Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L USM (vs
Canon 24-105 IS) |
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The Canon 24-70 2.8 was the only Canon
professional mid-range zoom until 2005, when
the 24-105 f/4 IS was announced. How does
the 24-70 compete with its cheaper and
stabilized rival? The 24-70 has one stop
brighter aperture, but is it enough to
compensate for the versatility of the
24-105? I have tested the 24-70 on 1DsIII
and I have compared it with the 24-105.
Many thanks to my friend Sandro
who loaned me the 24-70 and the 24-105!
As usual, I recommend to give a look to
the page
Testing and reviewing a lens: it will
help you to understand better this review
and my testing methodology!
Specifications
(compared with the 24-105)
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Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L USM
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Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
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Angle of view
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84º - 34º (on FF)
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84º - 34º (on FF)
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Macro ratio
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0.28x
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0.23x
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Max Aperture
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f/2.8
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f/4
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Stabilization
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No
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Yes
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Autofocus
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Ultrasonic AF Motor
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Ultrasonic AF Motor
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Closest Focus
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0.38 meters
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0.45 meters
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Dimensions
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83 (D) x 124 (L) mm
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83 (D) x 107 (L) mm
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Weight
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950 g
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670 g
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Weather sealing
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Yes
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Yes
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Price
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$ 1400
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$ 1050
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Production
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2002 -
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2005 -
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Built quality,
stabilization and autofocus
The Canon 24-70 has great built quality,
but it is really big and heavy. 1kg is a lot
for a standard zoom! In comparison, the
24-105 has the same built quality, but it is
much smaller and lighter. A peculiarity of
the 24-70 is that it is "folded" at 70mm,
while it gets longer at 24mm: the opposite
of conventional zooms. This particular
design has been created to make the lens
extend inside the lens hood, so when you
mount the hood, it looks as if the lens was
not extending during zooming.
The 24-70 has a fast autofocus (about on
par with the 24-105, I don't see noticeable
differences) but it lacks of a very
important feature: image stabilization.
Rumors of a 24-70 IS has been floating
around for years, but so far Canon has not
announced yet this lens.
The big, huge question about the 24-70 is...what is better, 24-70 2.8
or 24-105 IS? I have received this question
dozen of times, and my reply is always the
same: for me the the range of the 24-105 and
the stabilization are more important than
the f/2.8 aperture, but there is not an
answer for everyone...it depends by your
necessities. Let's give a more in-depth look
to the pros and cons of these lenses.
The difference between 70 and 105mm is
not small. You can cover the 70-100mm focal
lengths with a tele zoom, but if you want to
walk around with only one lens, the 24-105
is more versatile. Talking about background
blur, instead, the 24-70 can give more
separation from background than 24-105
thanks to its 1 stop wider aperture; that
said, in nature photography you will never
use these apertures, most landscape photos
are taken at f/11 or f/16, a wide aperture
helps only in night photography.
The image stabilization gives an
advantage of 2-3 stops, while the f/2.8
aperture gives 1 stop faster shutter speed
than f/4. For sport and fast moving subject,
the f/2.8 aperture is more important than
IS: remember that a faster shutter speed
freeze both you movements and subject
movements, while IS helps only with your
movements. For static subjects, instead,
stabilization is better than wide aperture:
shooting with the 24-105 you can get both
more depth of field and less risk of blur,
when you are handholding the camera.
One last thing is that the 24-105 is
smaller, lighter and cheaper than the 24-70
- less weight in your bag and more money in
your pockets is an always welcome
improvement :-)
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Image quality (in
comparison with Canon 24-105)
I have tested the lenses on my 1DsIII (21
megapixel, fullframe). The lenses were
mounted on tripod; I have used mirror lock
up and self timer. The following images are
100% crop from the unprocessed RAW file.
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Canon 24-70 at 24mm, center |
Canon 24-105 at 24 mm, center |
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f/2.8 |
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f/4 |
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f/8 |
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Canon 24-70 at 24mm, corner |
Canon 24-105 at 24 mm, corner |
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f/2.8 |
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f/4 |
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f/8 |
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At 24mm, the Canon 24-70 is slightly
better in the center, while the 24-105 has
slightly better corners.
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Canon 24-70 at 35mm, center |
Canon 24-105 at 35 mm, center |
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f/2.8 |
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f/4 |
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f/8 |
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Canon 24-70 at 35mm, corner |
Canon 24-105 at 35 mm, corner |
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f/2.8 |
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f/4 |
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f/8 |
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At 35mm, the two lenses are identical in
the center, while the 24-105, surprisingly,
has much better corners.
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Canon 24-70 at 70mm, center |
Canon 24-105 at 70 mm, center |
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f/2.8 |
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f/4 |
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f/8 |
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Canon 24-70 at 70mm, corner |
Canon 24-105 at 70 mm, corner |
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f/2.8 |
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f/4 |
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f/8 |
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At 70mm, the 24-70 and the 24-105 are
nearly identical both in the center and in
the corners.
Samples and comments
These are some sample
photos taken with the Canon 24-70 L USM
on Canon 1DsIII. You can download
either the untouched photo (JPEG
converted from RAW without any
additional post processing; minimum
contrast and saturation, no sharpening,
no AC, distortion or vignetting
correction) or the post processed
version. The untouched photo is a good
way to see the real image quality of the
lens, and the post processed versions
allow to see the final quality you can
get with good post processing
techniques.
Honestly I am not
impressed by the image quality. If you
stop down a bit it is pretty good (the
24 f/11 and 35 f/5.6 samples are great),
but wide open it is not sharp; even at
f/4 it is a bit worse than the 24-105.
Conclusions
From the results of this test, it would
seem obvious to go for the 24-105 IS. That
said, I have some doubts about the 24-70 I
have tested - can it be actually that bad?
Or is it a bad copy? The bad copy option
would seem the most likely, but some months
ago I did another 24-105 vs 24-70 test with
another copy of the 24-70, and the results
are the same. At that time, I did not
publish the test because I thought that it
was for sure a bad copy or there was some
error in the test, but the results of this
new test confirm my previous findings. So,
either I got two bad copies, of the 24-70
has so-so image quality...personally, I'd
say two bad copies. I have read many
opinions about this lens and the majority
say that it is very sharp, while some others
(about 10%) complain about the lack of
sharpness: essentially, I think that Canon
has a lot of sample variation on the 24-70
and poor quality control.
Anyway, even if the 24-70 had identical
or slightly better image quality than the
24-105, I'd go for the 24-105. The
difference between f/2.8 and f/4 is not
huge, and in many situation the image
stabilization greatly outweighs the 1 stop
wider aperture. Other than that, the 24-105
has a wider zoom range, it is more compact,
lighter and less expensive.
Do you have
comments or questions?
If you have comments or questions about
this article, feel free to ask in the
Juza
Nature Photography Discussion Forum!
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