refurb 35mm f/2.0 IS, unsure if its a keeper or not, any pointers?

Couple days ago I decided to make purchase of Canon 35mm f/2 IS through canon's refurb website (was thinking about 35mm F/1.4 but couldn't justify it since I shoot as a hobby) I am not sure how much detail I should expect in this lens, it was taken indoors with only natural light, 1/125 sec, f/2.8 ISO 1000 with IS off, taken on 7D mk ii body. The only edit I did was raised the exposure in lightroom and slight increase in vibrance. Any thoughts if this is a good copy or bad? thanks in advance!

I don't get it.

thank you for the reply, what would be consider high contrast image? Love taking pictures but never got into the technical aspect of photography.

ed rader wrote:

I don't get it.

I didn't see a difference with IS on / off when using shutter speed above 100, and since I rarely shoot still photography with low shutter speed, I had it off, would IS product better image when shooting at high speed?

It's really hard to tell from this photo. A closeup of a parakeet with a 35mm (wide-angle) lens at f2.8 results in an extremely shallow depth of field, on the order of 1mm. Anything closer or further will be increasingly out of focus. Is that what you were expecting? Lens IS isn't going to help you much with a high shutter speed or with a moving parakeet. As a rule of thumb, if your shutter speed is 2x or 3x faster than 1 divided by the focal length, shutter speed is fine (for handheld, not for a moving parakeet) and does not need IS unless your hands are unusually shaky.

Colors look nice to me. Are they accurate? Canon's lenses are usually pretty good for color.

Are you disappointed with the bokeh? What were you expecting?

If you want to see if the lens is sharp, then go outside with a tripod, set up so that you are aimed straight at a brick wall from several feet away, and click. See if the bricks and mortar are sharp at the edges and the corners of the photo.

catleet2016 wrote:

thank you for the reply, what would be consider high contrast image? Love taking pictures but never got into the technical aspect of photography.

You kind of are pretty into it by debating whether to keep this lens or not depending on the sharpness of the pictures it delivers...

sleibson wrote:

It's really hard to tell from this photo. A closeup of a parakeet with a 35mm (wide-angle) lens at f2.8 results in an extremely shallow depth of field, on the order of 1mm. Anything closer or further will be increasingly out of focus. Is that what you were expecting? Lens IS isn't going to help you much with a high shutter speed or with a moving parakeet. As a rule of thumb, if your shutter speed is 2x or 3x faster than 1 divided by the focal length, shutter speed is fine (for handheld, not for a moving parakeet) and does not need IS unless your hands are unusually shaky.

Colors look nice to me. Are they accurate? Canon's lenses are usually pretty good for color.

Are you disappointed with the bokeh? What were you expecting?

If you want to see if the lens is sharp, then go outside with a tripod, set up so that you are aimed straight at a brick wall from several feet away, and click. See if the bricks and mortar are sharp at the edges and the corners of the photo.

I am not disappointed with the bokah of this lens, maybe I have too much expectation from this lens, have borrowed my friends L lens before (35m, 50mm or the 135mm) and the sharpness and clarity of lens at f2.8 are just breathtaking.

Colors on this lens are pretty good, just like any other canon lens I have experienced in the past.

Thank you for the advice with the brick wall, will update as soon as weather cooperate!

SarahBK wrote:

catleet2016 wrote:

thank you for the reply, what would be consider high contrast image? Love taking pictures but never got into the technical aspect of photography.

You kind of are pretty into it by debating whether to keep this lens or not depending on the sharpness of the pictures it delivers...

Yes, this is my first lens I bought from the canon refurbish site, I guess I am a bit skeptical being a "refurb" lens, I was lucky enough to borrow good L lens from friends before, but now want to start owning my own collection!

BAK wrote:

Put the camera on a tripod, get a high contrast subject with sharp edges, and do your tests with a bit of scientific effort.

BAK

I managed to get off work early and snapped a few pics during daytime, these pics were converted to JPEG from RAW using lightroom w/o any editing, I did some MFA +2 adjustment...

1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO100

1/1000 sec, f/2.0, ISO 100

catleet2016 wrote:

Couple days ago I decided to make purchase of Canon 35mm f/2 IS through canon's refurb website (was thinking about 35mm F/1.4 but couldn't justify it since I shoot as a hobby) I am not sure how much detail I should expect in this lens, it was taken indoors with only natural light, 1/125 sec, f/2.8 ISO 1000 with IS off, taken on 7D mk ii body. The only edit I did was raised the exposure in lightroom and slight increase in vibrance. Any thoughts if this is a good copy or bad? thanks in advance!

Too many technical problems to draw any conclusion about this particular copy of the lens. The image should be WAY sharper, but the reasons for the lack of sharpness almost certainly have to do with photographer/and or subject motion that lost focus or that introduced motion blur. Test with a more distant subject, outdoors, higher shutter speed, IS on, tripod if you can.