Canon 17-40mm L, sharpness ok?

Hey everybody,

A few days ago i bought a new 17-40mm L UW Lens, but I´m very dissapointed about the sharpness.
Is the blurriness at the edge and the corners normal for this lens?

Sorry for the silly question but this is my firs UW, 90% of my pictures were taken with the 70-200 f2.8 and this thing is razorsharp (Yes i know its a Tele).

Orginal Raws, out of the cam!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9r2ka4n8pn63hhb/g15WdQb8VX

Thanks!

DrShouter wrote:

Hey everybody,

A few days ago i bought a new 17-40mm L UW Lens, but I´m very dissapointed about the sharpness.
Is the blurriness at the edge and the corners normal for this lens?

Sorry for the silly question but this is my firs UW, 90% of my pictures were taken with the 70-200 f2.8 and this thing is razorsharp (Yes i know its a Tele).

Orginal Raws, out of the cam!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9r2ka4n8pn63hhb/g15WdQb8VX

Thanks!

Your copy looks very good, it makes me want to buy the lens. DxOMark rated this lens as very good for the size/money. Wonderful when stopped down as you did in these RAWs.

There is nothing wrong with the corners, you are likely confused about wide angle distortion and used to telephoto distortion. Extension vs Compression.

Some of the blurriness is likely due to shutter speed and moving carriage. You may think the shutter speed is enough to freeze anything at such a wide focal length but again consider the properties of the UWA...subjects that move around in the center of the frame will shift pixels at a far slower rate compared to those that move near the edge or corners of your frame (at a rather high rate of movement across the pixels of your sensor).  You can prove this by just taking video at 17mm and examining movement across the frame...I bet movement at borders/corners will shift faster than center...

Although it is the f11 shots that look good...your impromptu paper chart is meaningless with the UWA as 99% chance your test is wrong just looking at your taped up scissor cut test chart...

I would be more interested in seeing real photo UWA's taken at say f8 to really see if your copy is good, or even f5.6

The 17-40 is not the sharpest lens, but it is cheaper than the 16-35 which is not stellar, either (compared to say the 17 TSE or the Zeiss 21). Primes are the way to go for serious landscape. Well, panos taken with the 24-70II look pretty good, too. I have a few of those in my gallery.

I've heard that the DLO feature of DPP does a good job of improving pictures taken with the 17-40. You might try that out.

I know what you mean by the sharpness of the 70-200. It is a spoiler, and what led me to dump the 24-105 for the 24-70II.
--
- Bill

DrShouter wrote:

Hey everybody,

A few days ago i bought a new 17-40mm L UW Lens, but I´m very dissapointed about the sharpness.
Is the blurriness at the edge and the corners normal for this lens?

Sorry for the silly question but this is my firs UW, 90% of my pictures were taken with the 70-200 f2.8 and this thing is razorsharp (Yes i know its a Tele).

Orginal Raws, out of the cam!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9r2ka4n8pn63hhb/g15WdQb8VX

Thanks!

Return it ASAP if possible, on FX very pronounced distortion and soft corners.

Even when I had a 40D, XTi, this was my impression also...EFS 60mm f2.8, much better, the 135mm f2 I would buy it again but the 17-40mm, maybe my copy was just "okay" but "nothing to write home about"..

Never been really happy with my 17-40 (on FF), soft outside the center, gets better when stopped down but never sharp in the corners.

You nailed it.

Return the 17-40L. Wait till Canon comes out with a great UW zoom...

...in the meantime, pick up an EF-M 11-22 IS STM (on an M), and make that your UW shooter.

DrShouter wrote:

Hey everybody,

A few days ago i bought a new 17-40mm L UW Lens, but I´m very dissapointed about the sharpness.
Is the blurriness at the edge and the corners normal for this lens?

10 Minutes of research would have told you that this is not the sharpest L lens and especially corner sharpness is not its strength. Even at f8 and beyond it never gets really sharp. The 16-35L II is better but also this one is not the sharpest in the corners but a bit better.

The 17-40 is often blurry in the corners if you use autofocus for objects further away.  The lens focuses correctly, but that's often too far for the near corners to be sharp.  Try experimenting with manually focusing and I bet you'll find they get better.

I've found the lens is best at f11, where if focused properly it's quite sharp into the extreme corners (a good copy anyway).

polizonte wrote:

You nailed it.

Returned mine, got the 16-35 F2.8L, not perfect but a lot better.

Nikon is stronger in the wide end lenses I think, but the 16-35 has better corners, color and contrast than the 17-40 for me. YMMV.

Here is a site that shows images taken with the Canon 17-40 f/4 L USM lens. Browse through them and you may get an idea of its capabilities. Most show the exif data.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/_canon_17-40_f4l_usm/

Jon Tr wrote:

Never been really happy with my 17-40 (on FF), soft outside the center, gets better when stopped down but never sharp in the corners.

Same with me.

Next came Sigma 12-24, and finally Nikkor 14-24. Sharp at last.