# What ones best?



## oilbeefhooked (Mar 5, 2011)

I'm thinking about buying a tilt-shift lens. But not sure what lens to get, i've narrowed it down to the 17mm F4.0L TS and the 24mm F3.5L TS. I'll be using the lens mostly on nature and some architecture. Is there any lens I missed? Any input would be great.


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## Admin US West (Mar 5, 2011)

Which camera are you using, it makes a difference in lens selection.


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## LuCoOc (Mar 5, 2011)

scalesusa said:


> Which camera are you using, it makes a difference in lens selection.



Apart from focal length the 24mm's biggest advantage over the 17mm is the ability to accept filters e.g. polarizers for landscape

Front filter for 17MM TS-e on the way. Version for the Nikkor 14-24mm super wide is available now, it is probably simple to adapt to the 17-TS-E, but a adaptor is said to be coming.

I wouldn't make a decision just because the filter adaptor is not quite available yet.

http://www.leefiltersusa.com/camera/products/finder/ref:C4BA23B4F81D79/

http://natureismykingdom.com/2010/11/05/lee-sw150-filter-holder/


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## Flake (Mar 5, 2011)

Mostly nature? What do you mean by that, because to me that means wildlife, and that's either a long lens or a macro. Perhaps you mean landscape?? Tilt shit is useful for increasing depth of field here.

24mm will allow filters but bear in mind it's not the standard 77mm thread but there's enough room for a step down which is cheaper than buying new filters. The old MkI 24mm is not a bad lens and second hand it can cost around a third of a new MkII you may have deep pockets or if you're on a budget it might be worth a look.


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## epsiloneri (Mar 6, 2011)

LuCoOc said:


> Apart from focal length the 24mm's biggest advantage over the 17mm is the ability to accept filters e.g. polarizers for landscape



Isn't 24mm a bit wide for a polarizer? Just asking. ND filters can be useful for flowing water etc, other than that (and polarizer/protector) I don't know what filters are used for.

Regarding the 17mm/4.0L, it is _very_ wide on FF. Also, the depth of focus is not very narrow, making the "tilt"-part difficult to fully exploit. The "shift" parts works as advertised, but you can do almost as well in postprocessing (at the price of some resolution), so I'm not terribly excited over that feature. Mostly good for _indoors_ architecture, where space is limited.

In all, I think the TS-E 24mm/3.5L II is more interesting (less wide and faster -> more evident "tilt" effects), and wide enough for landscapes. The "II" ability to freely rotate the relative angle between tilt and shift directions is a nice feature over "I" (apart from the increase in resolution). For macro, I would recommend the TS-E 90/2.8 instead (+extension tube).

If you have an APS-C camera, however, 24mm might be too long for landscapes. Thus, it depends a bit on your camera choice in addition to your shooting preferences (like scaleusa said).


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## Flake (Mar 6, 2011)

Isn't 24mm a bit wide for a polarizer?

Not if you're using it to cut down glare on water, or reflection in windows.


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## djjohnr (Mar 6, 2011)

...or increasing the saturation of foliage that's reflecting light.


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## Macadameane (Mar 7, 2011)

Flake said:


> Tilt shit is useful for increasing depth of field here.



One missing "f" can make a big difference


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## ronderick (Mar 8, 2011)

I think there's a lot of good arguments for getting the 17mm, since its the widest TS-E lens in both Canon and Nikon's repetoire today.

However, be warned that while the 17mm is impressive, the maintenance and circumstances for using this lense could be more limiting than the 24mm. You have to be very careful of the exposed front element, which means you have to think twice about bringing it on rainy days and put the cap on when not in use (Alright, I admit I baby my lens collection).

The 24mm (which can use filters) would be better if you want less trouble with maintenance and seek more use out of the lens in different situation. Of course, you'll be missing the UW...


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## neuroanatomist (Mar 16, 2011)

Fundamentally, the decision on the TS-E 17mm vs. the TS-E 24mm comes down to this: one is 17mm and the other is 24mm. First and foremost, lens selection is about what you want to shoot, and what focal length will capture those subjects the best. If you need wider that 24mm and can't back up sufficiently, you need the 17mm. If you'll find yourself cropping those 17mm shots in post, get the 24mm. One consideration is that the 24mm is wickedly sharp, and the 17mm, while excellent, is not quite at the same level of sharpness as the 24mm MkII (but the 17mm is still better than the 24mm MkI). 

Do you have those focal lengths covered by a current lens or lenses? If so, look over your EXIF or go shooting and see which focal length would be best served by a TS-E. My choice (which I made late last year) was the TS-E 24mm II. I do have an 82mm CPL that comes in handy, and would not be an option with the 17mm lens. Like ronderick, I was a bit worried about the lovely but vulnerable front element of the 17mm TS-E. But lenses and cameras are just tools, so if I needed 17mm, the 'risk' to the front element would have been ignored. 24mm was the right focal length for my needs. But scalesusa's question is relevant - if I was using it on a crop body, I'd have gone with the 17mm. 

One more point about the TS-E lenses - it's not listed in the specs, but the Canon extenders work with the TS-E lenses, so you can change the FOV if you have a teleconverter.

Here are a couple of shots from my TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II, taken with a 5DII. The first is the Custom House Tower in Boston, the second is a gate in the Confucius Temple area of Nanjing, China (click for larger versions).


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## Jim Roof (May 31, 2015)

I am going to throw an idea at you.

I spent the last week testing BOTH the 17 TS-E and 24 TS-E II with the new 1.4x III teleconverter. Why? I shoot with multiple cameras with architecture as my subject and was thinking about getting a second 24 TS-E II. On a lark, I decided to see what the 1.4X III teleconverter would do with the 17 TS-E.

In a nutshell...

The 17 TS-E + 1.4x III converter has a small amount of barrel distortion, but because it is from the teleconverter, it is on the optical axis and easy to remedy. Sharpness? The combo gives an equivalent focal length of 23.8mm which I have compared directly to my 24 TS-E II. The combo image is FAR superior to the first generation 24 TS-E and almost indistinguishable from the 24 TS-E II. Give a little proper sub-pixel level sharpening and no client would ever know which image was shot with the 24 TS-E and the 17 TS-E + 1.4x III teleconverter.

The the resultant image is your sole concern, you could get the 17 TS-E and the 1.4X III teleconverter and have both focal lengths at your disposal.

BTW, the 24 TS-E II also works VERY well with the 1.4x III extender.

Based upon my tests, I have contacted Canon with the idea of producing a 1.2X teleconverter SPECIFICALLY for their TS-E line. That would result in the owner of the 17 and 24 also being able to shoot 20 and 28 focal lengths. For architectural photographers this would be huge.


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