Canon’s New 24mm Tilt-shift Lens Reviewed by The Digital Picture

I’ve been waiting to see how the improved design would turn out in practice since some of Canon’s recent wide-angle updates have brought improvements in some places at the cost of losses in others. What the new TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II does appear to bring to the table is a huge increase in optical performance over it’s predecessor, in addition to the independent control of the tilt and shift axises. Based on the images in this review, Canon looks to have a winner on their hands with this lens at least in terms of image quality.

Tilt-shift lenses offer great control over depth of field and perspective. Depth of Field is especially useful when doing macro and product photography where close focusing distances cause depth of field to be very shallow even when the lens is stopped down significantly. Perspective correction is widely used in architectural photography to buildings from looking like they are receding into the sky.

The biggest problem I have with the new Canon tilt-shift lenses is simply the price. At almost $2400, the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Ultra Wide Tilt-Shift Lens costs nearly double what it’s predecessor cost and the new TS-E 17mm f/4L is about the same. Fortunately, for those of us where that price is out of reach, we can continue to use digital post processing techniques like focus stacking and software perspective corrections to achieve similar but not necessarily identical results.

Read The Digital Picture review of Canon’s new 24mm Tilt shift lens.