…

The good news is that the lens can focus down to about .9 feet/.28m. Also encouraging is that the lens is nicely sharp at/near minimum focus distance. But let’s not kid ourselves; it would be hard to find a lens less well suited to macro type photography. Its maximum magnification barely registers on the charts. In fact, you will be shocked at how distant your subject still appears in the viewfinder. Rokinon hypes the close focusing ability a bit in their literature (even on the box), but the usefulness of that close of focus is diminished by the very nature of the lens. This shot shows the extremely low magnification of my subject (the center leaves) at that very close focus (less than a foot). The upside is shown in the crop; as always, resolution is great!

Yeah, it’s hard to believe that this is “macro mode”. If you zoom into the image, the detail is great (as seen in the wide open crop below), but the lack of magnification renders this pretty moot. This just isn’t the lens for close focus kind of work.

Bokeh quality is also not much of a priority with this type of lens, but, as you can see from this shot, it actually is fairly decent. There won’t be a tremendous amount of situations where this will be a consideration, though. This just isn’t that kind of lens.

Nightscape King

The Rokinon has one more trick up its sleeve, and for certain photographers, it is a big one. Non photographers look at the word “coma” a little differently than photographers, but even most photographers don’t consider coma very much in their lens purchases. That is unless you like to shoot longer exposures at night. Coma refers to an optical aberration that result in points of light (like stars) becoming irregularly shaped. It can make them look more like flying saucers or even grow tails. It really degrades the look of a nightscape image, and those that are serious about shooting these types of scenes are very picky about this. It is for this reason above all that many very serious/professional photographers have chosen to add this lens to their kit. This is an issue even for Canon’s 14mm, and so many have chosen the Samyang/Rokinon over it. The combination of a huge angle of view, amazing sharpness, and extremely low coma makes this lens one of the most compelling choices for nightscapes out there. Night skies just appear so crisp and detailed. This is a type of photography that I hadn’t done much before, but I must confess that since getting my feet wet I feel strongly compelled to keep at it!

: Stars come Alive

: All of this in one frame!

: The bright point of light is the moon.

: Single image – the bright light is the moon.

Pros and Cons

As you can probably tell by this point, this lens is not for everyone. It has some severe limitations and drawbacks. So why am I planning on replacing my 17-40L (a perfectly competent lens) with one of these lenses? Two words: Image Quality. The amount of detail in the frame simply blows away my Canon. It is almost surreal to zoom into an image and see so much detail there. But is this the lens for you? Only you can answer that question, but here is a list of strengths and weaknesses to help:

Strengths

· The lens is wide. Really wide. You probably will be able to fit whatever you need to into the frame.

· The lens is sharp. Seriously sharp. Few if any in this class can match it.

· Incredibly low price compared to competition.

· Chromatic aberrations very low

· Very resistant to flare

· Excellent color rendition

· Excellent microcontrast

· Very low coma – great for nightscapes

· Robust build quality

Weaknesses:

· Manual Focus

· No electronic coupling, so manual aperture control and no EXIF data (except on certain Nikon mounts).

· Heavy, mustache shaped distortion. (Means that this probably isn’t a top choice for videographers.)

· No use of conventional filters.

· Moderately heavy vignetting

· Lens cap not easy to store in the field.

· Lens distance scale not always accurate.

Yeah, it’s a long list on either side. I personally find that the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses for my style of photography, but that may not be true for yours. I do believe that most users will find the lack of electronics less inconvenient than what they anticipate, but this may be a deal breaker for some. I would encourage those who primarily shoot architecture to look elsewhere, but if you are interested in landscape or general photography, this lens will probably work just fine.

Conclusion

I have found that using this lens really stretches my creativity. It produces pictures that are very unique, and the response to every picture I’ve shared from this lens has been very strong. Ironically, I find that I keep shooting this stunning landscape lens in a portrait orientation, because I love the way that I can emphasize something unique in the foreground while retaining great detail throughout the remainder of the scene. This has been a perfect companion in autumn this year because the angle of view standing at the base of a tree/trees and looking up is so compelling. Put simply, I have just had a lot of fun shooting with this lens. So, despite its shortcomings, I plan on adding one to my bag. When I need to use filters for long exposures, I will simply use my Tamron 24-70mm VC, which is fairly wide on my full frame bodies. But when I want to go really wide or really creative, this will be my choice. It may be one of the best “fun for the money” choices out there.

In interest of full disclosure: the review copy of this lens was provided to me by Amplis Foto, the Canadian distributor of Rokinon products. I have received no form of compensation or coercion in this review, and, as always, I have striven to be as accurate and unbiased as I can. I was excited to review this lens and requested the lens myself; having reviewed it, I am still excited about it and will be purchasing a copy for myself.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52014 in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! If you want to go directly to this Rokinon, click here: Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

FOR MY AMERICAN READERS: I now have a relationship in place with B&H, one of the best photography retailers on the planet. I would appreciate if you could clink on the link below to buy this lens at a great price from them – and they have a cash back program that will save you more! There are many mount choices here, so click through and find the right one for you!

Rokinon 14mm Ultra Wide-Angle f/2.8 IF ED UMC Lens For Canon

The Big Gallery

Click on the image below to begin a large slideshow of images that I have personally taken with this lens over the past several weeks.

[sliderly id=1800 type=featuredimg colorbox=true width=500 height =300]

Tamron 24-70 VC vs. Canon 40mm Pancake

Dustin Abbott

June 17th, 2013

There is a small but perceivable size difference between these two lenses…can you see it?

June 6th, 2013

Weird Comparison?

The short answer is “yes”.

Still, the question had been posed to me by one of my readers, and it caught my attention. On paper, this seems like a very odd duck comparison. One player, the Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 VC USD, is a standard full frame zoom lens with a fast constant aperture. It is fairly big (4.3 inches/108.5mm long) and heavy (29.1 oz/825 grams). Uh, did I mention that it was a zoom?

The second player is one of the most unique full frame lenses Canon has ever made: a tiny little “pancake” prime lens. The Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM is less than an inch long (.9 inch/22.8mm) and weighs a whopping 4.6oz/130 grams. So, yeah, it is a fifth of the length and less than a sixth of the weight. Uh, did I mention that it was a prime?

The prices aren’t exactly equalizers, either. As of today the price at Amazon.com for the Tamron is $1299 USD, while the Canon is only $149.

So why exactly am I comparing these lenses? First, because I was asked to, but beyond that, what intrigued me is that both of these lenses are a bit of aberrations. The Tamron came onto the scene brashly a little over a year ago and challenged the OEM manufacturers by offering a lens that competed on merit more than price. It has great optics, high grade build quality, weathersealing, and a killer feature – a very effective Vibration Compensation system (Tamron speak for Image Stabilization). Interestingly, its list price was $1299 at introduction. At the time, that seemed like a fairly premium price for a 3rd party lens. That was, until Canon came out with the Mark II version of its own 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom (without image stabilization) at a staggering price of $2499 (it is currently on Amazon for $2099). All of a sudden the Tamron seemed a lot more reasonable, and is probably one of the main reasons that the Tamron is still selling strong a year later at its initial price point. This is good news for those of us who bought the lens early on, because it means that our investment has stayed sound.

The EF 40mm Pancake is perhaps even odder, because it is a newly designed full frame lens from Canon that actually seemed like a bargain! All of Canon’s newest lens released have carried a bit of sticker shock, but everyone conceded that this particular lens was a bargain from Day 1 at $199. Despite that, the lens was quickly discounted further and has been widely available for $149 for several months. It was instantly beloved because of its “cuteness” factor, extreme portability, and, most surprisingly, exceptional optics. It almost instantly replaced the “nifty fifty” (EF 50mm f/1.8 II) as the bargain lens of choice for amateurs and pros alike. It is not at all unusual to see this lens in the kits of many pros whose next cheapest lens retails for well over a thousand dollars. It makes a full frame DSLR like the 6D almost (not quite) pocketable. It is a no brainer to throw into a bag because it weighs next to nothing and takes up so little room. I don’t use it often, but love it nonetheless for this very reason.

As I said, the “shorty forty” has amazingly good optics and build quality for its size and price point. It’s optics are actually good, period. It is very sharp across the frame wide open and stepping down is more about depth of field than it is about sharpness. It is not overly “fast” for a prime, but it is sharper wide open than many primes stopped down a bit. It has circular aperture blades, unlike many older designed primes, so it retains nicely circular bokeh highlights even when stopped down. It also debuted a new focusing motor for Canon, the STM or Stepping Motor. It is a completely different system designed mostly for use in video production (smoother focus and quieter operation). It is reasonably fast, but not as fast as Canon’s better USM focus motors.

The primary object of this comparison is image quality. The question: can an excellent standard zoom like the Tamron compete optically with this new little marvel? The answer, is, well, complicated. First of all, if you want to compare in a controlled environment shooting test charts, Bryan Carnethan over at the Digital Picture has done a much better job than I could of making just such a comparison. The one disadvantage is that he did not shoot the Tamron at 40mm. Click here to check out his data.

The Conditions

Here are the conditions for this comparison. First, all of the images here are presented without any kind of adjustment/processing. I had each lens on a Canon 6D body set with identical settings. All shots were taken handheld (the most common way both of these lenses will be used). Tripods are great for optical image quality, but my intent was to establish usefulness in the field and to utilize the lenses in the way that they would most likely be used. That makes this comparison less scientific but perhaps more “real world” useful. I chose shots as I normally would, shooting one camera/lens combo right after the other. The conditions were a light rain, which allows for rich colors. It should be noted that this is one area that would typically tip me towards carrying the Tamron; it is weathersealed while the 40mm is obviously not. I did shoot these as RAW files which were each converted with identical settings. I did not use any kind of profile to correct aberrations, distortion, or vignetting. I wanted the pure image without enhancement. My camera style on both cameras was “Faithful”. I shot in manual mode with the shutter speed constant on both cameras, but had ISO on AUTO on both bodies, so metering will not show up in shutter speeds but in ISO settings. Aperture was manually set.

The shots here are a mix: most of the time I tried to shoot at identical focal length (40mm) and always at identical aperture. On a few occasions I shot the Tamron at 70mm to demonstrate the difference in background blur at the longer focal length.

Projections: the 40mm should win comparisons at 40mm for a few reasons 1) Fixed focal length (lens has been designed and tuned for just one focal length). 2) The 40mm has been calibrated for the body (AFMA) at that particular focal length, while the Tamron has been tuned at the wide (24mm) and tele (70mm) ends of the spectrum, meaning that 40mm is essentially a compromise between the two.

Enough of this: let’s look at some pictures! (All sequences Tamron first, Canon second)

The Gallery

: ISO 640, 42mm, f/5.6

: ISO 500, 40mm, f/5.6

: ISO 160, 70mm, f/2.8

: ISO 160, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 640, 40mm, f/5.6

: ISO 640, 40mm, f/5.6

: ISO 250, 70mm, f/5.6

: ISO 400, 40mm, f/5.6

: ISO 250, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 640, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 125, 70mm, f/2.8

: ISO 125, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 200, 70mm, f/2.8

: ISO 250, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 1600, 40mm, f/5.6

: ISO 1000, 40mm, f/5.6

: ISO 500, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 400, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 1000, 40mm, f/.8

: ISO 1000, 40mm, f/8

: ISO 125, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 125, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 100, 40mm, f/2.8

: ISO 100, 40mm, f/2.8

Confused? At this size it is almost impossible to tell a difference in image quality. We will take a look at some 100% crops in a moment, but here are the observations from the field in comparison.

The Tamron renders colors slightly more warm than the Canon. This is not at all unusual and has been my experience with almost all comparisons between Tamron lenses and their Canon equivalents. This is a “taste” thing. My eye prefers the warmer Tamron colors; others prefer the slightly cooler tones of the Canon.
Both lenses have an impressive amount of sharpness at any kind of typical level of viewing.
Both lenses metered very consistently considering the uncontrolled conditions. If either lens was “favored” by needing marginally less ISO, it was the Canon. I would conclude that is [very] marginally brighter than the Tamron.
Vignetting is noticeably heavier on the Canon at wide open aperture.
AF focus speed is definitely faster on the Tamron, particularly when making significant changes. AF is also much quieter on the Tamron, although the Canon is both faster and quieter than the terrible focusing motor in cheap lenses like the EF 50mm f/1.8II or the 35mm f/2
Both lenses have very usable minimum focusing distances: 40mm Minimum focus 11.8”/300mm and Tamron Minimum Focus 15” 380mm. While the Canon’s minimum focus distance is a little closer, the Tamron actually has a higher magnification (.18x vs. .20x) due to the longer focal length. More importantly, both of them resolve very nicely at minimum focus and are thus excellent candidates for extension tubes. The Tamron’s advantage here is the the longer focal length produces significantly more blur of the out of focus elements. See the comparison here:

ISO 200, 70mm, f/2.8

ISO 250, 40mm, f/2.8

You can clear see the softer, more diffused background that comes from the long focal length. Both lenses produce excellent detail at close focus distances. But let’s take a look at some crops to get the details.

100% Crops

First, we will examine image sharpness. We will be taking a look at three crops from this image (Tamron first) – click any of the crops for a closer look:

ISO 1000, 40mm, f/.8

Top Right Corner

Center of the image

Lower right corner (Tamron)

Now for the Canon. Here is the original photo:

ISO 1000, 40mm, f/8

Bottom right corner (Canon)

Center of image

These crops should demonstrate what I observed in using the lenses and then looking at them at a pixel level – the Canon consistently has a small edge in sharpness, particularly towards the edges. This image also illustrates the difference in the field is pretty marginal. One final observation is that while chromatic aberrations are very well controlled in the little 40 (particularly for a Canon prime), the Tamron has a slight edge in that area (check both of the top right images in the larger size to see what I mean). Overall sharpness is a win for the Canon.

100% Crops – Bokeh

The little Canon definitely has much smoother bokeh than either the 50mm f/1.8II and the 35mm f/2, but I have been very impressed by the Tamron’s smooth bokeh. Let’s take a look:

This gallery contains both the original image and 100% bokeh crops.

: ISO 250, 40mm, f/2.8

: Tamron bokeh, center-right

: ISO 640, 40mm, f/2.8

: Canon Bokeh, center-right

: ISO 500, 40mm, f/2.8

: Tamron bokeh, center top

: ISO 400, 40mm, f/2.8

: Canon bokeh – center top

: ISO 100, 40mm, f/2.8

: Tamron bokeh

: ISO 100, 40mm, f/2.8

: Canon bokeh

Both lenses produce nice, soft bokeh, but to my eye the Tamron retains more circular highlights, particular towards the edge of the image. Some of the Canon edges are further disadvantaged by the heavy vignetting. The Tamron’s extra focal length at 70mm is a definite advantage as it allows out of focus areas to become softer. A slight advantage to the Tamron here.

Conclusions

Both of these lenses produces stunning images. The comparison is still an odd one, of course, and the conclusions are a little murky. Let’s take a look at the scorecard:

Image Sharpness – Canon
Vignetting – Tamron
Bokeh – Tamron
Size/Portability – Canon
Weathersealing – Tamron
Close Focus – Tamron
Price – Canon

It’s a mixed bag, here. The Tamron is clearly the more flexible tool, despite the slight advantage in image quality by the prime, but at a significant price premium. Of course, if you are fortunate, like me, you can own both of these lenses and use them for different purposes. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend either of these lenses – they are both stunning examples of what an “upstart” can do. Here’s hoping that the future contains more nice surprises like them!

Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD Review

Dustin Abbott

November 29th, 2012

I am scarcely the first person to write a review of Tamron’s new fast standard zoom, the Tamron SP 24-70mm DI VC USD (yes, Tamron loves long names for their lens!). There is a reason why this lens has gotten so much attention, however, and that is because it has not only dared to play in the big boys’ playground, it has even brought some new moves of its own. I am speaking of course of its image stabilization, or Vibration Compensation (VC) in Tamron speak. And that inclusion is what makes this lens a game changer. Tamron has managed to build a lens that is similar in size and sporting similar image quality to the Canon and Nikon equivalents while also fitting an excellent VC system into the package. Tamron has undercut Canon and Nikon’s price, but that is no surprise. In fact, it is more surprising the price that this lens is commanding. It’s MRSP is currently the highest in Tamron’s lineup of consumer lens and is more than 2 ½ times that price of Tamron’s previous standard zoom, the SP 28-75mm f/2.8. Which leads us to the first point of consideration:

Build Quality

I will be honest: I am somewhat of a Tamron fan. My bag is full of Canon lens, including the 17-40mm f/4L, 24-105mm f/4L IS, 40mm f/2.8 STM, 85mm f/1.8, 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS, 135mm f/2L, and 70-200mm f/4L IS. 7 Canon lens, 5 of which are of Canon’s premium “L” lineup. So why do I say I am a Tamron fan? I have previously owned the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, 28-75mm f/2.8, 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3, 70-200mm f/2.8, and currently own the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 VC USD lens. I have experience with Tamron lens, and have come to the following conclusion: Tamron lenses frequently offer 90+ percentage of the equivalent Canon image quality at as little as 1/3^rd of the price, but the trade-off has always been ergonomics. I have tried a few Sigma lens (and heavily researched others), and find the opposite to be true. Sigmas often feature great ergonomics (nice build quality, fast, quiet focus) but inferior image quality. Image quality matters most to me, so I frequently went with Tamrons when I couldn’t afford the Canon equivalents.

But there was a downside. The Tamrons were frequently, to be frank, cruder implements than the competition. Buzzy AF motors that were not quite as fast, cheaper feeling components, and somewhat looser tolerances in the build quality. They were almost always smaller and lighter than the competition, but felt cheaper. The slow AF speed of the Tamron 70-200mm made it unusable for event work despite its great image quality. That began to change when Tamron introduced the SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 VC USD telephoto lens (which I own). It also featured very good image quality, but there were some significant improvements. It had perhaps the best (to that point) implementation of Tamron’s new VC (Vibration Compensation) system, which has been widely lauded as simply excellent, despite this being a new field for Tamron. It also made a big jump in the focusing motor, what Tamron calls Ultrasonic Drive (USD). It directly challenged Canon’s USM (Ultrasonic Motor) system with a fast, quiet focusing motor of its own. The build quality was also vastly improved, with a heavy, solid feeling lens that has (thus far) held up for me very well. It came with Tamron’s excellent warranty (6 years vs. 1 for Canon) and still managed to undercut Canon’s equivalent lens (70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM) in price while providing arguably better optics.

This new lens builds upon that foundation but is even more ambitious. It directly goes into Canon and Nikon professional territory and attempts to compete more on merit than value. It is the first Tamron lens to incorporate weather sealing and go after the more professional photographer’s kit. Its size is very comparable to the Canon and Nikon equivalents, although it does manage to incorporate VC into that package. It is somewhat lighter and shorter, but also a little thicker through the barrel. One major downside for me was that it went to an 82mm filter thread, making my nice selection of 77mm filters entirely useless for this lens. This unfortunately appears to be somewhat of a trend, as Canon has recently released several lens that use this filter size (including the MK2 version of their own 24-70mm f/2.8L). I’m afraid that photographers may just have to accept this trend. Speaking of that lens, Tamron’s asking price of roughly $1300 seemed somewhat ambitious until Canon released the MSRP on their new lens and it came in at more than $1000 more! To be fair, the lens has been acclaimed as having some of the best optics in a zoom lens to date, but its price is still staggering.

The new Tamron is very nicely constructed. It feels “substantial” – solid and professional, with a metal mount and nice tolerances on the primarily polycarbonate body. The zoom and focus rings have a nice rubberized feel and are nicely damped. It is not dissimilar in build (or size) to my Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS, which is certainly not a bad thing. It has a distance window, switches for AF/MF and VC (although full time manual override is also available), and a lock to prevent zoom creep. My experience has been that zoom creep is next to nil; it did very slightly creep when in my chest holster (with the lens point straight down) and doing heavy hiking. My guess is that many users will never have to use the zoom lock at all, but it nevertheless a nice little touch for the small percentage who will use it. It should be noted that the Tamron is both shorter and lighter than the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 MK1 and roughly similar in size to the MK2. One positive for me is that due to the closer fit of the lens hood while reversed, the overall width of the Tamron for storage is slightly smaller than the 24-105L despite its larger front element. The 24-105L is a tight squeeze in my Lowepro 2S bag, while the Tamron slides in nicely. Here are some comparison photos for the size of the two zooms.

[sliderly id=880 type=gallery width=auto height=auto grid =2 colorbox=true]

In conclusion, the build quality is very strong with this lens. It bears no resemblance to Tamron’s of old. In fact, Tamron has always used the gold ring and the SP badge for its “premium” lens in the past. This lens and the upcoming 70-200mm f/2.8 VC USD seem like they should have some new badge to set them apart, for they are really the first truly premium lens that Tamron has produced. This lens is in no way out of place amongst my “L” lens other than lacking that red ring.

Autofocus

As I have previously said, this has been a point of vulnerability in the past. Many of the Tamron lens that I have used have featured very buzzy, cheap sounding focusing motors. My 70-300mm was a huge step up in that regard, and, while not quite as fast as, say, my 135L, it was fast enough that you never think about it. The 24-70mm is similar, although I would guess just marginally slower. It focuses quickly, quietly, and accurately, but there is a difference between it and the best USM motors. If I could put it this way: when focusing, you get a sense that some heavy elements are being moved into place (which they are), but this is not quite as well masked as some of my “L” quality lens. To be fair, this isn’t to say that all high end Canon glass with USM motors are perfect; lenses like the 85mm f/1.2L and 50mm f/1.2L are not exactly renowned for their fast focus motors, for example. But Tamron is still a step behind Canon in this regard in this class of lens.

Most importantly, however, I found that the focusing was very accurate in this lens (a sentiment others have shared as well). When focus locks, it is well focused. It seems to operate well in dim lighting, important, considering that I intend to use the lens a lot for event work. The accuracy is what makes me unafraid to take this lens “into battle”. My keeper rate has been very high.

Image Quality

Here is where the rubber meets the road for me. My goal in buying this lens was to move away from two prime lens (an EF 35mm f/2 and 50mm f/1.4) that had previously covered this focal length. Both of these lenses when used properly have very good image quality. I was buying an f/2.8 lens for a reason; a good percentage of my shots will be shot at maximum aperture. I need the image quality to supplement the three very good primes I will be shooting above this focal range (85,100L,135L). I am going to break down my conclusions into usable information. If you want test charts, look elsewhere.

First, it is clear that this is optimized for event/portraiture work. At medium distance it is incredibly sharp, particularly in the center of the frame. Wide open images are sharp and contrasty, with an excellent quality. I have been very pleased with portrait captures and fine art shots using a narrow depth of field and isolating an element. Furthermore, the transition to out of focus (ooF) area is very smooth. I am very pleased with the quality of the bokeh (more on that in a moment). For this kind of work the lens is very, very pleasing:

Image quality is also excellent at minimum focus distance. Not all lens resolve well at their minimum focus distance, but this lens does an excellent job. It closes quite closely (less than a foot at 70mm), and zooming into the images reveal fine detail very nicely resolved. When I saw that, I purposed to test the lens with an extension tube and was very pleased with the final product. Great resolution of detail, and, to be honest, it focuses as closely with a 31mm extension tube as I ever use my macro lens. It also maintains that very smooth transition to ooF. It is here that the excellent VC system becomes handy, because even if shooting at faster speeds than what VC would require, Tamron’s VC really helps to hold the image in the viewfinder steady, which allows you to be precise with focus (which is incredibly crucial at macro distance). I was able to consistently produce excellent images handheld at near macro distances.

[sliderly id=904 type=gallery width=500 height=500 grid=3 colorbox=true]

I am less impressed with this lens as a landscape lens. The extreme corner performance becomes more important, and frankly that isn’t this lens strength. I find that it is noticeably sharper in the center at equivalent apertures than my 24-105L, but the extreme corners (particularly on the bottom) are definitely better on the 24-105L or my 17-40L. There is a secondary issue at work here – I find that optimum image quality comes early in this lens and that diffraction also sets in early. To be more plain, an image at f/8 looks somewhat sharper upon close inspection than an image at f/11. I have ordered a second copy for comparison on this regard. This is a two edged sword, as it means that maximum image quality comes early in this lens (no more than f/5.6) throughout most of the frame. That is great for the majority of how and why I will be using the lens. For those looking to use it as a replacement landscape lens, you would probably be better served with another choice. I feel that both my 24-105L and 17-40L would better serve for landscape purposes. The reviews that I have read suggest that the MKII of Canon’s 24-70L is exceptional in this regard. Update: I am happy to report that my second copy of the lens seems more consistent across the frame. It is crisper at f/11 than my previous copy while retaining the excellent clarity in closer focal lengths. Extreme corners are still not the greatest strength of the lens, though. Three notes from further tests: 1) The 24-105mm is wider at 24mm than the Tamron 2) The Tamron is slightly warmer in color rendering than the Canon and 3) The Tamron controls chromatic aberrations MUCH better than the Canon. This last point aside, I stand by my previous assessment. I feel that I have a very sharp copy of the 24-105L (my second), and the Tamron compares favorably except in the extreme corners. It is noticeably sharper in the center. It can produce stunning landscape images (see below), but I don’t get the impression that this was the primary purpose of the lens.

[sliderly id=910 type=gallery width=500 height=500 grid=3 colorbox=2]

My conclusion is that this lens is optimized for close to medium range. It is still capable of producing very nice landscape type images, but I do not feel that infinity focus distances are the lens’ strength.

Bokeh

This has been a source of some debate with this new lens. Some would argue that the bokeh/out of focus quality in a standard zoom lens isn’t great, anyway. The Tamron specifically has come under some fire for what has been frequently labeled “onion bokeh” (or having some rings within a bright specular highlight that resembled the layers of an onion when cut in half). I have observed this phenomena in only one instance when I had one very bright light source in the OOF area of the image (a car headlight, in this case). I saw it mostly because I was looking for it. That being said, I have actually been quite pleased with the bokeh rendering of this lens for another reason: the smoothness of the transition from focus to defocus. This is a big deal to me, and I was pleasantly surprised when I closely examined my first images from the lens. The lens is very sharp in the focused area, but then smoothly transitions to the defocused area of the lens.

I was also impressed when doing close focus work with the lens. In macro/close focus work this becomes very, very important. The Tamron did an excellent job, as illustrated in this macro and close focus crops. I would certainly agree that the MKII of the Canon is better, but overall this Tamron has nothing to be ashamed of.

All of this being said, if you intend to do a lot of small aperture shooting with bright lights in the background (night/street photography, for example), this is something you might want to consider. Many other fast lens also exhibit the “onion bokeh” (it was even more pronounced in my Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8), but it simply wasn’t a big deal to me. It might be to you… But judging from my own images, I would say that the bokeh rendering on the lens is very pleasing.

[sliderly id=886 type=gallery width=500 height=500 grid=3 colorbox=true]

Vignetting

This has been another criticism of the lens that I have read. In full disclosure, I do have to confess that this is rarely a big deal to me personally. I frequently add a vignette in post processing anyway because I personally like the look as I feel it frequently helps to focus the eye on the primary subject. This is particularly true when I shoot portraiture, which is certainly one of the very viable uses of this lens. I own five lens with an aperture of 2.8 or wider, so I am very accustomed to some light fall-off. In all fairness, this is an area where third party lenses take a bit of hit as many cameras have a “Peripheral Illumination” setting that is often of by default. This simply means that in a Canon camera the camera will automatically correct for this if it has the lens profile loaded. Guess how many third party profiles are loaded? If you guesses “zero” you would be right. This means that frequently a Canon equivalent lens may suffer from as much or more vignetting but it shows up less often. It becomes a moot point for me, as Lightroom already has a profile for this new Tamron that corrects this on import for me. The Tamron is about middle of the pack for vignetting amongst its competitors, and it has been my experience thus far that I have not noticed it. In fact, I find that the vignetting on my 24-105L is more field noticeable than the Tamron despite it maximum aperture being a stop slower. Tamron is on the left (wide open at f/2.8, 24mm). Canon on the right (wide open at f/4, 24mm). I seriously doubt that most shooters will find vignetting to a serious issue on this lens.

[sliderly id=925 type=gallery width=500 height=500 grid=2]

One Minor Niggle

24-70mm is somewhat of an exaggeration. Apparently this isn’t uncommon. The angle of view is similar to other 24-70s, which suggests that this focal range is more of a suggestion in this class. It is not as wide at 24mm as my 24-105L and less so than my 17-40mm set at 24mm. At 70mm its reach is not equal to the beginning point on either my 70-200 f/4L or my 70-300mm Tamron. It is probably something like 25-65mm at best. As I said, this is not uncommon for this class, but it is annoying nonetheless. REVISION: I have tested my second copy extensively and have found that while my conclusions about the long end remain valid, this second copy is actually slightly wider than 24mm on either my 24-105L or 17-40L. It would seem that the focal length is actually about 23mm (or even marginally wider) at the wide end. This is a big plus!!

Conclusion

I have done my best to be open minded about this lens as I have given feedback on it. I personally did a lot of research before taking the plunge on the lens myself. On that note, I purchased this lens from Simon’s Camera out of Montreal. They had the best price in Canada and provided excellent service. I even exchanged my first copy of the lens for a second because I felt the VC could be better (the second unit does seem to function better). There was no hesitation when I asked about exchanging copies, and they even paid to ship the second unit to me. I enjoyed doing business with them, and Kevin in sales was extremely friendly, professional, and helpful.

But I was researching more than price. At this stage I do earn money from photography and need my gear to function during critical moments. I will be using this lens during various events, including weddings, when you only get one shot at certain moments. Portraits are not an issue. I often use old manual focus lens as a part of my workflow in those situations without fear. But events are another matter. Do I feel confident taking this lens “into battle”? I feel comfortable in saying “yes” from my testing to date. The AF is not the fastest in my kit, but the combination of “enough” AF speed, and, more importantly, AF accuracy makes me feel comfortable that I will be able to get the shots that I need. Furthermore, the VC in this lens means that I should be able to get clear shots of static scenes without fear of vibration. I don’t shoot a lot of DSLR video, but often when I do it is handheld in the field. The VC system works exceptionally well in that setting. Finally, I have field tested the lens in every scenario from near macro to landscape photography and feel confident in this lens’ ability to produce great images, even at its widest aperture. Sometimes pictures look great in a smaller size, but when you zoom into them the image quality falls apart. Not so with this lens. I consistently find the image and detail looks better as I zoom in. The lens has a very high resolving power, which is just huge to me! So, in my conclusion, I feel that this lens represents the right balance of quality and price for me of the options available. I have now also used the lens in a wedding situation, which I blogged about here.

Is it the lens for you? Only you can answer that, but I hope that this review from a real photographer has been helpful. Take a look at the gallery of images for yourself and determine if it is a lens that you could use. All images taken with a Canon EOS 5D MKII and processed through my standard techniques.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52014 in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, andis stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! If you want to go directly to this lens, click here: Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

FOR MY AMERICAN READERS: I have now have a relationship in place with B&H for my American readers. B&H is one of the leading photography retailers on the planet, and they offer not only great prices but a cash back program. Click here in the mount of choice to get a great price on this lens. By using this link you help to support this site and keep it running. I’ll do my best to keep great new reviews coming your way!

[sliderly id=930 type=featuredimg width=auto height=auto colorbox=true]

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

June 12th, 2015

Autofocus

[Show as slideshow]

[Show as slideshow]

Image Quality

#displayed_gallery_c5735a5920995d0b90e443d3cd21da1b .image-wrapper { margin-bottom: 5px; }

#displayed_gallery_8742563db83b1e930e74df42949205ab .image-wrapper { margin-bottom: 5px; }

Aperture Iris Improvement

Other Optical Observations

The Holy Grail…and Conclusions

Pros:

Cons:

Should I Upgrade to the 50mm STM?

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

50mm Shootout

Dustin Abbott

March 10th, 2015

#displayed_gallery_7f617865b3556973e3958b349407fb11 .image-wrapper { margin-bottom: 5px; }

Which Fifty is the Most Nifty?

So can the modern giant easily defeat the vintage competitors? Let’s take a look.

First Test: Close Focus – Contrast and C/A Testing

Second Test: Portrait Length Performance

Third Test: Real World Resolution at Infinity

Real World Conclusions and Mini-Reviews

[Show as slideshow]

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Review

Dustin Abbott

March 31st, 2014

A Canon Underdog?

Price Drop

The Vital Statistics

Why This Lens?

Optical Performance

Bokeh

Autofocus

Image Stabilization

Is This Lens for You?

The Big Gallery: Click here to go to the Image Gallery for the Lens

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 Wide Angle Review

Dustin Abbott

October 1st, 2013

By the Numbers

NO Electronics?

Optical Excellence

Distortion and Vignetting

Close Focus? Kind Of…

Nightscape King

Pros and Cons

Conclusion

The Big Gallery

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Tamron 24-70 VC vs. Canon 40mm Pancake

Dustin Abbott

June 17th, 2013

Weird Comparison?

The Conditions

The Gallery

100% Crops

100% Crops – Bokeh

Conclusions

Image Sharpness – Canon

Vignetting – Tamron

Bokeh – Tamron

Size/Portability – Canon

Weathersealing – Tamron

Close Focus – Tamron

Price – Canon

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD Review

Dustin Abbott

November 29th, 2012

Build Quality

Autofocus

Image Quality

Bokeh

Vignetting