I have owned my 24-105 lens for the past 2 weeks...in that time i have taken tons of pictures and every one of them has made me smile...in fact i have had nothing but praise for this lens,its sharpness and the wonderful IS...it has in a short time become my favorite lens....along comes this story about flare problems and all of a sudden the sky is falling....i have searched through my pictures to find any evidence of the problem with no luck...i have shot pictures trying to reproduce it with no luck....ordinarlily,my problems have been that a lens that is universally prasied is not performing well for me ..in this case i cant say enough good things about this lens and yet here i am trying to find the fault that everybody is writing about...to me it is quite ironic.....I do not dispute that the problem exists,im only suggesting that if i hadnt read about it most likely i never would have known about it or perhaps i would have noticed a picture with evidence of flare as i have in the past with other len's and just chalked it up to the angle of the light or simple flare....so much of everything we buy and or do is psychological and clearly nobody wants to won a product that others are saying is not functioning properly...even if they have no evidence themselves of the problem....
in my case id be afraid to give up this lens for fear that i would get a different copy that isnt as sharp etc...again,an interesting problem
Not everybody thinks the sky is falling. After reading about the flare problem, I'm now convinced that I need to buy that lens. If that's the biggest issue people can find after frantically running every flare test in existence, it must be a darn good lens.
In fact, I suspect that Canon is doing this as a publicity stunt to get people talking about the 5D and the 24-105L. This won't hurt sales at all, sales will go up.
The "photon torpedo" version will sell on e-bay for twice the original cost.
The problem is only happening at very wide apertures, and very short focal lengths. I dind't notice it until it was posted about, either. Canon will fix the problem...until then, I'm keeping my lens and using it as-is. It's a great lens. I love it.
I am using the lens with my 20d..i have several primes and the new 70-300 as well..i also own the 70-200 4.0 and recently sold both my 24-70 2.8 and my 35 1.4....as i said,i love this new lens and i have plenty to compare it to.
Maybe there was just a batch with this problem. Mine is destined to become my most used lens for sure. ISO 400-800 and this lens and you are in business.
theory time: so what happened? everybody on all the forums who bought the lens were almost unanimous in their praise of its performance. indeed all the pics posted looked good. those owners who found flare thought ok so it flares in a certain situation, but then all my w/a lenses when wide open flare in some situations. no big deal. then suddenly canon decides to do a recall and stops current production! no other manufacturer has ever done this to my knowledge on any product unless health and safety is an issue. is the lens going to explode or damage your retina? i don't think so. does ford recall models because their cars max out at 118 mph instead of the advertised 120 mph. i don't think so. everyone who had this lens and expressed an opinion on the various forums all said it was pretty darn good. OR did some photo mag reviewers find this fault and say to canon, we can't give this lens a 9/10 because of this flare problem, we can only give it a 7/10. hence the recall. any thoughts on this?
Perhaps the greatest irony is that people buy special effects filters to mount on their lenses in an attempt to create weird flares. Canon offers this feature for free.
leaving for my big winter of travels just before NY's eve. After all the hoopla, and this waiting period for shipment, now recall, what are the chances I will be able to have one delivered before last week of december, IYO?
Bobster2 wrote:
In fact, I suspect that Canon is doing this as a publicity stunt to get people talking about the 5D and the 24-105L. This won't hurt sales at all, sales will go up.
The "photon torpedo" version will sell on e-bay for twice the original cost.
I took "Photon Torpedo" over to DPR for a secondary vote in the provinces: Here
Fine work Bobster!
John Power wrote:
Maybe there was just a batch with this problem. Mine is destined to become my most used lens for sure. ISO 400-800 and this lens and you are in business.
If it is just a batch, than there should be people owning the lens who can't repeat the problem. Than we can collect serial numbers from lenses with the problem and lenses without. Would be a nice thing to know.
i will add that luminous landscape reviewed the lens carefully did a comparison with the 24-70 and came to an overwhelmingly positive conclusion...so now perhaps armed with this new info they should decide the lens really isnt excellent and instead undertake a study to see if they can find the problem?...the whole thing is rather silly...
I agree with the topic creator.
I have this lens with my 1DmkIIN and it's fantastic.
I also have had other lens in this focal zoom like Tamron 28-75f2.8, Canon 24-70f2.8, Canon 35mmF1.4, Canon 17-40f4, Canon 50mm, Sigma 18-50f2.8 to name a few. This lens standout above all the rest.
IS works like a charm.
Sharpness, color, contrast are wonderful.
I've try to get the flare but not success. Maybe I'll try harder.
I won't give up this lens as it is the best lens in my bag.
I'll keep other primes with my 2nd body if I want low-light moving object photos ...
OK, I've tried shooting into the sun, with the sun in the corners of the viewfinder, in the edges of the VF and just outside of the corners and edges of the VF all at 24/f4 with no strange flaring. In fact, hardly any flaring at all.
Since it's extremely rare that I shoot into the sun anyway (some sunrises and sunsets but never full day sun) and unless I see the flaring in the future I'm just going to forget this ever happened.
--c
