Lens Test

As some of you know, I've been looking forward to shooting with the Nikon 14-24/F2.8G on my 5DII. Well the lens arrived Thursday and the Nikon G to Canon EF adapter arrived Friday. Yipee! Time for some testing - Nikon 14-24/2.8 against the Canon 17-40L/4.0.

I was hoping to get out to shoot a little today but no dice. I couldn't wait, so I set up a shot in the corner of my living room where there are some interesting textures and detail.

I set up the test at 17mm as a common focal length and f16 for the aperture to get adequate depth of field across the scene. I shot with the Canon first to establish the exposure, 6" @ f16. With the adapter, the Nikon aperture and focus is manual, so I set the speed and dialed in the exposure adjusting the aperture lever.
I imported the raw files into LR and applied only input sharpening (110/1.0/50), develop defaults were left alone.

This was by no means an extensive test, but WOW! My expectations have been met so far! Edge-to-edge sharpness on the Nikon is amazing and the barrel distortion on the Nikon is much less, although 17mm is the mid-range of the Nikon and end of the range on the Canon.

Here is the full frame of the Nikon shot

Here is the full frame of the Canon shot.

This is a screen capture from the LR compare view at 100%. This is the upper left corner. Nikon shot on the left.

This is a 100% crop capture of the bottom middle. Nikon shot on the left.

This is a 100% crop of the area around the focal point. Nikon shot on the left. The focal point was the eye of the bird on the shelf.

I can't wait to get out and shoot with this lens!

those are some pretty interesting comparisons you have there. i too have considered buying the nikon lens since Canons wide angle zoom lineup leaves much to be desired. the only thing that has kept me from pulling the trigger though is the fact that the nikon lens cant accept any filters. have you found away around this, and if so do you mind sharing? that would be my dream lens if i could fit some ND grads on the end of it!

andy

Who needs ND grads when you can do that in post-processing? Yeah, I still use mine, but I'm beginning to wonder why. But I hear you, it would be nice to have the filter option on that Nikon lens. It'll be interesting to see how the Zeiss 18mm and Canon's new T/S lenses stack up. Not that I can afford any of these.

Wow! Great comparison and results, can't wait to hear more from you on this gem! I am renting this lens for my Paria Canyon trip at the end of April. I guess it's just a teaser before I upgrade my gear this fall/winter. And finally I have validation for sticking with Nikon for all these years

for some reason i always have better luck using ND grads than post processing, maybe i just suck at photoshop. i put this to the test last november when photographing the watchman. the dynamic range there was huge but i thought i would be fine since i had a grad on the lens and i bracketed. when I got back home i still couldn't get it to come out right. anyway, dosent mean i wont keep tryin!

Take a look at 16-9.net in reference to the 18mm Zeiss. they have an article on there comparing some of the new lenses against the old contax ones. I didnt read it in depth but I dont think the 18 came out so well with regards to the edges.

I think i would set if canon released a 17-40 f/4 mkii that came close to the performance of the mentioned nikon!

andy

Kalin, I am wondering why you didn't test the Canon 16-35 f/2.8 against the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8? I am not sure it would fare any better, but it seems like much more of a proper head to head comparison than the 17-40 f/4.

Kurt, Primarily because I don't have one . I'd considered that lens when I bought my 17-40L but it's performance according to reviews and reports didn't warrant the cost. So my test was just against what I have. I'd like to test it against my Canon 10-22 but that won't work on the 5DII.
Of course, if anyone has a 16-35, I'd be happy to play with it!

Andy, I haven't come across any filter solutions yet. The hood around the lens is huge. I can't think of any filters that would be large enough even if you wanted to hand hold the filter. Also at the wide end, you'd probably need a curved filter or something really wide. I'm pretty much planning on blends to cover the ND requirements.

Primarily because I don't have one

that's not a good enough reason!!

I'll soon be switching from 17-40 to the Nikon 14-24 too. The 17-40 actually fared a little better here than I'd have expected, but Nikon definitely wins out, as I'm sure it would against any other wide angle zoom.

Thanks for sharing your test results, Kalin.

Bill Brennan

You ought to try this at f/8. You'd probably see an even wider gap in apparent sharpness, once diffraction is removed. Congrats on finally being able to use the new setup.

Related question for you, Kalin -- which brand of adapter did you go with? Or better yet, where did you do your research?

Seems there are dozens of places offering adapters at all types of price ranges. I see the Novoflex for $270 at B&H, and I see store brands for less than a tenth that price.

I have a Nikon 105mm macro (AF-D)lens that is much sharper than my current Tokina macro for Canon; your post got me thinking that it would be pretty cool to be able to use it.

My lens is not a G lens - that is, it's got an aperture ring. Obviously your adapter has to work with G lenses. If I got an adapter that worked with G lenses, would it also work with non-G lenses? As you see, I've got lots of questions and I'm not having much luck finding answers. It would be great if you could point me in the right direction as far as researching this.

Thanks - and congrats on the awesome new lens!
Erik

Hi Eric,
I got my adapter from Mark Welsh of 16-9.net. I have the levered version which requires that you remove the weather seal from the adapted lens (a little unnerving). The non-levered version lets you retain the seal.

If you are adapting a non-G lens, there are probably cheaper options. I can't remember the specifics, but I know there are some Japanese adapters that you can get for considerably less than Mark's adapter. I don't have any experience with those. The adapter I got from Mark is well made and feels solid. I'm sure this adapter would work with a non-G lens since you would still have aperture control through the lens.

You might check out the Canon adapted lens page on 16-9.net. I haven't gone all the way through it but he might have something there to help you. Mark has a wealth of lens reviews and comparisons, just browse around.

Let me know if I can help with any additional info!

Thanks, Kalin - appreciate the links. I obviously should have been more diligent before posting this, as I also found the pages you referenced after a little more digging.

Good point on likely working on non-G lenses; I'll try to verify that. Removing the weather seal scares me, too!

Thanks again -
Erik