Oh, Dante/Petkal, Shhh: 50 f1.2

freefallu wrote in post #2217343
With the canon rep where did you intend focus.

Now that I look at it, that's a good question. I would normally focus on a person's eyes, but here it appears not to be the case. I'm sorry, but I can't say.

As I noted above, it was my model camera, but not my camera. I didn't notice at first that it was on program, something I never use.

What do you think of the last crop?

Tom W wrote in post #2217344
Looks very promising. I think that the $20 shots are hampered a bit by noise, elsewise, they'd be crisper. 1.8 looks very good, better than the 50/1.4 at that aperture. The shot of the Canon rep at 1.2 is sharp on the focus plane, and also demonstrates the shallowness of the DOF. I notice that the background highlights are rendered quite smooth wide open. This is shaping up to be a nice lens.

Pardon me while I drool.

BTW, thanks for posting these shots!

I'm going to run the $20 shots through noise ninja to see if there's a difference. I don't really know what I'm doing with that program though and was afraid it would soften them up. Let's see. I'll post them in a minute.

Ronald, I saw what you mean by the border around the glass before the lens barrel itself. It looked like there's more border on the 50 than the 35, though it could just be my old eyes at work, or not.

What the? From the pictures I've seen, there is no border around the glass on the 50. It isn't like the 85, then? Out of curiosity, did you get any shots OF the lens?

Last shot looks sharp, though the crop is a bit small. I note that the OOF highlights do have a very slight hardness to the edge, but many, if not most lenses have a degree of that (you should see the 28-105 USM wide open). I didn't see it on closer shots, so it may be something unique to the distance at which you were shooting.

This lens at f/1.2 easily outperforms the 50/1.4 at f/1.4. I'd venture to say that it is as sharp as f/1.2 as my 50/1.4 is at f/1.8 or f/2. I'll need to see more testing, but I'm liking what I see so far. And it definately renders smoother background blur.

Tom, when you say the crop is small, please tell me how to make it larger.

I don't really know how to do that. I'm zooming the original shot to 100 percent and cropping a part of it. Should I just make the cropped portion larger?

Also, I ran the $20 shot through noise ninja and just posted those on the same pbase link.

thanks
mark

As Ronald says its nice to be able to get anything at F1.2 And while the DOF is so thin its hard to do a lens justice i think its touch soft close up... too soft.. probably not for most. The canon rep picture: 69708626 , it looks like the back of his head is in focus , im not questioning your skills , to be focussed there youd have to be using an outlying spot or have recomposed oddly. This softness is apparent in the dollar bill also ( besides the noise )

Maybe becuase of the L and the price tag and a touch of inexperience my expectation is too high. I really did expect at 1.2 on the L to go " Holy *** i want one ". I do feel that with the 85 L Mk2 . Oddly though i had always consoled myself regarding my mushy F1.4 at distance that i was less likely to use it in that way, maybe thats a mindset that in this light im gonna be close. Give this lens a bit of distance, or close it down a stop or two and it shapes up nicely seems to me.

It would be tough to question my skills, as I have very little skill.:o

As to the noise, check out the $20 that I just ran through noise ninja.

People are probably going to say that the $20 bill shot isn't good at all. I find it to be acceptably sharp, and while you weren't perfectly parallel (hard to do) and he's twisting the bill ever so slightly, there's a lot of bokehed portions of the bill. That said, the sharp parts look fine.

Ronald S. Jr. wrote in post #2217367
What the? From the pictures I've seen, there is no border around the glass on the 50. It isn't like the 85, then? Out of curiosity, did you get any shots OF the lens?

I don't believe I did. Pretty dumb, no? I'm quite positive there's a border around it, and quite large at that. I was surprised to see that. I expected the front element to be way larger than it is.

If I'm wrong, accept my apology, but I don't think I am.

The lens barrel looks like a baby 85L, but not the front.

In fact, this was the first time I had ever laid eyes on the 35L, and it looks larger and nicer than the 50. I didn't try it though. I didn't need another lens in the back of my head calling me.

wow. thats made a big difference, get rid of the noise and it does look good. Again as Ronald has said the DOF is so thin on the dollar that its easy for it to be soft in patches. Mmhh .. when i think more .. me likey.. Gonna have to be spot on with the focus.

Is this 50 something you're interested in? I don't imagine it is. The 35L is just plain dreamy. It's a perfect size, with a smooth, comfortable focus ring (having a big viewfinder, I love to MF when I have the time), and it's so sharp, colorful, and contrasty, it blows my mind sometimes. That 70-300 can kiss my a**. You don't need it. The 35L is just plain awesome.

MDJAK wrote in post #2217386
Tom, when you say the crop is small, please tell me how to make it larger.

I don't really know how to do that. I'm zooming the original shot to 100 percent and cropping a part of it. Should I just make the cropped portion larger?

I think that what's happened is that the shots you got may not be large JPEG. Are the shots on PBase full-sized or reduced from the original? If they're the full original size, then you won't get a closer crop. If not, I dunno.

At any rate, the crop looks pretty sharp.

The noise reduction helped. There's a small bit of softness on the left side of the bill, but the detail is generally there. It's a very difficult shot, as you have to hold the bill at exactly parallel to the sensor plane to get it perfect. Not easy to do when the camera and the bill are both handheld!

I really want to give one of these a test run.

freefallu wrote in post #2217389
Maybe becuase of the L and the price tag and a touch of inexperience my expectation is too high. I really did expect at 1.2 on the L to go " Holy *** i want one ". I do feel that with the 85 L Mk2 .

I think that in a more controlled situation, the "Holy Poop" reaction would occur. There's a lot that can be done when there's a bit of time and preparation involved.

Ronald S. Jr. wrote in post #2217407
People are probably going to say that the $20 bill shot isn't good at all. I find it to be acceptably sharp, and while you weren't perfectly parallel (hard to do) and he's twisting the bill ever so slightly, there's a lot of bokehed portions of the bill. That said, the sharp parts look fine.

I agree, but you've said it better. "Bokehed portions" - heh, never thought of that.

Tom W wrote in post #2217420
I think that what's happened is that the shots you got may not be large JPEG. Are the shots on PBase full-sized or reduced from the original? If they're the full original size, then you won't get a closer crop. If not, I dunno.

As usual, you hit the nail on the head.

I just realized in camera raw, if you change the original size (which in my case is almost 16 mp, when you reopen camera raw that is probably the only control that stays changed.

You're right. I downsized them all to like 1.3mp in order to upload manageable files.

Sorry about that.