The 180L vs MP-E 65 Sharpness Test
A number of people have asked me about the sharpness of the Canon 180L. In general, I find this to be a very sharp lens but that doesn’t help very much. Therefore, I decided to try a little test. Unfortunately, given that I do not have a tremendous amount of time, I was not able to take pictures specifically for this test. Luckily, though, I had some pictures that were of similar subjects taken with both lenses.
Both shots were taken with the MT-24EX mounted and were at 1/200 second at apertures of f/11. The camera used was the Canon 5D. One shot was taken with the 180L while the other was taken with the MP-E 65. With both shots, I took a number of the same subject so I then took the best representative shot from each set. The following are the two test shots.
I hope it is obvious which shot was taken with the 180L and which was taken with the MP-E 65.