Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

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RCicala
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p.4 #1 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

I answer to way worse than Rich

Actually it's well underway - I'm using the Tamron 24-70 VC as a 'both camera lens' tested on the Nikon D800e and Canon 5DIII. Then the 5DIII with 24-70 f2.8 mk II and Nikon D800e with Nikon 24-70 AF-S.

I'm not sure what it's worth, but it's a question I've wondered about - lower res camera with better lens versus higher res camera with lesser lens?

Jan 29, 2013 at 05:32 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.4 #2 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

RCicala wrote:
I answer to way worse than Rich

Jan 29, 2013 at 05:36 PM

Stoffer
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p.4 #3 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

RCicala wrote:
Actually it's well underway - I'm using the Tamron 24-70 VC as a 'both camera lens' tested on the Nikon D800e and Canon 5DIII. Then the 5DIII with 24-70 f2.8 mk II and Nikon D800e with Nikon 24-70 AF-S.

I'm not sure what it's worth, but it's a question I've wondered about - lower res camera with better lens versus higher res camera with lesser lens?

Now that should be interesting indeed, thanks for the effort. As far as I have seen, the Nikon 24-70 AF-S weakness is in the corners at 24 mm. We shall see.

Jan 29, 2013 at 07:37 PM

RCicala
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p.4 #4 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

I only had time to do it at one focal length so I went with 50mm, which puts all 3 lenses at their best. Testing is finished, write up should be finished shortly.

Jan 29, 2013 at 08:03 PM

RCicala
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p.4 #5 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

For those who are interested:

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/01/a-24-70mm-system-comparison

Jan 29, 2013 at 08:20 PM

snapsy
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p.4 #6 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

RCicala wrote:
For those who are interested:

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/01/a-24-70mm-system-comparison

Fantastic data, thanks Roger. The final graph comparing all four combinations of lenses/bodies is especially illuminating.

Jan 29, 2013 at 08:31 PM

Eyvind Ness
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p.4 #7 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

Bravo, Roger! Very interesting article, with hard data behind every finding

I had the impression my 24-70 mkII was at its very best at 24mm, though, and not 50mm. But then again, I am happy to be wrong at this point

It's a remarkable zoom that has severely reduced my use of primes in the range. Only distortion and vignetting remains tell tale signs of the zoom, in an unprocessed image...

Jan 29, 2013 at 09:07 PM

RCicala
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p.4 #8 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

Eyvind it probably is a bit better at 24mm. I was trying to pick a length at which all 3 were known to be good. 24mm is too hard because the Tamron is 1mm wider than the Nikon and Canon. I might be giving it an advantage putting it 1mm away from extreme. The Nikon has softer corners at 70. Etc.

50mm just seemed a good choice where all 3 did well. And a good excuse to avoid the 24-70 f/4 IS since it's weakest there

Jan 29, 2013 at 09:32 PM

jcolwell
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p.4 #9 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

I'm very interested. Thanks Roger.

Jan 29, 2013 at 09:57 PM

dlodi
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p.4 #10 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

Roger, Awesome piece. Cool twist by throwing the Tamron in the mix and bringing it back to the real world by showing the value in the combination. Will be very interesting to see the same test when Canon catches up on resolution. Assuming they can match the high bar set by Nikon, the Mk II lenses should be off the scale. Thank you. Fun stuff. Still love my Canon combo! :-)

Jan 29, 2013 at 10:10 PM

AGeoJO
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p.4 #11 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

Interesting read on the comparison of the 3 lenses. Thank you, Roger!

Whenever you are ready to bring out a high MP camera, Canon. Around 42MP or so is fine with me....

Jan 29, 2013 at 10:14 PM

snapsy
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p.4 #12 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

dlodi wrote:
Roger, Awesome piece. Cool twist by throwing the Tamron in the mix and bringing it back to the real world by showing the value in the combination. Will be very interesting to see the same test when Canon catches up on resolution. Assuming they can match the high bar set by Nikon, the Mk II lenses should be off the scale. Thank you. Fun stuff. Still love my Canon combo! :-)

I think this could be accomplished by mounting the 24-70 II on a 7D, at least for center measurements. The 7D has a pixel density equivalent to a 46MP FF sensor.

Jan 29, 2013 at 10:16 PM

skibum5
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p.4 #13 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

RCicala wrote:
For those who are interested:

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/01/a-24-70mm-system-comparison

So the Canon MK II is a champ at f/2.8 resolution, look at that center frame f/2.8 performance on an optical bench! Even for MTF80 it is still near 0.8 while Nikon is down to under 0.65 and Tamron 0.55. The Mk II is capable of really driving high-density sensors super well wide open.

Of course it also shows, that as people say, a body with more MP + a lesser lens always outdoes a body with less MP but the most amazing lens when it comes to total detail. So D800 + either option captures more detail than 5D3+MkII (as expected). The D800 could use an even cheaper lens and still deliver the same total detail. Which again goes to show all the talk about high MP needing the best lenses to work well compared to lower MP sensors doesn't (and has never begun to) make sense (although it does make sense if the goal is to get every last bit of performance out of them, which a MkII seems it could do better than the other options).

But the MkII should still rock really nice micro-contrast center frame on a 7D at f/2.8 while the Tamron probably won't resolve the tiniest finest details quite as well nor would even the Nikon on a high density Nikon aps-c body.

Edited on Jan 30, 2013 at 02:25 AM · View previous versions

Jan 29, 2013 at 11:19 PM

thw2
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p.4 #14 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

So, everyone incl. the-digital-picture, lensrentals etc thinks the new 24-70 f/2.8 Mk 2 is an AWESOME lens... except Photozone.

Jan 30, 2013 at 02:07 AM

skibum5
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p.4 #15 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

thw2 wrote:
So, everyone incl. the-digital-picture, lensrentals etc thinks the new 24-70 f/2.8 Mk 2 is an AWESOME lens... except Photozone.

"Fast standard zoom lenses are obviously very difficult to design. To date we never really thought "oh, this is it!". Unfortunately this also applies to the mighty Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 USM L II. Now this may sound worse than it really is. Considering the sum of its characteristics we'd still state that the lens has been improved over its predecessor but it is not perfect and regarding its sky high price tag we simply expected a little more."

Funny...

I trust their numbers among the most of any site, far more than TDP's chart photos, but I don't always agree with his star ratings or text though, he seems to slag a bit on some amazing optics and play up some lesser lenses a bit in the text, getting caught up in very specific expectations that must be 100% exactly met it seems (i.e. decent far edges at f/1.4 for the 24mm and when it fails at that then it gets slagged on and yet a far, far worse performing, going by his own numbers too, 24-105 gets praised for 24mm IQ because he had no special expectations over things it must be able to do at 24mm).

Jan 30, 2013 at 02:23 AM

RCicala
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p.4 #16 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

skibum5 wrote:

Of course it also shows, that as people say, a body with more MP + a lesser lens always outdoes a body with less MP but the most amazing lens when it comes to total detail. So D800 + either option captures more detail than 5D3+MkII (as expected). The D800 could use an even cheaper lens and still deliver the same total detail.

It's like the fighter pilots say: With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.

Jan 30, 2013 at 03:44 AM

skibum5
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p.4 #17 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

RCicala wrote:
skibum5 wrote:

Of course it also shows, that as people say, a body with more MP + a lesser lens always outdoes a body with less MP but the most amazing lens when it comes to total detail. So D800 + either option captures more detail than 5D3+MkII (as expected). The D800 could use an even cheaper lens and still deliver the same total detail.

It's like the fighter pilots say: With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.

although, to be fair, it probably takes a LOT of thrust to get them to fly at far edges on FF

(I do think that say a 28-135 IS at 28mm on a 36MP Canon would deliver less detail near the edges/corners than some top lenses would at 28mm on a 5D3.)

Edited on Jan 30, 2013 at 09:01 PM · View previous versions

Jan 30, 2013 at 03:54 AM

thw2
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p.4 #18 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

skibum5 wrote:
I trust their numbers among the most of any site, far more than TDP's chart photos, but I don't always agree with his star ratings or text though, he seems to slag a bit on some amazing optics and play up some lesser lenses a bit in the text, getting caught up in very specific expectations that must be 100% exactly met it seems (i.e. decent far edges at f/1.4 for the 24mm and when it fails at that then it gets slagged on and yet a far, far worse performing, going by his own numbers too, 24-105 gets praised for 24mm IQ because he had no special expectations over things it must be able to do at 24mm).

Klauss (Photozone) probably expected the lens to deliver tack-sharp images from corner to corner wide-open at every focal length. It appears the 24-70 f/2.8 Mk2 falls short a little at 70 mm. He's a rather demanding reviewer...

The 24-105 received rating of 3 stars for optical quality as compared to 3.5 stars for 24-70 f/2.8 Mk2.

Jan 30, 2013 at 06:06 AM

StillFingerz
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p.4 #19 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

Thank you Roger, superb testing and analysis

With your f2.8 testing methodology, might I ask how you think the 24-70 f4L IS might fair.
I've an older non-L EF 24-85 that I'll be exploiting on a 6D in a few months but I'm interested in the new lighter IS lens. Don't really need the weight or speed of the f2.8 as most of my shooting is in daylight. Not interested in it's macro functionality, I've the 100L for that...

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Jerry

Jan 30, 2013 at 06:34 AM

Stoffer
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p.4 #20 · Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II: A Peerless Performer

thw2 wrote:
Klauss (Photozone) probably expected the lens to deliver tack-sharp images from corner to corner wide-open at every focal length. It appears the 24-70 f/2.8 Mk2 falls short a little at 70 mm. He's a rather demanding reviewer...

The 24-105 received rating of 3 stars for optical quality as compared to 3.5 stars for 24-70 f/2.8 Mk2.

The 3,5 star rating for optical quality is just ridiculous.

Jan 30, 2013 at 11:15 AM

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