16-35 Mk 1 question

Hi guys and girls,

Some months ago i purchased my 24-70mm 2.8 (Mk 1) for my 5Dmk2.
I love it, despite all the reviews saying, that the mk2 is much sharper, etc...
As I suspected, in the field, the 24-70 Mk1 performs superbly on my 5D2,
mostly I can't tell the difference even 100% zoomed in, between the 70-200 IS II and the 24-70.

So now I am planning to buy a 16-35 f/2.8 Mk1, to hade a super-wide angle zoom, for some landscapes.
I pland for the Mk 1 since I do believe I would not really use it too often, and it still has a 77mm filter, with f2.8, wich I can then use with my other lenses also.

I read some reviews, about it saying it has soft corners at 2.8 - 5.6

Now the question would be, in real life situations (not on test chats), exactly how bad it is?!
Is it really that bad, or people just complain, instead of going out and shoot?
I am a photographer interested in the picture itself, and do not care about pixel peeping.

I would appreciate answers from those who actuall have, (or had) that lens.

NOTE: I am NOT interested in the the Mk2 vesion.

Thank you in advance.

The mark 2 suffers from soft-ish corners too, so i expect the mark 1 to behave really bad. I only own the v2 though.

What about getting the new 16-35 f/4 ? It has a 4 stop IS and promises to be nice and sharp. Its also not as expensive as the 16-35 2.8 when it was new...

The new 16-35mm f/4L IS USM has 77mm threads. The MTF look bunches better than the 17-40, and it is cheaper than the 16-35 II. Just a thought.

I'm happy with my one. I'd swear the photo's got better after an incident where the lens/camera/tripod fell over from eye-level onto concrete (smashing the filter...)

Thanks guys, the new f4 IS is that, f/4.
IS does not do any good on a tripod, but f/2.8 does, when shooting in the dark.

NemethR wrote in post #16930444
Thanks guys, the new f4 IS is that, f/4.
IS does not do any good on a tripod, but f/2.8 does, when shooting in the dark.

When on a tripod, you can use f/8 because its stabilized longer shutter speeds are possible??

davidfarina wrote in post #16930614
When on a tripod, you can use f/8 because its stabilized longer shutter speeds are possible??

True, but sometimes I only want a shoter shutter speed.

I owned the ver. I of the 16-35 and upgraded to the ver. II when I went full frame. The biggest difference is the at the edges. I liked mine and would recommend it over the 17-40. I think they can be bought pretty cheap these days with Canon offering two newer versions.

why do you lose your time looking at Canon?
I had 17-40, 16-35I, 16-35II, 17-40 back and finally ended with the TOKINA 16-28 2.8L BOMB!
I especially put the L after it, as it's better than all Canon's L UWA's!
Check the reviews, priceless glass!!

I thought I'd go find one of my past travel images and show the the 16-35mm potential (not the II, but the first un"Mark" version. From the raw file I cropped the left image of the frame. I shot this at f11--let's face it, very little of any shooting is done exclusively at the widest aperture. In these examples, the edge sample is only lightened, which easily shows the sharpness or lack theerof, plus CA. The other, full frame on 5D II I used shadow/highlight and sharpening. In the Italian sun the shadows are much stronger.

As you can see, the peripheral areas in the wide angle perspective generally are not as import as whatever is in the foreground. Then there is distortion which, if you correct it, loses most of those sides anyway.

Thank you Advaitin, this is exactly an answer I was looking for.

To continue, at f2.8 and 16mm, the depth of field for closer objects can be mighty thin. The first image is unedited except for resizing. The second image is cropped, distortion corrected (up to a point) and edited, but since the camera was not precisely level and straight with the front of the statuary, you can tell that the lace work goes out of focus to the left. Handheld at 1/20s at f2.8, this about the limit of my abilities. A tripod would have been better.

Thank you very much, I think the Mk1 16-35 will be just fine, as far as I see your pictures. Also, the 24-70 Mk1 is a stunning lens too, I doubt the 16-35 would not be.