Review 4 of 5
Price Paid:
$1350.00
from Sydney Australia Summary: The TS-E 45 mm is one of Canon's most versatile lenses but it seems few people know about it.
Examination of its structure and function show considerable optical and mechanical ingenuity has gone into the design.
Without tilt or shift it is a good general purpose lens with a normal angle of view and excellent sharpness.
With tilt and shift a suitable EOS body turns into a mini view camera.
It is perfect for landscape and architecture.
Have your local Canon service centre make the tilt and shift axes parallel, then you can use both together for landscapes.
Best used with an EOS 1V, 1N or 3.These cameras enable much more accurate manual focus than is possible with the less expensive models, plus you get a 100% viewfinder ( or almost 100% in the EOS 3) and the ability to fit the EC-D focussing screen with grid which is useful for architecture.
The lens is a lot of fun to use and makes easy compositions which would be impossible with ordinary lenses. You can even use the shifted and / or tilted lens hand held at a pinch. Don't try that with a 4x5 view camera. Strengths: Very versatile.
Generous tilt and shift movements make architecture and landscape a pleasure to photograph.
Sharpness is excellent even fully shifted with slight softening evident only in the corners at maximum shift.
Distortion is very well controlled with just a hint of barrel distortion at the very edge of the frame fully shifted.This is only apparent when you go looking for it.
There is some light fall off at the edges fully shifted with the aperture wide open but from f8 this is not a problem. Weaknesses: I don't notice any weaknesses, however this is quite a large, heavy, expensive lens which requires some experience to use properly.
The locking and tilt / shift control knobs are a little bit too small for comfort but they operate perfectly well.
There is a little free play in the focussing movement and the image in the viewfinder moves slightly when the focus ring is turned back and forth. This is mildly disconcerting but appears to have no detrimental effect on image quality.
No auto focus, of course. Well you can't have everything. Similar Products Used: There is not much similar out there, but Canon's TSE lenses give view camera versatility without the pain of using large format. Customer Service: Good from Canon Australia
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