# 16-35 F/4L IS -- Canon registration, ACR profiles, etc.



## ahsanford (Jul 14, 2014)

All,

I just got the new 16-35 F/4L IS, and I had two questions:


When I tried to register it with Canon, there was no option for this lens (or the new EF-S 10-18 IS lens either) under UWA zooms. I checked to see if it was misfiled, but I can't find it. I'll assume Canon just hasn't updated their website yet. From past lens release experience, how long does this usually take?
Is there any estimate on the lead time for an ACR update with lens correction profiles included for this lens? I notice there was an update in June but this lens was not included.

Thanks!

- A


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## mackguyver (Jul 14, 2014)

ahsanford said:


> All,
> 
> I just got the new 16-35 F/4L IS, and I had two questions:
> 
> ...


I emailed Canon Professional Services (CPS-USA) and they replied that they had notified the responsible party to update the registration and CPS site, but had no ETA. DxO has listed 8/14 for their correction module - if Adobe keeps their schedule, their next update will also be in August, with a release candidate coming sooner. We won't know if the profile will be in the release until the RC appears. I would expect ptlens to have the first profile, DxO next, then Adobe, which is usually the order they seem to release correction profiles.


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## ahsanford (Jul 14, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> I emailed Canon Professional Services (CPS-USA) and they replied that they had notified the responsible party to update the registration and CPS site, but had no ETA. DxO has listed 8/14 for their correction module - if Adobe keeps their schedule, their next update will also be in August, with a release candidate coming sooner. We won't know if the profile will be in the release until the RC appears. I would expect ptlens to have the first profile, DxO next, then Adobe, which is usually the order they seem to release correction profiles.



Super helpful, thanks. 

Once in a blue moon with standard FLs, if I shoot near the wide open end and I don't crop, I actually prefer the vignetting sometimes and choose to keep it in the shot rather than take the default correction. That's a simple call to make in ACR (and in the other processing suites, I'd imagine).

But with wide angles, I'd imagine distortion is the key thing to control, and that's a fairly difficult animal to manage by eye yourself. What do you do? Do you trust the profiles? Do you tweak things yourself? Do you use something specialized like the standalone DXO perspective tool?

Just curious -- I haven't shot UWA in a few years and was curious what the best practices are. 

- A


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## mackguyver (Jul 14, 2014)

ahsanford said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > I emailed Canon Professional Services (CPS-USA) and they replied that they had notified the responsible party to update the registration and CPS site, but had no ETA. DxO has listed 8/14 for their correction module - if Adobe keeps their schedule, their next update will also be in August, with a release candidate coming sooner. We won't know if the profile will be in the release until the RC appears. I would expect ptlens to have the first profile, DxO next, then Adobe, which is usually the order they seem to release correction profiles.
> ...


Happy to help and just checked again, but still not there for registration...

I also turn off the vignetting correction for some shots as I feel it gives the shot a bit more focus and sometimes it almost looks wrong without it.

As for distortion, that's probably the key thing I use them for, at least with wide-to-ultrawide FLs. I find manual correction to be really tedious and find the profiles to work very well. I rarely adjust them, except in some really critical architecture shots where I want bricks or things to be absolutely perfect. Otherwise, I trust them. The other thing that the profiles excel at are sharpness - they make "auto" sharpening pretty much perfect sharpening very little in the center and more in the edges where the lens is typically softer. I also find DxO's CA correction better than Adobe's. Neither do much about LoCA, but DxO fixes it a little.

The ViewPoint tool from DxO is perplexing for me and most other DxO Optics Pro users. When it first came out, DxO did a really poor job of explaining what it was and how it differed from Optics Pro. Since then, they are saying that it's for LR & PS users and doesn't really do anything more than Optics Pro... I like the UI for corrections better in ViewPoint, and hope they will incorporate that into Optics Pro eventually.


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## mackguyver (Jul 15, 2014)

Update - the 16-35 f/4 IS can now be registered on Canon USA's site. CPS still doesn't have it, though.


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## ahsanford (Jul 15, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> Update - the 16-35 f/4 IS can now be registered on Canon USA's site. CPS still doesn't have it, though.



Thanks. On it.

- A


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## ahsanford (Jul 15, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> Update - the 16-35 f/4 IS can now be registered on Canon USA's site. CPS still doesn't have it, though.



I'm striking out on my end. I can't link you the URL as it will be for my account (you have to login to open up product registration). But here's a screen shot. No new lenses yet.

Can you link where you found it?

- A


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## mackguyver (Jul 15, 2014)

Go here and sign in:
Canon USA Registration

and you should see this:


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## ahsanford (Jul 15, 2014)

That did it, thanks. I was drilling down under professional imaging products instead of EOS systems.

Done. I am so fired up to have 15% off full list price accessories in the Canon store. 

- A


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## mackguyver (Jul 15, 2014)

ahsanford said:


> That did it, thanks. I was drilling down under professional imaging products instead of EOS systems.
> 
> Done. I am so fired up to have 15% off full list price accessories in the Canon store.
> 
> - A


I'm glad it worked for you, and yes, the 15% discount is awesome! I've used it exactly 0 times!!!


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## candyman (Jul 15, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> ............................
> *I emailed Canon Professional Services (CPS-USA) and they replied that they had notified the responsible party to update the registration and CPS site, but had no ETA.* DxO has listed 8/14 for their correction module - if Adobe keeps their schedule, their next update will also be in August, with a release candidate coming sooner. We won't know if the profile will be in the release until the RC appears. I would expect ptlens to have the first profile, DxO next, then Adobe, which is usually the order they seem to release correction profiles.



Strange that it takes so much time.
I registered mine some time ago.


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## mackguyver (Jul 15, 2014)

candyman said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > ............................
> ...


Which country is that? The USA site is a little different.


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## candyman (Jul 15, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> candyman said:
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> 
> > mackguyver said:
> ...


This is CPS Europe accessed via The Netherlands


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## mackguyver (Jul 18, 2014)

Adobe's release candidates are out with profiles for this lens:
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/1507576314/adobe-camera-raw-8-6-and-dng-converter-8-6-release-candidates-available


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Jul 18, 2014)

ahsanford said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > I emailed Canon Professional Services (CPS-USA) and they replied that they had notified the responsible party to update the registration and CPS site, but had no ETA. DxO has listed 8/14 for their correction module - if Adobe keeps their schedule, their next update will also be in August, with a release candidate coming sooner. We won't know if the profile will be in the release until the RC appears. I would expect ptlens to have the first profile, DxO next, then Adobe, which is usually the order they seem to release correction profiles.
> ...



This lens has very little distortion above 19mm or so, so there is almost nothing to do 19-35mm or so. 16-18mm there is some, and a fair amount at 16mm, but for natural world scenes sometimes it doesn't matter so much so I just leave it (in some cases, especially with buildings in the scene and such corrections may be more desired).


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## mackguyver (Jul 19, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> Adobe's release candidates are out with profiles for this lens:
> http://www.dpreview.com/articles/1507576314/adobe-camera-raw-8-6-and-dng-converter-8-6-release-candidates-available


It's a rainy Saturday here, so I downloaded the ACR RC for PS CC 2014 (how do you like all of those abbreviations!) and I'm happy to report that the profile is excellent! PS thinks it's a 16-35 f/2.8 II when you select the profile, but that's easy enough to fix.


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## mackguyver (Jul 21, 2014)

It's listed in the CPS USA site now, and so others can see what our site looks like:


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## mackguyver (Aug 7, 2014)

The DxO profiles for this lens & most (or all?) Canon bodies is now available.


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## candyman (Aug 7, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> The DxO profiles for this lens & most (or all?) Canon bodies is now available.




They don't show up in my DxO Optics Elite for 5D MKIII and 6D...


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## mackguyver (Aug 7, 2014)

candyman said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > The DxO profiles for this lens & most (or all?) Canon bodies is now available.
> ...


Hmm, they should, according to DxO: http://www.dxo.com/intl/news/dxo-optics-prodxo-viewpoint-new-lens-camera-combinations-2

I'm not at home right now, though, so I can't try it myself. You might want to check for updates to see if you're on the latest version (9.5.1, I think).


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## candyman (Aug 7, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> candyman said:
> 
> 
> > mackguyver said:
> ...



I started DxO again and now opens with the message - see - so everything ok!  


EDIT: if you pick manually via the menu, I don't see the 16-35 f/4 IS module in the list (selected the 5D MKIII)
Do not have yet photos with the 5D MKIII + 16-35 f/4 IS. So I guess it works only on automatic camera+lens recognition


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## dank (Aug 8, 2014)

candyman said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > candyman said:
> ...



That was my issue as well. Tried to manually download and couldn't see it under the 5D mk II, but when i imported a photo shot with that combo it downloaded.


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## mackguyver (Aug 8, 2014)

It shows up right near the top for me:


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## mackguyver (Aug 8, 2014)

P.S. the profile from DxO seems to work exceptionally well. I applied it to my test shots and the 16-35 f/4 IS comes out quite a bit sharper than the corrected 24-70 f/2.8 II photos! That seems crazy but is what I'm seeing. I'll have to play with it some more this weekend and do some more side-by-side photos, assuming the weather cooperates.


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## ahsanford (Aug 8, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> P.S. the profile from DxO seems to work exceptionally well. I applied it to my test shots and the 16-35 f/4 IS comes out quite a bit sharper than the corrected 24-70 f/2.8 II photos! That seems crazy but is what I'm seeing. I'll have to play with it some more this weekend and do some more side-by-side photos, assuming the weather cooperates.



That's really odd -- your lens profile is affecting it's _sharpness?_ 

In ACR, profiles in there are for _lens corrections_: vignetting, distortion, chromatic adjustments, etc. but not for sharpness. You'd never want an _apply-to-all-shots-from-this-lens_ sort of change to something that would vary for reasons *other* than the lens. In other words, I ratchet my sharpening up or down based on the light I had and the resulting ISO I had to use. Do why is the DXO profile bundling sharpness with the usual lens corrections?

Please forgive my ignorance. I've always been an ACR guy and did not know this about DXO's tools.

- A


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## mackguyver (Aug 8, 2014)

ahsanford said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > P.S. the profile from DxO seems to work exceptionally well. I applied it to my test shots and the 16-35 f/4 IS comes out quite a bit sharper than the corrected 24-70 f/2.8 II photos! That seems crazy but is what I'm seeing. I'll have to play with it some more this weekend and do some more side-by-side photos, assuming the weather cooperates.
> ...


Yes, DxO does sharpening as well, and it's probably the best and coolest correction they do as part of the profile because it's done per the lens's "softness" profile. That means that it sharpens very little in the center and more and more towards the edges. It's also done using some method that produces little-to-no artifacts, at least at the default setting. For me, it's great because the default settings work very well in 90% of the photos I take and that saves me from the time needed to sharpen like I do with ACR.

Here's more info if anyone is interested: https://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/tutorials/enhance-sharpness-your-camera-dxo-optics-pro

...and yes, DxO should pay me for being such a big fan/supporter...but they don't!


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## ahsanford (Aug 8, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> Yes, DxO does sharpening as well, and it's probably the best and coolest correction they do as part of the profile because it's done per the lens's "softness" profile. That means that it sharpens very little in the center and more and more towards the edges. It's also done using some method that produces little-to-no artifacts, at least at the default setting. For me, it's great because the default settings work very well in 90% of the photos I take and that saves me from the time needed to sharpen like I do with ACR.
> 
> Here's more info if anyone is interested: https://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/tutorials/enhance-sharpness-your-camera-dxo-optics-pro
> 
> ...and yes, DxO should pay me for being such a big fan/supporter...but they don't!



Not being a pro, I don't like spending much time in post-processing. So I've always been a lazy 'global corrector' with the sharpness slider in ACR rather than masking before sharpening in PS. It's a terrible habit but a lot of the alternatives to my really quick ACR-->PS-->JPG workflow force me to migrate my universe into their databases. Believe it or not, I warehouse all my stuff in vanilla iPhoto as it pushes to all my devices so well (and I'm very happy with it). 

But I would love a smarter RAW processing tool, especially to avoid global sharpening. Keep mind that I'm only RAW processing perhaps 3-5% of my shots.

So if I could just use a better tool as my RAW processing middleman and either save high quality JPGs or pipe to PS for heavy lifting on panos and such, I might be interested. Does DXO Optics Pro do that, and if so, is there a demo I could try to see how it stacks up against my ACR files?

- A


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## mackguyver (Aug 8, 2014)

ahsanford said:


> mackguyver said:
> 
> 
> > Yes, DxO does sharpening as well, and it's probably the best and coolest correction they do as part of the profile because it's done per the lens's "softness" profile. That means that it sharpens very little in the center and more and more towards the edges. It's also done using some method that produces little-to-no artifacts, at least at the default setting. For me, it's great because the default settings work very well in 90% of the photos I take and that saves me from the time needed to sharpen like I do with ACR.
> ...


DxO might be a good choice for you as it's really designed for two types of people - users like yourself who prefer to have the tool do most of the work, and users like me who are insanely slightly obsessive about processing 100% of their photos from RAW. The basic processing works extremely well and the general sliders are easy to use to tweak your photos a bit, but there's lots more if you get into it. 

On the other hand, the interface isn't the most intuitive and you have to export everything to file (or other apps) and that can be a little hard to get used to compared to other apps. I'd recommend downloading the free trial to see if it's for you. These two tutorials should get you started:

https://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/tutorials/first-steps-dxo-optics-pro-9

https://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/tutorials/first-steps-advanced-users-dxo-optics-pro-9

It's typically a love/hate thing with DxO, but try to be patient at first, it really is a great program once you get the hang of it.


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## ahsanford (Aug 8, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> DxO might be a good choice for you as it's really designed for two types of people - users like yourself who prefer to have the tool do most of the work, and users like me who are insanely slightly obsessive about processing 100% of their photos from RAW. The basic processing works extremely well and the general sliders are easy to use to tweak your photos a bit, but there's lots more if you get into it.
> 
> On the other hand, the interface isn't the most intuitive and you have to export everything to file (or other apps) and that can be a little hard to get used to compared to other apps. I'd recommend downloading the free trial to see if it's for you. These two tutorials should get you started:
> 
> ...



I'm fiddling with it now. Is microcontrast just DXO's term for the clarity slider from ACR? Seems very similar. It's a 'more detail at the cost of an HDR look' sort of tradeoff to me.

- A


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## mackguyver (Aug 8, 2014)

ahsanford said:


> I'm fiddling with it now. Is microcontrast just DXO's term for the clarity slider from ACR? Seems very similar. It's a 'more detail at the cost of an HDR look' sort of tradeoff to me.
> 
> - A


Yes, that's a good way to put it. I generally go light with that one, maybe +5 to +10 if needed. Also, if you expose to the right (or have shots with blown out highlights) the "Highlight Recovery - Strong" in the Exposure dropdown is pretty amazing.


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## ahsanford (Aug 8, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> ahsanford said:
> 
> 
> > I'm fiddling with it now. Is microcontrast just DXO's term for the clarity slider from ACR? Seems very similar. It's a 'more detail at the cost of an HDR look' sort of tradeoff to me.
> ...



The functionality is impressive but the controls/layout are a mouse fest. Not overly fond of that. And it really crawls on my old MacBook Pro for most tasks. Only the noise reduction previews take this long on ACR.

I've collared a few keeper RAW files from older shoots that capture the standard things I need to wrestle with in ACR. We'll see how this does, thanks.

- A


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## mackguyver (Aug 8, 2014)

It's definitely an adjustment from ACR, which is a far more elegant interface for sure. On an older computer, I could see it having a hard time. I rebuilt my homemade PC last year and it's essentially top of the (standard consumer) line in terms of processing and DxO is still a bit slow with some things. It's good to be able to try the free preview so you're only out your time, not money, at least.


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