Canon EF 35mm F1.4L II USM real-world sample gallery

"matter of taste" - but also a matter of just how the camera body tends to "look" - ie great resolution, but not so great dynamic envelope; I was surprised.

is possible that the plant and person are on the same focal plane?

Do the samples with the 1DX look better? I think so.
So either the resolution of the 1DX is too small to see the blur or it is caused by the 5DSR body in some way.

timotale, have You seen this kind of installations from smaller distance? We can see stairs and ladders there. If this plant was not constructed by leprechauns or the person is not a giant - then these objects are not equidistant.

two things:
1. plant and man r far away from the camera
2. 35mm is wide angle so you do get less blur effect.
I just dont see the tilt effect you mentioned.

timotale, don't You think, that grass-sky is almost parallel to the sensor's plane, and plant is in about 2x larger distance than the man?Grass on the left side is oof.
If You still don't see it, look at the second image.

Joed700, thanks for the link. However, according to the exif data the Canon 5DSR was tested with the EF50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro from 1987(!). That can not be taken seriously?! Did I miss something?

Thanks for that. Did you check out the lenses that were used by Canon's other competitors? If they all used the same kind of craps, I think that's fair. Anyhow, I don't see another way of getting a direct comparisons....

Here is a recently released video on the 35mm f1.4 II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXTKeaeZaDU
Just ignore the guy's jokes...just another opinion on the lens.

Okay, I did a little research on the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5. This thing may be old but it's quite a top performer.

On the resource mentioned above (http://www.imaging-resource.com) the sony A7Rii was tested with FE 55mm F1.8 ZA (Carl Zeiss Sonnar T*), which was introduced 2014, as far as I see.
I didn't check other examples yet (nikon). But the 5DSR with the EF50mm f/2.5 Macro is weird IMO.

Joed, the Canon EF 50mm may be a top performer regarding macro. I don't know. But it is definitely from film era and does not make much sense when testing a 2015 56MP sensor. The Zeiss Sonnar, used for sony pictures, not only has a modern design optimized for digital cameras, it also costs 4x $.

I went through the exif files for several platforms from the Imaging Resource site. They all used some sort of macro native lenses/standards. Keep in mind, these older lenses may not be the first choice in terms of functionality, but the optic is something different. If you are looking for sharpness, I think macro is the way to go. In the old days, a camera manufacturer's reputation is based on it's macro optical formula. I hope you are not a KenRockwell hater; you can check out what he has to say about this lens.
One more thing, I don't think a website such as the Imaging Resource would use something that's not up to standards. After all, they have to worry about their reputation and revenue from ads....

Well, if the macro lens used for the canon test is so superb, why are the results less than expected?
I looked into the exif data again and found "EF50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro +LSC". I missed the "+LSC" before. The LSC is a converter that changes the EF50 macro to a 70mm lens as the remaining exif shows.
Since the image crop is almost the same, the sample shots have been taken from different distances.
How sharp is the macro + LSC? Certainly not sharper than w/o the converter.
Does it make sense to compare with different focal length and shooting distance?
I appreciate all the work spent by Imaging Resource to perform the tests and present them.
However, I'm not convinced.
Personally I'd prefer field tests with eqivalent lenses regarding their specs and price range. The new 35 L of this sample gallery on the canon and the 35mm Distagon on the sony for example.

And yet it won the bokeh showdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edJStBgM6GQ

Old Canon model, but still.

I don't rent lenses. I own and use them; quite.

Mmm. Just sold my last two non-Nikkors... the 1.4/35 and /85 Zeiss in C/Y mount, along with two RTSIII bodies.

The Nikkors (all primes, 1.4G's, a lot of Ai's and AiS's) serve me well.

To be brutally honest, I think this Canon 35 is a truly good lens, which I'd certainly want, if I had a ff Canon DSLR!

They should (serve you well) because those are very good lenses as well. If you are interested, Canon DSLRs are different from Nikon DSLRs mainly because of interface philosophy (and some marketing / specific performance levers pulled either up or down, regardless of the brand), but the lenses are more or less in the same league - so the end result for the skilled photographer is rather hard to differentiate (when you PRINT the work, I mean).

What are you shooting in the water?

Yes, but they didn't list the 35 1.4 series i either. Surely they rate that lens higher than the 35 f2
Nor the 15mm L prime. Nor the 300 f4 L prime. Difficult to reconcile L series prime lenses not being on the list

I also notice that the 50mm f/1.8 STM is not on the list either. DXO gave the 50 f1.8 the highest rating among the Canon 50's. I own the 35mm f2 IS and the IQ is quite good, especially with the IS..shutter speed went all the way to 1/4 sec handheld...decent bokeh...took really nice pix at extremely low light condition at f/4 & 1/15 ISO at 12800.

Paul JM, it's possible they didn't list the MKI 35mm f/1.4 because they knew it wouldn't have the required resolving power for the new chips. They didn't list the MKII because it wasn't out yet. Maybe they'll update the list soon. I have the MKI version, and it's definitely a nicer lens on my 5D than it is on my 5D MKIII.

They didn't list the 35 f/1.4 so people looking at a slightly old list wouldn't go looking for the "old" version after the mark II came out. It's really that simple.

Photomedium, this is also true, though it's not a bad idea for Canon to post some kind of compatibility list. I discovered not long after getting the 5DMKII that my 16-35 f/2.8 (mki) was useless on that camera below f/8. Now I have the 16-35 f/2.8 MKII I see it's not recommended with the 5Ds. Luckily, I have no need for the 5Ds so will stick with what I have for now (5DMKIII).

Really what would help would be a list compiled by an independent person who would also highlight why certain lenses aren't recommended (focus accuracy at wide apertures, resolution or whatever) so people can decide for themselves.

Interestingly the 40mm f/2.8 pancake is listed - I have one and it's a cracking little lens on my 5DIII.

I think photomedium is correct about lists. although I find Photozone.de, while uncompromising in their reviews are pretty much on target in helping users weed out the stinkers. LensRentals can be painfully honest too.

As for the 16-35/2.8 lenses and the 17-40, they have their fans but it has long been known they are nothing to write home about. And there's no reason to think a lens that's mediocre on a 20mp camera will improve on a 50mp one.

"And there's no reason to think a lens that's mediocre on a 20mp camera will improve on a 50mp one." - indeed, quite the opposite.

I have to agree with @desaint. IMO not good.

Got autofocus with that lens on a Canon body?

$1,900, I paid full tilt. It was made in Japan by Cosina, and it never bothered me, it's a tank. All my cameras have split prism viewfinders, my 6D has a cross prism viewfinder, focusing is a breeze.

After you become well aware of common lens defects its actually easier to detect centering on a 3 dimensional landscape shot like the boats than it is to look at a brick wall. But it takes some experience of understanding field curvature, DOF, and what to really expect (i.e. what your standards should be). For the money this falls a bit behind what I would consider acceptable. I just took a look at a pre-owned 24-105L and took a pass cause of decentering on the tele side. I don't expect perfection however especially in zooms, but I do pay attention to if there are obvious flaws that take more than a stop down or two to remedy (if it has defects requiring you to stop down, save money and get a slower lens that isn't defective or shoot a smaller sensor IMO).

No need for flat surface if the subject is far away. the difference of sharpness between left and right frame is too extreme. Check out the sailboats shot and the jeep shot at f/1.4. In case of the jeep shot, the left part is blurrier (check the left and right tyres) suggesting tilted focus plane. It's best to check for decentering at infinity focus, though.

Joining the choir here, it looks suspicious indeed. Imaging Resource's sample also looks a little weird on the right hand side as well I think.

@kewlguy the left does look a little blurry in case of the jeep shot @f/1.4, but the sailboat shot @f1.4 seems to have a blurrier right. Surely the lens de-centreing can't change from left to right depending on focus distance?

According to Dxomark, not really.

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-35mm-f-1.4L-II-USM-review-New-benchmark-for-open-aperture-performance/Canon-EF-35mm-f-1.4L-II-USM-versus-Carl-Zeiss-Distagon-T-35mm-f-1.4-ZE-Canon-versus-Sigma-35mm-F1.4-DG-HSM-A-Canon-Excellent-performance-wide-open

Obviously the Canon is better. All it needs is a brandname