rf 16mm 2.8 - Raw Images (Normal Distance + Closeup)

Nando81 wrote:

Karl_Guttag wrote:

crusliq wrote:

I added some pictures with different focus distances (13cm, 15cm, 20cm, 50cm and 120cm).

For me it seems to get ok at 50cm and then good at 120cm.

Thanks.

Looking at the images they are a mess in the corners at 13cm. Even at f8, the image looks pretty messy in the corners. While they get "sharper" at f8, but it looks like there are double images in the corners. As I wrote before, not many people are using a wide-angle lens from 13cm.

At 50cm the lens is becoming ....

Thanks for that analysis, super useful. It may make a decent landscape lens then, which is what I'm after (most of the time shooting mostly F8-F11 with subjects no closer than 1.2m)

With the "common person's standard zooms" (rf 24-105 f4/STM or rf24-240) going down to 24mm, this looks like it is going to be very popular for people not willing to spend for a 14-35/15-25 L lens. Combined with the good things I see about the RF100-400 IS USM and with just three lenses, one can have a pretty good kit without breaking the bank for L lenses.  Cameras today have so much more resolution than people need based on their typical output that one can just "crop zoom" or "foot zoom" with the 16mm to fill the gap from 16-24. I got into this topic because my first reaction to the very close-up image looked so horrible, but then I realized it was because it was taken so close.

A few words of caution:

One thing to note is an image quality price to pay for the distortion correction that may affect landscape shots. More image is squeezed into the camera sensor's pixels as you move out from the center, which will lead to an inevitable resolution loss, particularly in the corners, as the effect is non-linear.

Unlike traditional "soft lenses" in the corner where stopping down will improve the corners, stopping down does not help the resolution loss caused by distortion correction. I noticed this when playing around with the RF24-240 at 24mm, and stopping down stops helping pretty quickly.

All the RF lenses (consumer and L) I have found, except the RF50f1.8, are doing a great job of keeping contrast (low-resolution sharpness). People will typically not notice a loss of resolution in the corner as the subject is usually not in the corners.

People who shoot landscapes that want resolution across the whole frame are more likely to notice the resolution loss in the corners. Stopping down will not get the resolution back.  But once again, with today's high-resolution cameras, unless you look at the images highly blown up, it should not be a problem.