I find I use the 24-70L most of the time. I think it is just great. I have no experience with the 24-105 so I can not comment on it. Here is one I like with existing light.

Now we are getting there! Nice 24-105 shoots - let's see some more!

Here is a good comparision between 24-70 and 24-105:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/28-105.shtml

My decision has not made yet as to which one to own but I'm leaning
toward the 24-105 after reading the comparision.

You can search PBase by lens:

24-105/4L IS
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_24-105_4l_is_usm

24-70/2.8L
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_2470_28u

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dan

Looks like the 24-105 is kicking butt.

I'm sort of a hack but here are some on my humble shots with the 24-105 (which I really like).











I'd rather have both but if push came to shove I'd take the 24-105 and a fast prime over the 24-70...

Hrow wrote:
What I wasn't OK with was the image quality as it was not on par with my 24-70. I acknowledge that it may have been my copy but I have noted that a number of others have felt the same way.

I've no doubt that the 24-105 you tried was not up to your 24-70. Did you get a bad copy of the 24-105 or do you just have a great 24-70? (rhetorical question I know!)

As far as my experience with the 24-70 - 24-105 goes (they appear very equal to me IQ wise) did I get a great 24-105 or just have a bad 24-70?

I think the problem here is that we are all splitting hairs!

The 24-70 has certainly not been immune from the good copy/bad copy argument over the years! (I remember agonizing over mine, I thought it should be able to replace a 35L I had at the time!)

emgvod wrote:
I'm sort of a hack but here are some on my humble shots with the 24-105 (which I really like).



Good job!

I'll bet your car shots were done at f8 - high ISO and slower shutter speeds, just the kind of shots the 24-105 is good for.

Rich,

That indeed is the question of the day. For my shooting, I would prefer the 24-105 as theoritically, it is the perfect lens for me. I'll probably get another one in the spring to try it out and compare once again. The funny thing about it was that if I did a standard lens test,ie. boxes, walls and such, the two lens were virtually indistinguishable. However, when I looked at real world images there was a difference. At first I thought it was me being picky but I had a bunch of non-photographers compare the images and every one of them picked the 24-70 as the better quality image each and every time. Believe me, it wasn't what I wanted to hear as I rarely need 2.8, love the IS and it is enough smaller that it cases better with the rest of my kit.

Ron... very cool cat!

Mike... nice cars! I'll trade you my 24-70 for the Cobra.

rd4tile wrote:

I'll bet your car shots were done at f8 - high ISO and slower shutter speeds, just the kind of shots the 24-105 is good for.

I was trying to keep the ISO down so IS certainly helped. Exif is in the images but the Indy car was 24mm, f8, 1/13, Enzo 24mm, f8, 1/40, Cobra 24mm, f4, 1/20 - I do believe that IS helped on the first and thrid pics quite a bit. Compression for web obviously hurts sharpness - 100% crops are tack sharp.

MIke

IS - a marketing gimmick? Let's see your best 105mm shot at 1/12 hand held less than 18 inches from the subject.

I'll throw in my ¢.02. I've had two 24-70L's, two 28-70L's one Tamron 28-75 and the 24-105L IS. All the 24-70L's and 28-70L's were not as sharp as the Tamron and the Tamron is not as sharp as my 24-105L IS. The color and contrast is better on the 24-105 as well. All in all, I'm extremely happy with the 24-105L. The IS allows me to handhold very slow shutter speeds. If I want shallow DOF for portrait work, I shoot with my primes. The 24-105 is my absolute favorite lens though. The only thing I wish it had was f2.8, but for now I'm happy with it and my choice. (I traded a 24-70L + 85mm f1.8 for the 24-105L IS and some cash)

Joe Marques wrote:
IS - a marketing gimmick? Let's see your best 105mm shot at 1/12 hand held less than 18 inches from the subject.

akivisuals wrote:
I'll throw in my ¢.02. I've had two 24-70L's, two 28-70L's one Tamron 28-75 and the 24-105L IS. All the 24-70L's and 28-70L's were not as sharp as the Tamron and the Tamron is not as sharp as my 24-105L IS. The color and contrast is better on the 24-105 as well. All in all, I'm extremely happy with the 24-105L. The IS allows me to handhold very slow shutter speeds. If I want shallow DOF for portrait work, I shoot with my primes. The 24-105 is my absolute favorite lens though. The only thing I wish it had was f2.8, but for now I'm happy with it and my choice. (I traded a 24-70L + 85mm f1.8 for the 24-105L IS and some cash)

I really appreciate your comments here, but I just do not get the bottom line: "The only thing I wish it had was f2.8" You are saying your 24-105 was the sharpest? Sharper than your 24-70s? That is the first time I have heard that. I guess I have to at least take a look at one of those Tammys. You are lucky to have had all three

RGS65 wrote:
Joe Marques wrote:
IS - a marketing gimmick? Let's see your best 105mm shot at 1/12 hand held less than 18 inches from the subject.

Hrow wrote:
However, I also think that there is a downside to IS in that many shots that should be taken from a tripod won't be because of IS and a certain laziness that it can impart. This is not a criticism of Joe's shot in any way, shape or form but it is meant more to reflect the reality that we may lose something on the artistic side with the run and gun approach allowed by high ISO bodies and IS lenses. Sometimes such an approach is the only way to go and but at others, the more contemplative nature of working from a tripod serves me much better. This comment has nothing to do with which lens is "better" as one can always turn the IS off on the 24-105 but merely reflects some random thoughts relative to the whole issue of IS.

I love run and gun landscape & macro work. I'm on the road a lot for work and sometimes I'll see something I think is worth shooting and I'll just pull over walk around and fire away. I wish I had a full day here or there to just take my time and carefully compose off my gitzo but those days are few and far between. And I'd shoot more portraits if I could get anyone in my family to sit still for them (no grandkids on the horizon for the moment either) and when I'm doing the tourist/travel stuff with the wife it's like pulling teeth to get her to even break stride.

So the end result of the above is I'll take hundreds of pictures to hopefully get 2 or 3 keepers and f8 is the holy grail to me.

I'm not saying this to be argumentative with you or anyone else about how to shoot, the fact there are so many different ways of doing photography is part of the enjoyment.

But I certainly don't feel lazy or feel that because of my style I can't know what the differences is between a sharp lens / unsharp one or between a fast lens or a lens with IS.

It's obvious why I do not need to be convinced of the benefit of a lens like the 24-105L IS. All I would ask some of the others posting on this thread who keep asking what this lens is good for to realize there is life beyond f2.8!

RGS65 wrote:
akivisuals wrote:
I'll throw in my ¢.02. I've had two 24-70L's, two 28-70L's one Tamron 28-75 and the 24-105L IS. All the 24-70L's and 28-70L's were not as sharp as the Tamron and the Tamron is not as sharp as my 24-105L IS. The color and contrast is better on the 24-105 as well. All in all, I'm extremely happy with the 24-105L. The IS allows me to handhold very slow shutter speeds. If I want shallow DOF for portrait work, I shoot with my primes. The 24-105 is my absolute favorite lens though. The only thing I wish it had was f2.8, but for now I'm happy with it and my choice. (I traded a 24-70L + 85mm f1.8 for the 24-105L IS and some cash)

I really appreciate your comments here, but I just do not get the bottom line: "The only thing I wish it had was f2.8" You are saying your 24-105 was the sharpest? Sharper than your 24-70s? That is the first time I have heard that. I guess I have to at least take a look at one of those Tammys. You are lucky to have had all three

Well, I can confirm that the 24-105 IS is very sharp. I sold my 24-70 before I got my 24-105IS and swapped 20D > 5D at the same time, so I have no real material to compare, but what I know is that the 24-105 IS is an incredibly sharp lens wide-open.
The only 'scientific' test I can refer to is the lenstest in the French magazine 'Chasseur d'Images' which rates it's sharpness very good : higher as a 200-400 VR from Nikon and a EF-s 60mm macro, and that from 24 up to 105.

Flappie.

rd4tile wrote:
Hrow wrote:
However, I also think that there is a downside to IS in that many shots that should be taken from a tripod won't be because of IS and a certain laziness that it can impart. This is not a criticism of Joe's shot in any way, shape or form but it is meant more to reflect the reality that we may lose something on the artistic side with the run and gun approach allowed by high ISO bodies and IS lenses. Sometimes such an approach is the only way to go and but at others, the more contemplative nature of working from a tripod serves me much better. This comment has nothing to do with which lens is "better" as one can always turn the IS off on the 24-105 but merely reflects some random thoughts relative to the whole issue of IS.

I love run and gun landscape & macro work. I'm on the road a lot for work and sometimes I'll see something I think is worth shooting and I'll just pull over walk around and fire away. I wish I had a full day here or there to just take my time and carefully compose off my gitzo but those days are few and far between. And I'd shoot more portraits if I could get anyone in my family to sit still for them (no grandkids on the horizon for the moment either) and when I'm doing the tourist/travel stuff with the wife it's like pulling teeth to get her to even break stride.

So the end result of the above is I'll take hundreds of pictures to hopefully get 2 or 3 keepers and f8 is the holy grail to me.

I'm not saying this to be argumentative with you or anyone else about how to shoot, the fact there are so many different ways of doing photography is part of the enjoyment.

But I certainly don't feel lazy or feel that because of my style I can't know what the differences is between a sharp lens / unsharp one or between a fast lens or a lens with IS.

It's obvious why I do not need to be convinced of the benefit of a lens like the 24-105L IS. All I would ask some of the others posting on this thread who keep asking what this lens is good for to realize there is life beyond f2.8!



The laziness I was referring to was really my own. I almost always have a tripod in the car and when I had the 24-105 it came out a whole lot less than when I am using the 24-70. In retrospect I think it hurt my shooting as I was not as aware of my surroundings and missed some elements in the images that may have otherwise helped. I tend to be pretty contemplative and slow in a lot of my shooting as a holdover from my view camera days and I am still finding that 80% of the images that I shoot that I like are tripod based. In part my feeling of satisfaction with these images is because I have developed a relationship with the scene based on studying it before shooting rather than just clicking away. However, that is just my way of doing things and to each his own is a philosophy that I really try to embrace.

These comments are obviously very dependent on ones shooting style and I apologize if I left the impression that I think that people who don't use tripods or that run and gun are lazy. That certainly wasn't my intent. Chalk it up to a Saturday morning following a late Friday night miscue of words.

Hrow wrote:

These comments are obviously very dependent on ones shooting style and I apologize if I left the impression that I think that people who don't use tripods or that run and gun are lazy. That certainly wasn't my intent. Chalk it up to a Saturday morning following a late Friday night miscue of words.


No offence taken as I knew exactly what you were saying. I just wanted to explain why the 24-105 is such a great lens for me! I see a lot of "fast glass - fast glass" talk like it's the end all be all but I just wonder sometimes if everyone throwing all that money out really needs some of those lenses. I know I didn't, I've owned the 35L, 85L and 300 f2.8L IS and the images from them are breathtaking. I sold them all because I just didn't use them wide open much and the pictures I wasn't taking because of their limitations (for my shooting style above) had no quality at all! When I looked at shots from the 24-105 vs the 35 or from my 100-400 (off a tripod! ) vs the 300 I realized the quality difference was an acceptable trade off for me!