planning on buying a 5d mkII can I use my 16-35 L 2.8 mkI without to much vignetting?

You will see some (minor) at 16mm wide open, but the 5dMkii has a peripheral illumination setting that really works well. -- Steve anasazi@wi.rr.com

Thanks Steve,but will this work for the "old" 16-35 or only the new one?is there anyone who has this combination 5d mk2 and 16-35 L 2.8 mk1? A sample image @16mm would be great.Emiel

Check out this review. http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1082/cat/11 It also has the older one. The results seem similar.They tested on a 5d but the 5d Mkii should be the same WITHOUT the peripheral illumination turned on. -- Steve anasazi@wi.rr.com

It's dark here, but tomorrow I'll take a few shots with the 5DM2 and 16-35 f/2.8L (like you, I don't have a II lens) for you. In general you will see slight vignetting even with Peripheral illumination correction (PIO) turned on, but it helps quite a bit and recognizes the first gen lens right out of the box. PIO is painless. Enable/disable in-camera. My brief experience is, leave it on.

looking forward to see the result, Thanks already!Emielhttp://www.Dutch-Courage.eu

Ok, here are JPG images from the RAW files created via ACR 5.2. Aside from the obvious resizing, I made no changes other than as noted below. Of course, no cropping whatsoever was done.Equipment ------------------- Camera: 5DM2 1.0.7 Lens: 16 - 35 f/2.8L (first series...not a II lens) -- all shots at 16mmImages ------------------- Reduced to 8-bit JPEG in sRGB at 800 x 533 (sorry, I host on my own DSL line)If you have somewhere you want me to drop a few 20mb RAW files, let me know -- but this should give you a good deal of comfort with the lens/body combo.Image Set 1 -------------------Took a shot of white seamless background paper. Lit as evenly as possible by 2 side strobes. The paper metered f/11 at ISO 100 over the entire surface (small variances, from f/11.0 to f/11.4) and that's how I shot it.First a shot with Peripheral Illumination Correction (PIC) and then without PIC:With a well metered shot, vignetting is extremely slight. It's visible in both PIC and non-PIC images but PIC did reduce the effect.Sampling both images in the center shows 255,255,255 -- pure white in both images. Sampling at the upper right corners showed:PIC RGB: 255,248,248 Non PIC: 255,246,245Both images were losing brightness in the Green and Blue channels at the corners, but PIC was losing less.Image Set 2 -------------------The EXACT same 2 RAW files were used, but I adjusted exposure down by about a quarter stop. This has the effect of dramatically highlighting the falloff in the corners. I want to stress that a properly exposed image will not see the effect below -- this is a deliberate underexposure (using RAW adjustment) to highlight the vignette.Again, first image with PIC then without it:PIC is definitely correcting some of the vignette, but not removing it.Image Set 3 -------------------Bright sky test -- pointed the camera up and took 2 shots to show a more real life example of vignetting effects. Since the sky is lit by a single light, one side of the image is brighter -- the sun is off the right edge as we look at the photo.It is tough to see much of a vignette in these shots. It's there, but not something that interferes with the shot at all in my opinion.Conclusion -------------------In my opinion, the vignetting on this lens/camera combination is acceptable. PIC will be left on in my camera as it seems to have no negative impact and clearly reduces the falloff at the corners.

This is what I would like to see. I'll think I can go for the mk2 without buying a new 16-35.Thanks, Emielhttp://www.dutch-courage.net

Chuck, thanks for posting those pics. How does the 16-35 do wide open on the 5D2? I've read a couple of reviews that the whole frame is pretty much mush at f/2.8 and f/8-f/11 is just 'ok'. They were referencing the new lens but I just thought I'd ask anyway.Jacob.

I'll confess that I've had the 5D2 for only a couple of weeks and since I mainly shoot studio work...and it's damn cold here in Chicago, I haven't done much with the 16mm - 35mm f/2.8L.I'll have to drag myself out into the cold to form an opinion!I'll shoot something this afternoon. It won't be a pretty shot, but rather just something to look over.Regards!

DutchCouragewrote:Thanks Steve,but will this work for the "old" 16-35 or only the new one?I have checked today: DPP (Canon's Microsoft Windows compatible software that comes with the camera) offers you a chance to load peripheral illumination data for any of Canon's EF lenses (+TS-E + EF-S etc) to the camera. So, although I don't remember if the profile of the original 16-35 L was in the camera (probably not), it's just a matter of minutes on your closest Bill Gates computer to get it there.As for vignetting, I never found it a real problem on any lens on the original 5D, except perhaps on the 24-105 at 24mm wide open. Then again, I don't do multi-image panoramas.Kind regards,Henrik

No modification necessary. Just connect the lens and be sure PIC is on.

mothra1wrote:Chuck, thanks for posting those pics. How does the 16-35 do wide open on the 5D2? I've read a couple of reviews that the whole frame is pretty much mush at f/2.8 and f/8-f/11 is just 'ok'. They were referencing the new lens but I just thought I'd ask anyway.Jacob.After taking the 5DM2 with 16mm - 35mm f/2.8L (series I) outdoors and shooting with it for all of one day, my impressions of it on the body are pretty good, but as you say...not great. Here is a sample 16mm shot wide open (that was the question above) at f/2.8, 1/1250s and ISO 100:(Note: Picture Style was Neutral -- color, contrast, sharpening, etc not adjusted to provide as fair an assessment as possible)Even at this reduced size, it's clear that the center is sharp, but the edges are not. Here is a 100% crop detail of the center -- the point of focus and exposure control:I have no issue with the detail that was captured. I deliberately put the center focus point on the shadow line at the point on the top edge of the post. Despite the difference in light, the lens & camera captured very good detail in both the sunlit and shadow sides of the snow and post.However, as we move from the center to an edge or corner, the image quality suffers dramatically:At this point, it's easy to stop and blame the lens/camera combo -- but really that wouldn't be a fair conclusion. Wide open (again, that was the question), this lens is f/2.8. Zoomed out completely, it's 16mm. Given a distance to the focus point of 6' (and assuming the CoC to be .031 for this camera) we can determine that the DOF begins at about 3.75' and extends to about 15.75' (1.13m to 4.8m for you metric folks). Total DOF is about 12' (3.67m).All 4 corners of the image are outside of the DOF! I think it's images like this one that get some folks into trouble when they look at lenses. The get away from the center of this image and you'll quickly find yourself out of the DOF and into the mush!Well, what about a more reasonable focal length? This was shot at f/11, focus and exposure set on the large tree to the left which was about 30' from me. In this case, DOF begins at just over 2ft and continues to infinity:The first thing I notice about this image is the distortion. Since the main subject is at the edge and is a long vertical object in portrait orientation, 16mm really does a number on that tree!The second thing I notice is that I think I can see the edges of my filter (a circ polarizer was used for this shot) or lens hood -- something that of course never happened with my 1.6 crop bodies.The final thing to point out is that the image is definitely a little soft at the edges and this time, we have eliminated DOF as the culprit. Again, Picture Style was neutral...a landscape style would have sharpened the image (applying the setting in DPP) to this:(Above, I used ACR and below I used DPP...I kicked off a photomerge of 17 CR2 files just before I started typing this...CS4 is still thinking about that! Although since I used DPP for the below, I notice a color difference I'll have to look into..)Anyway, my conclusion is that the 16mm - 35mm f/2.8L on the 5DM2 is acceptable for what I'll do with it (mainly landscapes printed 8x10 or viewed on the web). Certainly, DOF on a FF sensor is very unforgiving...by their nature the corners are less sharp and then to compound it, generally objects in the corners are off the plane of perfect focus. Decreasing the aperture (increased f/stop) will help with the later tho.I'd say it would have to be much more rigorously tested if the medium were larger -- and especially if the lens were to be used for group portraits.Regards.

Well, the merge I referenced above finally completed and I must say, the lens has impressed me with this image. It was taken with the 16 - 35 on the 5DM2 and consists of 17 total images. The full image is over 30,000 pixels wide by about 3,000 pixes tall and has excellent detail. I am still messing with color and contrast, but thought I'd pass along that perhaps the solution is to stitch out those pesky corners!

I've been using the 16-35L extensively over the two years that I've had it on my 5D. Vignetting is significant at 2.8 and to a lessor degree on proximate apertures. The peripheral illumination feature in the new 5D MarkII is a fantastic feature but you have to download the profile for the 16-35L (I).I did this on a Mac. Hopefully it works in the same way on a PC.Connect your camera to the computer.Open the EOS utility (you can do this within DPP)Select: Camera settings/Remote shootingClick the red camera icon in the new window ( it's to the right )You'll see the list of lenses checked. The 16-35L I is on that list.Click save or apply (I can't remember this step)then check your camera to see if it now allows you to enable the 16-35LOne more reason I'm glad I shelled out all this money for the 5D MarkII

Chuck,Thank you for the in-depth reply, I appreciate that. I think you hit the nail on the head with your point about DOF. I'm pretty sure that some of the more widely read reviewers know realize that the front and/or back corners of the frame will most likely be beyond the DOF but the average joe might or might not consider that. The first thing I did was to pan left and right of the post to look at the gravel, then I scrolled down and saw your next image, thanks again that told me what I wanted to know.I wonder how the 17-40L or 14L compare.