I have been wanting a mid-length tilt and shift lens for both my food and architectural work and was considering the Canon 90MM 2.8 TS-E lens. This lens is of an old film-era design and has certain weaknesses that become apparent with high resolution digital sensors.
I did a review of the Schneider on my blog and of course if you are interested, I invite you to read the full article at
www.foto-gizmo.blogspot.com
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Here is a summary of the important points of the review.
The Canon lens has a 58MM image circle, the Schneider, 72MM. The Canon is chipped, fully integrated to the Canon bodies. You have use of AE modes if you would like and the lens, as most today do, has an auto-diaphragm, the Schneider does not. You must manually focus the lens with the aperture wide open and then stop down for your exposure. While this may be inconvenient, the nature of the work done with this lens does not require speed. While the Schneider is not chipped and provides no EXIF data, it can be used AE in aperture preferred mode, and auto bracketing of shutter speed can be implemented.
The fit, finish, and build quality of the German made Schneider is near perfect. The adjustment rings feel more robust than the Canon's little knobs and the action is smooth. The lens is in a class by itself and costs 2 1/2 times the price of a new Canon 90MM TS-E. Given what I have seen of the color rendering and resolution, it is worth it.
