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Sharpest lenses for textures?

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GoranS

GoranS

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I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no object. I do some research by myself, but this is based only on Canon specifications and MTF charts. Of course, I need opinion from experienced photographer.

Lenses would be attached on 10D body and I'm going to picture some high detailed textures of wall, ground, grass and so on... No need for speed lenses, just sharpness.
--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
 
GoranS said:
I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in
range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no
object. I do some research by myself, but this is based only on
Canon specifications and MTF charts. Of course, I need opinion from
experienced photographer.
Lenses would be attached on 10D body and I'm going to picture some
high detailed textures of wall, ground, grass and so on... No need
for speed lenses, just sharpness.
--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
Click to expand...
--
Regards,
DaveMart

Please see profile for equipment
 
Canon 50/1.8 is very sharp, dont be fooled by the low price, it has excellent optics. The AF is a little slow and noisy but your textures wont run away, so that shouldnt be a problem :-)

You can download a sample from the 50/1.4 at



; the 50/1.8 is as good as the 50/1.4, maybe a tack sharper even.
 
GoranS said:
I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in
range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no
object.
Click to expand...
In that range the answer is very easy: one of the three 50mm lenses, the 1.4 or 1.8 or 2.5 / 50. My recommendation is the 2.5/50 macro, it may have a slight edge over the others for your job. Be prepared to stop down to at least f=5.6 for best corner-to-corner results, better f=8 or f=11, but not more because diffraction will set in.

The two 35mm lenses (2.0 and 1.4 L) are an alternative but none of the wider angle lenses by Canon are any good. Forget about the WA-zooms alltogether.

If you weren't limited to max. 50mm I would recommend the 2.8/100 Macro for textures - it doesn't get better than this (except the 135 L which is limited to 90 cm as minimum focusing distance).

Since the 10D has a rather strong AA filter you must be prepared to apply some post-production sharpening to bring out the textures. Fred Miranda's sharpening actions can do that without producing ugly halos. http: www.fredmiranda.com/actions

Hope this helps.

Ciao
Stefan
 
p5freak said:
Canon 50/1.8 is very sharp, dont be fooled by the low price, it has
excellent optics. The AF is a little slow and noisy but your
textures wont run away, so that shouldnt be a problem :-)
Click to expand...
Definitely wont run away :) and definitely I'll buy that lens, only need some wider angle like Canon 24/2.8 . Have you some sample with wider angle except those with Tamron which I saw on your link.
--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
 
smoody said:
All of the primes in that range are great. Texture is all about
lighting, not the lens.

I just recommended this book in another thread, but it's worth
mentioning again:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0240802756/qid=1053869877/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-4662248-9125553?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Click to expand...
Thanx SMoody, that is probably great book, but don't help me to choose best lens for my purpose. Of course it's all about lighting but I need best tool to capture that moment :) I don't want to invest in bunch of lenses which I'll never use.
--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
 
Goran, without a doubt I'd recommend the 50mm macro. I shoot textures for a living and the 50mm is so sharp you'll cut yourself :P

I work with the sat and sharp settings turned off - even then I need apply zero USM to the majority of the images I shoot.

I've never owned the 1.4 or 1.8 primes but there are plenty of samples on this site. Not too many of the macro though.

So by comparing everything that I see on here and what I'm achieving with the 50mm macro I assure you that you won't be disappointed for texture work.

Cheers!
Stefan Schott said:
GoranS said:
I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in
range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no
object.
Click to expand...
In that range the answer is very easy: one of the three 50mm
lenses, the 1.4 or 1.8 or 2.5 / 50. My recommendation is the 2.5/50
macro, it may have a slight edge over the others for your job. Be
prepared to stop down to at least f=5.6 for best corner-to-corner
results, better f=8 or f=11, but not more because diffraction will
set in.

The two 35mm lenses (2.0 and 1.4 L) are an alternative but none of
the wider angle lenses by Canon are any good. Forget about the
WA-zooms alltogether.

If you weren't limited to max. 50mm I would recommend the 2.8/100
Macro for textures - it doesn't get better than this (except the
135 L which is limited to 90 cm as minimum focusing distance).

Since the 10D has a rather strong AA filter you must be prepared to
apply some post-production sharpening to bring out the textures.
Fred Miranda's sharpening actions can do that without producing
ugly halos. http: www.fredmiranda.com/actions

Hope this helps.

Ciao
Stefan
Click to expand...
--
ma g ~ D60 70-200L f4 : 50mm f2.5 macro
 
Stefan Schott said:
GoranS said:
I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in
range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no
object.
Click to expand...
In that range the answer is very easy: one of the three 50mm
lenses, the 1.4 or 1.8 or 2.5 / 50. My recommendation is the 2.5/50
macro, it may have a slight edge over the others for your job. Be
prepared to stop down to at least f=5.6 for best corner-to-corner
results, better f=8 or f=11, but not more because diffraction will
set in.

The two 35mm lenses (2.0 and 1.4 L) are an alternative but none of
the wider angle lenses by Canon are any good. Forget about the
WA-zooms alltogether.

If you weren't limited to max. 50mm I would recommend the 2.8/100
Macro for textures - it doesn't get better than this (except the
135 L which is limited to 90 cm as minimum focusing distance).

Since the 10D has a rather strong AA filter you must be prepared to
apply some post-production sharpening to bring out the textures.
Fred Miranda's sharpening actions can do that without producing
ugly halos. http: www.fredmiranda.com/actions

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Stephan you gave mi best answer, following your advice and my needs I'll definitely buy 50/f2.5 macro and 35/f2.0 also 50/f1.8 for backup, too cheap, too good to resist :) .

About sharpening, I come from digital side so digital imaging and post production process is not my problem. Anyway, Fred Miranda has some genius solutions...

--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
 
GoranS said:
Stephan you gave mi best answer, following your advice and my needs
I'll definitely buy 50/f2.5 macro and 35/f2.0 also 50/f1.8 for
backup, too cheap, too good to resist :) .
Click to expand...
That's right - some really good value for money here. Although I would recommend the 1.4/50 as a "backup" to the macro because it has USM, which the 1.8 doesn't. I find that USM is highly addictive and makes the 1.4 slightly faster (and very quiet), therefore it may be a better all-around lens. Just don't ever use it at f=1.4 ;-)

Ciao
Stefan
 
That's at least where you should start. Probably avoid the 24/1.4L, unless you really need it. On that note, avoid any lens 24 mm or wider. It's too bad 50 is as long as you want to go; Canon's lenses get sharper as they get longer.

You might want to look at their TS-E lenses, if you're shooting for perfection...
 
ma g said:
Goran, without a doubt I'd recommend the 50mm macro. I shoot
textures for a living and the 50mm is so sharp you'll cut yourself
:P

I work with the sat and sharp settings turned off - even then I
need apply zero USM to the majority of the images I shoot.

I've never owned the 1.4 or 1.8 primes but there are plenty of
samples on this site. Not too many of the macro though.

So by comparing everything that I see on here and what I'm
achieving with the 50mm macro I assure you that you won't be
disappointed for texture work.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Mark, can you show me a sample of this razor blade sharpness, and if you ever use Life-Size converter for 50/f2.5 is it possible to degrade sharpness?

Thanx!

--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
 
Stefan Schott said:
GoranS said:
Stephan you gave mi best answer, following your advice and my needs
I'll definitely buy 50/f2.5 macro and 35/f2.0 also 50/f1.8 for
backup, too cheap, too good to resist :) .
Click to expand...
That's right - some really good value for money here. Although I
would recommend the 1.4/50 as a "backup" to the macro because it
has USM, which the 1.8 doesn't. I find that USM is highly addictive
and makes the 1.4 slightly faster (and very quiet), therefore it
may be a better all-around lens. Just don't ever use it at f=1.4 ;-)
Click to expand...
Yes, f1.4 USM is better choice but, I just discovered Life-Size Converter for 50/f2.5 :), do you have any experience with it? "Forrest" recommended me a TS-E but I don't want to exceed $1500 budget for lenses, at least in beginning.
--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
 
GoranS said:
I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in
range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no
object.
Click to expand...
These shots were just taken a few moments ago to help you with your quest.

This first shot is the back of a salad plate, depression era glass. The back of the plate has the texture imprinted in the glass as opposed to etched in the glass.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1514741

The shot was handheld using available light coming from the sliding glass door to my right. It's a sunny day with clouds. Exit Info, 1/15th, f/4.0, ISO 100 on a D30.

This second shot was just outside the front door, with the Sun above and too the left in the Southern sky, Northern Hemisphere:-) Blue skies, fluffy white clouds.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1514748

The wood is well aged, with peeling stain for excellent texturing. Exit info; 1/250th @ f/8.0.

Hopefully these two images will help you. Image quality wise, I'd go with the 35mm, f/2.0 as opposed to the 20mm, f/2.8. I needed a wider lens and overall, the 20mm f/2.8 filled the bill nicely.

Canon MTF charts, listed below.

http://www.usa.canon.com/eflenses/lenses/ef_20_28/ef_20_28mtf.html

http://www.usa.canon.com/eflenses/lenses/ef_35_2/ef_35_2mtf.html

Hope this is all useful in answering your question.
 
Hi Goran,

I can't testify to the sharpness of the TS-Es, but there's two things I'll add:
  • If you live in the US, you can get the TS-E lenses is less than $1100.
  • If you are capturing highly-reflective textures, you can use the shift feature to remove the reflection of the camera from the texture and still have it look like it was shot straight-on.
                            • -- - - - - - - - - - - - SMoody
http://www.pbase.com/smoody
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 
From your specs I would recommend any of the three 50s particularly the 2.5 macro for your application. Next would be either the 1.4 or 2.0 35mm. I have been very happy with the sharpness of the 35/2. As you go wider than this in my experience you loose sharpness. I believe it is largely due to limitations of the SLR design which forces lenses to be relatively far from the film plane to accomadate the mirror movement. This distance forces less than optimal optical designs for WA lenses, a big reason Leica lenses perform so well, it is more than just the glass.

==PeterF==
GoranS said:
I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in
range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no
object. I do some research by myself, but this is based only on
Canon specifications and MTF charts. Of course, I need opinion from
experienced photographer.
Lenses would be attached on 10D body and I'm going to picture some
high detailed textures of wall, ground, grass and so on... No need
for speed lenses, just sharpness.
--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
Click to expand...
 
Just a guess here that you are using the textures for something like 3d modeling and rendering, where you will be tiling the textures. If that is the case, I would definitely recommend shooting with one of the macro lenses. I may be not remembering the term correctly, but I think its flat field, which is one of the features of the macro lenses. The advantage of this is elimination of barrel distortion and pincushioning. A tiled texture from a lens with either kind of distortion, regardless of its sharpness, would exhibit undesireable patterns. (I occasionally shoot textures for my wife's 3d work)

Dan
http://www.pbase.com/digital_edge
GoranS said:
I'm having hard time to choose, I need super sharp Canon lenses, in
range of 20mm - 50mm primes, what is the best option, money is no
object. I do some research by myself, but this is based only on
Canon specifications and MTF charts. Of course, I need opinion from
experienced photographer.
Lenses would be attached on 10D body and I'm going to picture some
high detailed textures of wall, ground, grass and so on... No need
for speed lenses, just sharpness.
--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
Click to expand...
--
I must be a photographer - I keep running around in circles of confusion.
 
Goran, I don't have a web site so I can't back up my outlandish claims!

However, the need for a compact macro that I could keep on the camera - something that would double up as not only a great portrait lens (fov equivalent 80mm) but also be used as a general purpose lens was the deciding factor for me to go with the 50 rather that the 100mm.

You see I use the lens mainly for visual effects texture work. Be it either skies or the bark of a tree or a macro shot of a spiders web I prefer the wider fov.

Image quality is vital to me and I always have a grin when viewing the results from the little o macro.

I haven't used the life size converter as life size isn't as important to me. I hear that if you're after life-size and don't mind the longer lens then the 100mm USM is unbeatable.

Cheers!
GoranS said:
ma g said:
Goran, without a doubt I'd recommend the 50mm macro. I shoot
textures for a living and the 50mm is so sharp you'll cut yourself
:P

I work with the sat and sharp settings turned off - even then I
need apply zero USM to the majority of the images I shoot.

I've never owned the 1.4 or 1.8 primes but there are plenty of
samples on this site. Not too many of the macro though.

So by comparing everything that I see on here and what I'm
achieving with the 50mm macro I assure you that you won't be
disappointed for texture work.

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Mark, can you show me a sample of this razor blade sharpness, and
if you ever use Life-Size converter for 50/f2.5 is it possible to
degrade sharpness?

Thanx!

--
Best Regards,
Goran S.
Click to expand...
--
ma g ~ D60 70-200L f4 : 50mm f2.5 macro
 
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