Unique lens

Felipe Rodríguez wrote:

Pros: Uniqueness, sharpness, overall image quality, build quality, lack of CA, lack of distortion, wideness.
Cons: Expensive, wideness (sometimes...), unprotected frontal element, no filters.

This is a truly unique lens: I'm glad Canon did it! With it, Canon shooters can achieve certain imagery that no other people using SRLs can...

The image quality is simply stunning. After using it, all my other TS-E lenses (the 24 Mk I and even the 45) seem lemons.

Of course, corner sharpness, if shifted/tilted, is not the same, but anyway the images are amazing.

It's very hard to hand hold the lens, even with an appropriate focus screen, but, well, any serious architectural work can hardly be done without a tripod...

Congratulations on your purchase of a truly great lens, Felipe.   I bought one recently and got a 6D to use it with.   It doubles as a 26mm tilt shift on my 60D, but is limited on it's shift range because of the built in flash.   I wonder if there is a practical way to remove the flash.

I do mostly architectural and landscape / cityscape photos, both for fun and for my real estate business as well as a few for other brokers.    I originally intended to use my 10-22 on the 60D for ordinary properties and the 17 for special shots, high end properties, or artistic shots.

Then I had a tripod accident with the 60D ad 10-22 and had to use the 17 for some ordinary property shots.   I got used to it after doing about a house and a half with it, and now it's not much more trouble to use at all.   The effect of the shift on basic interiors is dramatic.

I will fix the 10-22, but I may not use it as much.   As you said, using the 17 hand held is difficult.   Maybe I'll use it hand held more and get used to that, though.   There are times you want to walk throughout without a tripod and get snap shots of what you see but still need the width.

I looked at your shots where you used the tilt to affect the DOF.   Very interesting shots.  I have yet to use the tilt.   I shoot it on Av at f10 focused on infinity, and everything is sharp.

I like pretty pictures as much as the next guy, but I have to thoroughly document the properties I photograph, so I take some really mundane pictures.  As mundane as some rooms are, I want to make them look as good as I can.   Here is and example of what the 17 can do for the even the most mundane room in the house.

Better looking more complex rooms can hide the distortion, and unfortunately, I don't have two that are as similar.  Still the improvement is well worth the effort.

The quality of the photographs makes a big difference in the number of calls you get for the property.