 "This Lens Is Nuts" | 2009-11-03 |
| - Reviewed By paulied |
It seems ludicrous to "review" this lens as if it has to live up to some standard. It IS the standard, this thing rivals prime lenses in all aspects. I shoot a 5D Mark II and own several L lenses, all f2.8, and this 24-70mm is best in class image quality-wise. I've had it for a week and from day one I marveled at the image detail and contrast (and the bokeh that stays smooth up to f5.6!). Don't toy with the 24-105mm, the f/4 series of lenses is very good, but they're not WHOA. Buy up to the 24-70mm and have that WHOA back in your images.
I'm posting this review on several sites. I researched this lens vs the 24-105mm vs the Tamron 28-75mm for months, and now I'm 100% satisfied I spent the money. Besides image quality, it's built like a tank (weighs almost as much!), and the hood design is brilliant with the way it deals with 24mm and still provides full coverage at 70mm. Please, just use the hood for protection and don't put a $20 UV filter over this superb piece of glass. Put that $20 towards a good circular polarizer...
Well?? Stop reading this review and get the sale going already! ;-)
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 "Thought I Made a Mistake" | 2009-10-27 |
| - Reviewed By User: ATHA8HJ1UI7NE |
After reading the mixed reviews, I decided to purchase this lens. I needed the lens for a few upcoming events, so it went to work right away. After the events, I viewed the images on a computer and was very disappointed. Close images (under 10 feet) were sharp, while images between 10 feet and infinity were almost out of focus. I would get the focus confirmation in the viewfinder, so everything appeared to be fine.
After some test shooting, I realized that if I manually focused the lens, the pictures were tack sharp. Luckily, the Live View with the 40D really helped pinpoint this issue as you could enlarge the view and see the focus error. I contacted Canon and they sent me a mailing label so the unit could be calibrated. After 7 days, I have the lens back and it is right on the money now.
I am now very happy with this lens and thumbs up to Canon for great service.
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| "Beautiful Bokeh, horrible focusing" | 2009-10-27 |
| - Reviewed By User: ACZOQ5ZZYP6IQ |
I'm going to put two sections, positive and negative and a description of both. Negatives will come first since everyone is always harping on how great it is-- I'm sure if your here you may want to know the bad things.
Negatives:
Weight: It is gigantic and weighs a lot. I'm a big lady and after using this lens on my 5D Mark II for 9 hours my hand and wrist had taken a beating. I also work with an attatched flash as well so that adds to the weight but on previous fixed focal length lenses I never had soreness. I use a wrist gaurd now to help support the weight of the camera when I am doing my wedding photography. While the weight is difficult, it is easily remedied by doing as I have done-- and I am grateful for the weight. The build quality in this lens is superior then any lens I have seen yet, and by the weight alone you can feel the quality in it. A heavier weight is a fair trade off, I think, to providing my clients better images.
Auto Focus: This is something that I have a honest complaint. I usually like to auto focus my work, but on some occassions I like to rely on the camera's ability to auto focus so that I can be sure to capture an image quickly-- this lens does not work that way. I have found, personally, that the auto focus is incredibly slow and often back focuses (focuses on the background and not the subject). It is absolutely vital for this function to work-- and it is practically useless in very low light. You will be standing there for 30 minutes waiting for the camera to lock focus-- this is not a problem I have with my other lenses and it disturbs me that after spending $1300 that I cannot have my cake and eat it too-- or that the auto focus in my camera could be so slow. I'll have to play with it some more to make my final decision but for now I'll be relying on my natural ability to manually focus (which in 95% of cases is better)
No IS: Everyone is harping on it, so I won't go far into it. It's really helpful to have the IS when you are trying to handhold your equipment. Just somethng that would have been nice.
Positives:
Image Sharpness: When focusing manually, looks absolutely STUNNING.... if you get it right. This is not something that you can just pick up and do-- you have to be very precise with your focussing otherwise you will have a soft picture or it will just be out of focus. I have had no luck with the Auto-focus aspect of this camera (unless it is in bright light) and to really achieve the beauty that this lens can create-- you have to be good yourself. This lens will not make you a good photographer-- it demands knowledge and expierence to back up the user while shooting.
Color Saturation: Although some people say that this lens is slightly less warm then other lens-- I have found that, when the lens hood is applied (I shoot with it 98% of the time) the color saturation is gorgeous as well. I find very minimal times, except in bright light, where contrast and saturation need to be editted, it is just that good.
Mechanics and Ease of Use: I love the larger focussing ring-- it is so wonderful when manually focusing.
And that is all the positives I am going to report on. There are so many great things to say about this lens that it's hard to write them all down. Just know that this lens requires skill to use it properly. Spending a ton of money on your lenses and bodies will only produce the same quality images that you are capable to produce. It does not make you better but it may make you work to BE better.
Hope that helps :-) |
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| "Permanent Resident." | 2009-10-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1VGUYMZ21F3L4 |
| I have not used another lens since I received the 24-70mm f/2.8. It is a permanent fixture on my 40D and I have not found it to be the over-bearing heavy weight that I read about in so many reviews. I have found it to be a great indoor low light lens that has freed me from my flash much of the time and an amazingly clear and sharp optical instrument that embraces and enhances outdoor colors and hues. I have not found the wide end of the lens (24mm) to be overly restrictive indoors, in spite of the fact that I use it with a crop camera. You'll get lots of "wow" responses from this lens......its build quality and attention to detail are readily evident. I'd recommend this lens without hesitation. |
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| "The best outdoor portrait lens" | 2009-10-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A14NZCH93L06LS |
Very sharp even down to F/2.8.
Solid build
Very very attractive color. |
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| "A superb lens" | 2009-10-08 |
| - Reviewed By crdic |
I bought this lens to replace an old Tokina 28-70mm f/2.8 that I had been using since about 2001. The Tokina was a very good lens, but on digital cameras it had serious problems with ghosting whenever something like a light bulb or a flourescent tube was in the frame. It also had a very annoying mechanism for switching between auto-focus and manual focus that had to be worked just right or it wouldn't let you switch.
The Canon EF 24-70mm L USM is even more of an improvement on that lens that I had expected. Not only does it extend down to 24mm, focus faster, control flare and ghosting much better, and implement manual-focus sensibly (including, like all ring-USM Canon lenses, the ability to adjust focus manually even in auto-focus mode), but it's much sharper. I had no idea how sharp a zoom lens could be until I bought this lens! It is just a bit soft wide open at the long end of its range, but from 24-50mm or so it's quite sharp even at f/2.8, improving to stunningly sharp by f/5.6. Softness creeps in again at about f/11 due to diffraction limiting, but that's a natural optical restriction, not a flaw in the lens.
Ergonomically, the lens is excellent. The zoom and focus rings are well-placed and move easily, with a comfortable level of resistance. It is a fairly large, heavy lens, but typically so for Canon L-series lenses, and not much more so than the Tokina that it replaced in my setup. I don't find it uncomfortable to hold, but I do tend to keep my left hand under it for extra support when in use.
Aside from the minor softness at the long end that I mentioned above, the only significant negative of this lens is the lack of image stabilization (IS), which would come in handy in low light situations.
One interesting property of the EF 24-70mm is that it reverse-extends when zooming -- that is, the inner barrel is extended more at the shorter focal lengths, and fully retracted at 70mm. This seems counter-intuitive until you notice how this interacts with the lens hood, which is mounted on the outer barrel and so does not move with the inner barrel. The EF 24-70mm has a much deeper hood than I have seen on other standard-range zooms, and the extension of the barrel at shorter focal lengths means that the hood optimally covers the lens at all focal lengths. At 70mm, the lens is fully retracted, so the hood provides an appropriately narrow field of view; at 24mm, the lens is maximally extended, and the hood provides correspondingly less coverage.
To sum up, the EF 24-70mm L USM is an excellent lens, fully worthy of the L-series designation. The only improvements I would hope for in a future update would be IS and a little more sharpness at wide apertures near 70mm. Until that lens comes into being, I'll happily continue using this one. |
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Expedited Available
