I had some issues with moon flare as well. Otherwise a stellar lens.

For full disclosure, though, a grad ND filter might still be a better way to make an image like the one above, b/c by holding back highlights, you can increase the exposure on the shadows. This'll always yield cleaner shadows than underexposed shadows that have had to be pushed, even with high dynamic range cameras. This is b/c the shorter your exposure, the more shot noise, so you always benefit from collecting more light.

But a shot like the one above also doesn't have offensive noise in those rocks, so is perfectly acceptable. Grad ND filters of course have the disadvantage of potentially degrading your image (b/c of the resin), and darkening things you don't want darkened, b/c you don't have a perfect line of a horizon (cityscapes, for example).

So there are pros/cons to using/not using filters. Reason I bring all this up is b/c: it's no longer absolutely true that you absolutely need filters for 'spectacular' twilight light. Sensors have come a long way.

In film days I was a dyed-in-the-wool grad filter user, but come digital, I actually preferred the look of post-processing. My photoshopped images looked more natural than my grad-filtered images. So I no longer use the grads, and looking at my old film images, I get a bit of a cringe feeling now when I see those filtered skies, seas or whatever. Technology moves on, and our art benefits.

For horizon shots I use Reverse Grads or Strip Filters. But we have liveview, just use it and choose which filter will look natural..Thanks for the reply Rishi! Anyway we look at it, it is a very difficult lens to master! I'd love to shoot with it, maybe I will rent it first. I was shooting at Phuket Ban Naithon Beach against the sun I really did get the shot with my 14mmMk2 L with Lucroit Filters from sunset I used .9 reverse grad until the after glow, the light, the sky and cloud was spectacular! I have never seen light like that before and I captured each passing light. What made it spectacular was on the left side of me, the cloud and light closest to me was purple pink magenta with blue light! It was amazing! I was working frantically back and forth with my .6 reverse and .6 and .9 soft grad, I got natural shot because I shot them with Liveview, and no way that I was going to miss the shot! I have been to the same place dozens of time but last August 2014 was THE best.

Ecopix, I would like to know which sensor is able to shoot against the setting sun without using at least a 3 stop reverse grad. I have to use Benson 4 stops reverse grad. When printed, even my 7d looked spectacular on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta Paper and nobody mentioned anything about me usingfilters. By the way, I use a 6d since June 2014. Just use the liveview, meter on the foreground and use filters for the photo to look natural. Sometimes I just use my X pro adapter ring and use blu tac to stick my grads so I can work quickly.

It's a new visual language that's developed, especially over the last couple of decades. First came the Widelux style camera, then the Technorama style that landscapers embraced and created a new art form with.

Then along comes GoPro to immerse selfies in the landscape, and with more and more of these wide, 'unnatural' views getting past conservative editors and into print, more people are becoming used to them, and they're establishing themselves as a visual language that's supplementing the more traditional views.

So Canon (and Sigma) are just bringing things up to date, so we can use the modern mainstream gear for what quite recently needed a specialised type of camera or post techniques.

joke of a lens.. you mean.. like a joke of a post this is?

Classy comment!

I guess he is sad with the nikon-lineup ;)

Like all of Canon's products, it's still very overpriced.

Clearly you don't know what 11mm is and why you would need it.

You are commenting on a post that is over a year old ! :P

The 5Ds is already announced. Don't troll.

Better idea: Use Zeiss OTUS lenses on EVERY camera tested to get a REAL idea of how those cameras really perform.

Uhm, the 50MP Canon 5Ds and 5Ds R are going to available in June. Chill dude.

Incorrect. We have yet to see how the lens performs on a high res Canon body.

Furthermore, the edge to edge performance is still pretty impressive even adapted on an a7R.

Also, the shots on the rocky beach are a pretty stressful case for any lens - those rocks were ~1 ft or so away from the lens. I tried to find the hyperfocal distance as best I could to get everything in focus in a single shot, but undoubtedly the edge-to-edge performance of objects at infinity probably won't be as good when you focus at the hyperfocal distance vs. focusing at infinity.

As for a Sony camera leading to more noise, well, we both know that's not true :)

Keep in mind this is a fairly high dynamic range shot, & these are all single exposures. These rocks were dark, w/ no light shining on them, countered by the bright sky above the set sun.

What's amazing is that there's this little noise.

Just goes to show, again, it's not the ISO that determines the noise. That's a gross over-simplification.

I should've said 'it's not just the ISO that determines...', but I ran out of words...

No, it's not that there's no correlation between ISO and visible noise, but that the relationship is very complicated. The biggest determinant is actual light captured, which is linked to the exposure. ISO amplification can actually decrease noise by raising signals above noise floors and/or reducing quantization error (at the cost of dynamic range b/c of signal clipping).

You mean that Canon glass somehow causes more noise on Sony sensor?

I have yet to experience that...in fact my TS-E lenses give much better IQ on A7R than with current Canon bodies (the 5DS R is not available yeat). Anyway I'll wait for Sony 50MP camera instead and get better dynamic range with less money.

No, a Canon camera would lead to much more noise in a single exposure of a scene like this. Not the lens.

Hang on, a Canon FF with the the same lens as a Sony FF would capture the same amount of light and so have the same amount of shot noise. At low ISO you'd get more read noise, but whether you see that (in the dark parts of the image) is just down to how little light there is (but presumably you'd crank the ISO as it goes down) and if you pull up the shadows (which I assume you wouldn't in lens test shots).
I did like the whole lens adding noise thing though, someone should start making low-noise lenses... but probably not put a return address on the box...

Considering how m43 is stuck at 16 MP while APS-C has now reached 28mm and will probably take off from there I don't see m43 making as much inroads as you think.

A lot of buyers are hobbyists and first time buyers who will see mega-pixels above anything else.

In the interest of correctness ;
APS-C has now reached 24mm (on some).
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/news/new-rokinon-16mm-f20-wide-angle-lens-aps-c-and-micro-four-thirds

^^ What the heck are you talking about ? :P

It's amazing that how some people are not able to reply to a non aggressive comment without regressing to their troublesome adolescent years.

It is also amazing how some people feel the need to say something, anything, no matter how fatuous, when they really have nothing to say.

Are you writing in English, Samuel, or unedited iPadese?

I can't parse the result, and have little idea actually what you're trying to say. Which might be interesting, thanks.

Also, 'a couple pictures'. This kind of I'm-a-fool vernacular is simply irritating in journalism, or frankly, anywhere else. Clarity, my friend.

My apologies. After re-reading what I said, you're absolutely right.

One thing that has been mentioned about this image set is the effects this extreme field of view can have, especially when the camera isn't level. I interpreted the "uncomfortable to view" as being caused by things leaning backwards or forwards in the images, like buildings or pillars. #23 on page 2 is an example of what I had in mind. The building could have been perfectly straight with the TS-E 17. However, after re-reading jukeboxjohnnie's comment, there are some qualities to this perspective that don't apply to tilt or shift that aren't as big of an effect in, as they mentioned, a 16-21 mm range FOV. 08 on page #1 is another image that has been mentioned as too wide and awkward. True, it isn't a flattering image, but I was practically leaning on one of the workshop desks with the front element of the lens being just about in between the two cars. Squeezing in like that is the "new realm" I mentioned.

...this limit is really dumb, #2 here of 3)

He'd moved to Alaska and started a paper there (think he moved back out). His choice for wide angle was a mild fisheye Canon, on a 10D if I remember.

This actually gave wonderful shots for many of his subjects, indoors or out. I remember an extended family dinner, a basketball team, and group of fishermen showing off their very large salmon. Also a boat along a shore, other things. The look looked right, perhaps because it was something like what our eyes actually see and correct for; don't know, but it worked. It probably helped not to have to spend time on postprocessing also, if you think about it, and caught a lot of interesting details.

I was interested enough to try some work with a Sigma and one of their fisheyes on loan from a friend as we walked around interesting places in Basel one afternoon.

(also cont'd)

not really.

there's a few UWA's that cost similar or more.

and btw, Samyang did - it's the 14mm 2.8.

I'm aware of the 14mm Samyang. What they don't have is a rectilinear 11mm or 12mm prime, but I do see that coming as they already make them for mirrorless formats (a 10mm and 12mm)

$3400 for a *sharp-in-the-corners* 11mm FF lens is a bargain.

Samyang won't do one, it is out of their price league. It cannot be made cheap because there are too many technical burdens to be overcome (aspherical, super ED, coating etc.). Nikon's 13mm Holy Grail was *much* more expensive, Sigma's 12mm isn't useful in the corners. Maybe, Sigma could do a 11mm Art now, but it won't come cheap.

Samyang's 10mm are cropped which is easy to do. In the affordable range anyway, it may be better to use a fisheye lens and convert to rectilinear in software (as pano software does). However, it still does lead to blurry corners when going to extreme UWA.

Yes, it costs $1.30 Can. to buy one U.S. dollar right now. I think a lot of cross-border shopping has been curtailed!

That's what I implied. $3000 USD ~= $3900 CAD. Even with the slightly higher tax rate in most provinces, you're paying much more with cross-border shopping.

Well, if you compare to Canon itself, this is the new high.

the 17 TS-E, 16-35/4L, 11-22 EF-M, 10-18mm and now this have pretty much firmly removed any myth of canon can't do uwa's..

but yes, certainly back 7+ years ago, they weren't doing that well.

Probably, but most people are concerned about accuracy. Nikon describe their coating as "fluorine". I'd like to know why. They do use fluorite elements in some lenses for good reason and perhaps they prefer to keep their formula for their fluorine coatings a secret.
BTW I teach Chemistry!

What we're dealing with here is the marketing of cameras, so the standards for accuracy are pretty low.

well canon specifically calls it fluorine coatings.

and so does Nikon.

There are names for elements and names for molecules. First is physics, second is chemistry.

I believe it's actually a fluorinated polysiloxane, but the specific details of the functional group/s are probably proprietary. FWIW.

This is why I love this site: People argue about the periodic table!!! Keep going fellas, this is helping me remember my high school chemistry.

A flouride-coated lens might be perfect for enhanced selfies, making your teeth look whiter with one click of the shutter!

lol. You are definitely not its intended customer.

Still wider than your 8-16mm.

But not as wide as my Gezornplotz 7-14mm.

m43's 7-14mm? canon is wider..

this is the widest rectilinear camera lens created.

That was a jokie-wokie-poo. "Gezornplotz," indeed!

The moment you are willing to compromise on quality by mentioning APS-C that means you aren't the intended buyer for this.

Stitching is a big pain in the ass and I have given up on it. Prefer to get it as right as possible in the field itself than spend hours at home stitching.

Of course I am not gonna buy this lens either but if I had a ton of money I would as I appreciate UWA lenses for their creative distortions.

This is NOT a lens for penny pincher's like us. This is for people who want the best and are willing to pay for it.

I don't follow...
Are you saying that the 15mm Canon fisheye covers a greater angle of view and doesn't distort as much as this Canon 11-24?
So... If I crop the central part of the Canon 15mm (which is heavily distorted) it will no longer be distorted???

My line about distortion being for circular fisheye was about my personal choice. ie. If you're gonna have distortion just go all the way and make it full circular.