Canon Tilt Shift Lens - 24L, 45, or 90

Im trying to decide on a tilt shift lens. Ive been facinated with these lens for quite some time but never really got a chance to put one to the test.

Ive seen samples of what they can do, and its pretty amazing.

From what I read, the 90mm TS has the best optics, even on the 24L...

I really dont want all 3 of them lol, but what does it come down to? Application and what you use the focal length for?

Which one would you pick and why?

I voted for the 90mm Lens, because I THINK it might be the best for what I want to do. I really screwed myself picking a 90mm for landscape and architecture (I think) since its more of a tele focal length. But I really wanted something for product, portrait, and studio use.

Would you have picked something different? Would the 45mm be the most versatile pick?

Problem is, I cant have all 3 lol.

In addition to my argument...

I understand the DOF part of the tilt shift lens, and how it can be super useful for product or creative photography.

But for stuff like landscape or architecture shots, cant perspective distortion be corrected inside Photoshop using free transform instead? This is one reason I tent to stay away from the TS-24...

I've wrestled with this for a long time also. I too have been fascinated by these lenses and always wanted one.

Don't know which one to pick either. For me, though, it would definitely be between the 24 and 45 and more than likely would be the 24.

I know I haven't helped you any. Just wanted to let you know I share your conundrum.

One thing that worries me, though, would be a lack of time, and talent, to use one. I'd hate to have it just sit around basically unused.

mark

What exactly is a Tilt Shift Lens? I've seen them listed -and their price tag, but have never known exactly what the advantage was.

They can shift the plane of focus in a way that you can get awesome DOF in close up shots. You can kinda take that narrow plane of focus when you're close to your subject and kinda lay it down. Make sense?

You can also tilt the perspective so that in those architecture shots and such, the buildings don't look like they're about to fall over!

Downside is, they're manual focus. That's the only neg., though.

The 5D and TS-E24L is what the Architects need, so, what better excuse.

BTW - both Canon extenders work on all TS-E lenses.

That's interesting, will the exif data on a picture reveal if the lens was a tilt shift?

Nah...it'll just say 24mm or whatever, I believe.

Of course, my 24-70L says "24-70mm f/2.8L" in the exif on a 5D, so..

get the 24 just 'cause it's an L!

I'd get the 45 for portraits. The 90 is too much on a crop and 24 is good for landscapes and what not but 45 is just right. For me anyways. Someday I'll get to experiment with one.

My vote is for the TS-E 90... I would love one of these for product shots.

StealthLude wrote in post #3071021
... But for stuff like landscape or architecture shots, cant perspective distortion be corrected inside Photoshop using free transform instead? ...

Yes, you can correct in Photoshop, but consider that there are two disadvantages to this: first, you are stretching the image during the correction (this interpolation will reduce detail in the stretched area), and second you will not be able to get the same coverage due to the need to crop the keystone shape back to a rectangular image (i.e. you will need something wider than 24 mm in order to "replicate" the results of the TS-E 24 L).

I voted 24mm, because I dig wide lenses. Landscape, city-scape, architecture, that's what I'd use this for, I have other gear that'll handle product stuff.

_aravena wrote in post #3071110
get the 24 just 'cause it's an L!

This is downright lame advice. The only reason the 24 is an L, is because it is a remarkable technical achievement. This holds for some other L lenses too, like the 28-300. It's hard to make an acceptable wideangle TS lens, I could explain this, but it would take quite some time - just trust me. Being L doesn't mean sh*t in this case. The other TS-E's are way better, but not wideangles.
The 45 and 90 have the same build quality, and their optical performance is much better than that of the 24 TS-E. The 24 is not bad, but clearly the worst of the lot. Of course, shifting makes most sense at this focal length, tilting the least compared to the others. Remember that ALL TS-E lenses are manual focus only. The E (electronic) means that they have an electronic diaphragm and they report to the camera to fill your EXIF data, help the flash, etc.

The tilt function means you can change the angle of your focal plane, the shift function allows perspective correction just like the lens distortion filter in PhotoShop, but then the hardware way.
The tilt function cannot be mimicked by software. With the tilt function you can, for example, photograph stuff on a table top from an angle with shallow DOF and align the focal plane with the table surface.
With the shift function you can photograph e.g. a building close-up without te typical wide-angle 'fall-over' look, but with 90 degree walls and constant width. These photo's still look weird though (= the effect can easily be overdone), because the upper part still looks like it's photographed from below, while the perspective doesn't match this.

These are truly specialty lenses. Don't buy any of these unless you're absolutely sure about what you want to do with it. They are all very different and dont share much purposes. I don't see any use for one of these (as some mentioned) for portrait photography. The poll between the three is like: what do you recommend? Trains, apples or girl's magazines?

It was sarcasm. That's what the smilie afterwards was and the why I said I'd get the 45 for portraits using the tilt features.

Good grief

I started with the first one I could find used.
The 90mm.
On a crop body I might suggest you start with the 45 though as it's a ~70mm there. I had a 1.3 camera when I got the 90mm and felt it was a tad too long at times. The 24mm is last on my list, but it's "next". They are dead sexy lenses and I love them to death. Something about the manual aspect I think.

And the all work with TCs and tubes FYI. My initial tests with TCs show a lot of flair but it was a bad example (light box).

Good luck, and enjoy.
Ben