outdoorphotographycanada.com

[Simon]

I am considering changing bodies specifically for using 'liveview' with my 24 TS-E lens. My question is for those of you who have both the lens, and a camera with liveview;

Do you use liveview a majority of the time for focusing and checking composition with your TS-E lens?

I am using the 1Ds II, and love the camera, however I am still struggling with focus and tilt with the 24 lens. I have very little trouble with the TS-E 90 however, but it is very frustrating to miss focus on so many of my shots with the wider angle. The hard part is that I have invested around the 1Ds II again with new batteries, focus screens, L-plate, eyepiece magnifier, straps... money I won't get back if I sell it for another 24x36mm sensor body from Canon with live view.

Experience and advice appreciated.

[Darwin Wiggett]

Simon,

I assume you have the version I of the 24mm lens. This lens is hard to actually get the tilt feature to come into good focus. As you know the 90mm is very easy. I almost always needed to use Live View with the 24mm TSE I to get it to it to work. Recently I upgraded to Version II of the 24mm lens and it is totally easy like the 90mm to use the tilt feature. So if you do not want to upgrade to a live view camera, maybe you might consider upgrading the lens (there are other benefits as well with the new lens - sharper, wider range of shift, you can rotate the tilt and shift independently).

To use tilt focus one third of the way into the scene and slowly tilt until the background and foreground look in focus. sometimes it helps to 'rocker' the tilt a tad once you get close to help you see the sharpness pop in and out.

Darwin

[Simon]

Thank-you for the reply Darwin.

I think my big problem with the lens has been the 'infinity' setting, which seems in fact to be much further than infinity, like next dimension further on the TS-E II, and I am getting in trouble assuming I have infinity in focus while I struggle along with the foreground and tilt. I have a fresnel screen, and it is a snap to use with the 90, possibly because the subject is larger in the viewfinder compared to the 24.

Thank-you again for the reply Darwin, your work and articles are very inspiring.

[Simon]

I haven't tried the live-view yet, but I have been paying more attention to my procedure when using the 24, and have found one bad habit that has probably been the cause of many of my out of focus images.

The focusing collar is quite large on this lens, and when I am adjust the tilt and/or shift I seem to be touching the focus collar and am moving focus past the infinity setting accidentally. Since the focus scale is actually on the grip side of the camera with the orientation I am using most often, I haven't been looking around to confirm that my original focus held (for some reason I always am looking around to the left-side rather than the grip side when the camera is on the tripod?), and judging in the viewfinder is still difficult.

I was imaging on the weekend and caught myself doing this a couple of times, and still missed a few images when doing side to side shift. My success rate was higher though, but still not where the 90 is for success. Hopefully I will get to try live-view with it next week.

[Simon]

...and decided I had to make the switch to the 5D II from the 1Ds II. I didn't get very much for my 1Ds II with all its accessories, but it went to someone here in Canada and I am glad for that.

[Simon]

I was reviewing some of my outdoor photographs from yesterday, and came across a good example of the frustrating kind of image I was ending up with using the viewfinder to focus with the TS-E II. I am posting a link of full size jpeg images on my skydrive, and they were taken consecutively. The first one, image number 1699 was my setup shot focused through the viewfinder. Image 1700 was fine-tuned for composition and focus using liveview. I have not cropped either photo at all, but what I did in the 1700 image was rotate the camera left, and use nine millimeters of shift upwards, also both images have had my default RAW conversion in photoshop hence the edit suffix. I think the one image is a much larger file size because of the extra detail in the bricks. Be sure to click on the images to bring them up to full size, and on image 1700 zoom in on the black and white image of the station on the right hand side of the door. I was getting images this out of focus (image 1699) all the time without live view and this lens. Focus distance was 3.37 meters for the in-focus image.
http://cid-6184ca029df3862e.office.live.com/browse.aspx/Pictures/tse%2024