Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L

And here's my favorite from yesterday:

Thanks djharmonix...your pics are fabulous....you've obviously got the focussing well under control. There's an ethereal quality about that last one (your favourite) that I really like. I wish I lived in a city with such imposing buildings!
I include a couple of test shots taken recently...the sharpness in the originals is stunning.

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Is there any shooting technique in order to avoid the deformation from the top of the buildings, on the above picture that enlargement of the roof ?

Aureliandan, no matter how clever the lens is, how sharp or how free of optical distortions it is, there are two things that can cause problems.
The first is bad technique, and the second is the rules of perspective.
The first I'm working on...I may have broken my own advice and corrected too much for the verticals, which can make buildings look top heavy.
The second is more complex. Onyone who uses ultra-wides will know that elipses, as in the oblique view of circular objects, near the corners of the frame will be distorted. This is not so much to do with the quality of the lens but is because you are bending light in an extreme way and the relative distances of each side of the elipse are bent differently.
Same goes for the perspective of rectangular objects...it's to do with your viewpoint and not the lens per se. If you were to carefully draw the building from the same viewpoint correctly using the laws of perspective and the correct scales, you would draw the same image. (With vertical lines, of course, and in a sense, that is a distortion as well! You can't win.)
To answer your question, watch your technique and pick the best viewpoint you can.
One more thing...it may be the architects fault...he may have designed it to look like that. It's a pretty awful building really.

aureliandan wrote in post #9873730
Is there any shooting technique in order to avoid the deformation from the top of the buildings, on the above picture that enlargement of the roof ?

I agree with Ricardo, I think it's all about technique and vantage point.

You have to keep in mind that you need to use heavy shifting and/or tilting to make the top of the building bigger, otherwise the building perspective will be like a cone.

The way to do it is to make sure you are absolutely leveled, then you shift parallel to the building plane.

I'm having a hard time explaining this in english (pardon my french!)

ok, thank you for details, I ask this because I've seen this deformation on many pictures taken with TS-E lenses, but there are also others that are ok.

I've just ordered a TS-E 17 mm in order to use it with my 40D (soon 7D) and I want to be prepared ... at least theoretical

I'm very happy to report that after selling off a couple of infrequently used lens and striking a decent deal with my local retailer, I am now a very happy TS-E17 owner!

I just got it earlier today and haven't had a chance to play with it outside but did give it a quick indoor test and everything seems to be in order!

I'm not sure if this subject is an appropriate one for this lens but I needed something to try out the controls over perspective and focus and was pleased with the results!

Nice picture.

I have just put my 17L TS-E up for sale as I find the 24L TS-E MkII suits me better on FF.

EdBray wrote in post #9894761
Nice picture.

I have just put my 17L TS-E up for sale as I find the 24L TS-E MkII suits me better on FF.

Thanks!

I was thinking quite hard about the 24 vs the 17mm and as the majority of my shooting is outdoor landscape type stuff, the 17 seemed like the best fit for my needs.

Here's one more test shot just off my balcony. Ordinarily, I'd have to keep the horizon line in the center of the frame to keep thing straight. But now a turn of the shift control and a 90 degree rotation of the tilt and adjustment of the knob and every thing's nice and straight! Amazing!

This was handheld too, just to see how tricky it would be to work without a tripod.

Nice image. I suspect it would look fantastic large and on a wall, but find the detail too small in the foreground and the impact is lowered.

Whereas, with architecture the 17L comes into it's own as it allows much more to be included in the shift at a shorter range.

Nothing wrong with the 17L TSE, and if I did not already have the 24L Mk2 I would be more than happy with it. I just found that for general landscapes (as opposed to cloudscapes) the 24mm offered more foreground.

This is a relatively small, very simple appartment, viewed through the 17!
Simply the best tool for this type of photography.

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Good real estate series, dj!

It really shows the space nicely and accurately.

Cheers!

Brilliant shots and great technique, djharmonix...this is certainly where the TS-E 17 comes into it's own.
Tell me, do you need a focussing aid or do you just use live view? Whatever you do, it works!
Regarding the 17/24mm debate, I went through the same questions myself. Consequently I find myself sometimes a bit far away and unable because of highways etc. to get closer. Then I saw some posts that suggested that the 1.4 Canon extender could be used so tried it with great scepticism. It works! Not without a miniscle loss of sharpness, but when I post the results on this site you wont know the difference. So I now can bridge the gap with less loss than just cropping.
To The Ghost of FM...great guitar shot...works for me.

Ricardo222 wrote in post #9896668
Brilliant shots and great technique, djharmonix...this is certainly where the TS-E 17 comes into it's own.
Tell me, do you need a focussing aid or do you just use live view? Whatever you do, it works!
Regarding the 17/24mm debate, I went through the same questions myself. Consequently I find myself sometimes a bit far away and unable because of highways etc. to get closer. Then I saw some posts that suggested that the 1.4 Canon extender could be used so tried it with great scepticism. It works! Not without a miniscle loss of sharpness, but when I post the results on this site you wont know the difference. So I now can bridge the gap with less loss than just cropping.
To The Ghost of FM...great guitar shot...works for me.

So the Canon EX1.4 II safely inserts onto it without touching the rear element? That's great news and will now completely put to rest any remaining question I had about getting the 24 instead!

And thanks for the kind words on my guitar test shot!

Cheers!

The TC is on top of the list, I shoot at F8-13 all the time so max aperture is no big deal.

I need very very wide angle for work but for landscape I find that 24 is a better view.