Recently I had a thought about reconfiguring and possibly getting an RF 28-70mm L zoom. I realize the weight since I have a 70-200mm 2.8 zoom. But I noticed that one of the Canon explorers of light Vanessa, often uses the RF 28-70mm L and she seems to know how to handle and support the lens.
What I shoot most is redwood forest, and sometimes weddings and portraits. My number ONE lens has always been 85mm 1.2 L and presently I have the RF version. I picked up an RF 50mm 1.2 L which seems to get the most use in the forest. It's so good that I sold my Zeiss glass. That RF 50 is dazzling in the woods.I rarely use the 50 prime for people. Usually the zooms and the other primes.
What I have now:
Canon RF 50 1.2 L
Canon RF 85 1.2 L
Canon EF 135 f2 L
Tamron 24-70 VC 2.8
Tamron 70-200 VC 2.8
I am ruminating selling both the RF 50mm 1.2 and Tamron 24-70mm to replace with just the RF 28-70mm
A few things come to mind. The two lenses that would be sold are two that were used in the forest. The 28-70 L would have to be my primary forest lens - therefore exactly how good is that lens's images from forest or landscapes? Is the 85mm 1.2 and the RF 28-70 L sufficient to cover an entire wedding with intermittent swapping to the 135mm or long zoom?
Thanks for any pros and cons or insights that I may neglect to think about, and any you may have learned about the 28-70 from experience.
I do a lot of event work and the 28-70/2 is my primary lens for this. I had the EF 85/1.4L IS and prior to that the EF 85/1.2L. IMO, 70 and 85 are very close and I found I didn't use 85 that much and would usually jump to the 135/1.8, or use a 70-200 for flexibility. That said, the RF 85/1.2 is an excellent lens and it has its place. If Canon were to make a 100/1.4, I'd immediately pair it with the 28-70.
Over the years I was not a fan of the 24-70 style lenses. Just thought they were kind of boring, though definitely practical. The 28-70 changed my mind. At f/2 it's fast enough to supplant fast primes while greatly reducing lens changes and increasing flexibility. And it's sharp at f/2, if slightly less sharp at 70mm. But definitely sharp enough. I also use it on walkarounds, and around where I live, that means walks in the nearby conservation area/ravine. What I appreciate about the 28-70 compared to a lot of similar zooms is that it has a quite flat plane of focus - meaning minimal field curvature. And I found it had more pleasing out of focus bokeh than the RF 24-70/2.8. Not just more bokeh, but more pleasing quality. If it has a weakness for landscape use, it's that the far corners at 28mm need some stopping down and even then might not be quite as sharp as desired (at least my copy).
Was an early adopter of the 28-70. It was my go to lens of walk abouts in nature and street photography. It covered most of my needs. A times I paired it with the EF 11-24 for scenic photography. The weight of the 28-70 never bothered me especially with walk abouts. Though when pairing it with the 11-24 I was aware of the extra weight in my bag but it never stopped me from climbing mountain trails.
Although just a rumour a 24-70/2 is making it rounds as a replacement for the 28-70. When Sony released their lighter 28-70 the rumour mill started up on if or when Canon would release a MKII of the 28-70/2 but the latest rumour is 24-70/2 possibly September or Q4. If it is released the question arises how will it compare in IQ compared to a 28-70.
These days my 28-70 has taken a back seat to the VCM lenses. I have all 6 and usually take 3 VCMs out at a time for walk abouts in nature. Though if I was to go with just one lens I wouldn't think twice in taking the 28-70.
burningheart wrote:
Although just a rumour a 24-70/2 is making it rounds as a replacement for the 28-70. When Sony released their lighter 28-70 the rumour mill started up on if or when Canon would release a MKII of the 28-70/2 but the latest rumour is 24-70/2 possibly September or Q4. If it is released the question arises how will it compare in IQ compared to a 28-70.
That's an interesting possibility.
That could be just a month or two away, just before Christmas time.
So that raises another thing - would a 24-70mm f2 replacing the 28-70mm f2 drop used prices of the latter?
The 28-70 is spectacular from an IQ perspective wide open. Absolutely love it. The thing is that my use case for the lens has gone away as an empty nester. I would have killed for that lens 20 years ago. Given what you shoot (and where) I think it would be great. I took it with me to Norway for two weeks in January, thinking it will be both a great landscape lens and also a decent aurora lens - turned out that it's not great for either, because 28 isn't wide enough for astro and it's just too fat & heavy to carry around for landscapes. The girth of the zoom ring is not something to be underestimated long term - it's fine, but if you know that there's a f2.8 or f4 lens that's just as good for landscape use, twisting that f2 monster is just less enticing.
Don't get me wrong - absolutely love the lens and if I was still shooting people it would still be glued to the camera, just as it was six years ago. But just like my 200/2, it's a reminder of different days.
mdvaden wrote:
I am ruminating selling both the RF 50mm 1.2 and Tamron 24-70mm to replace with just the RF 28-70mm
A few things come to mind. The two lenses that would be sold are two that were used in the forest. The 28-70 L would have to be my primary forest lens - therefore exactly how good is that lens's images from forest or landscapes? Is the 85mm 1.2 and the RF 28-70 L sufficient to cover an entire wedding with intermittent swapping to the 135mm or long zoom?
Thanks for any pros and cons or insights that I may neglect to think about, and any you may have learned about the 28-70 from experience....Show more →
I'm a huge fan of the 28-70 f/2 for people and events, I used it on the R6 and now on the R5 II. I don't shoot weddings, but for family events I swap to the 70-200Z if I need more reach, which has worked really well for me.
I haven't used the 28-70 for landscapes as I shoot those on GFX. But I do use it for environmental portraits where it is clearly outresolving the sensor across the frame at f/5.6 (at least on my sample from 35mm or so onwards) so I think you definitely could use it for your forest work if you wanted.
Downsides:
- AF is fast, but not as fast or snappy as the newer lenses like the 70-200Z.
- my sample is definitely stronger at the long end and weakest at 28mm. It's not bad at 28mm by any means and gets better when you stop down, but mine is "solid" at 28mm wide or nearly wide open, rather than "great".
- if you are shooting landscapes only and know you won't need f/2, you might want to carry something lighter and less bulky into the field.
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mdvaden wrote:
So that raises another thing - would a 24-70mm f2 replacing the 28-70mm f2 drop used prices of the latter?
I'm not so sure that a replacement is imminent as image quality improvements would probably only be incremental, weight reduction a la Sony would be the only real update.
If so, given that used and new prices are already trending down, I don't know if there will be much of a further drop. Especially not if Canon prioritises weight and bulk reduction over distortion as they did with the VCM primes, but tries to stick to the same premium pricing: that approach seems to have split the market.
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stanj wrote:
The 28-70 is spectacular from an IQ perspective wide open. Absolutely love it. The thing is that my use case for the lens has gone away as an empty nester. I would have killed for that lens 20 years ago.
I give thanks every time I use it that my nesting period roughly coincided with a lens like this, reliable eye autofocus, a zero blackout viewfinder shooting in electronic shutter, and on my R5 II the face priority registration that generally does help pick the right kid out of the bunch running around.
Trying to do stuff like that in the EOS 30D era was far, far more challenging.
Regarding a possible Mark II or 24-70/2: based on discussions over on the Alt board that end up comparing lenses like the 28-70/2 against the new Sony, or the Leica 24-90/2.8-4, a member over there who owns all three basically feels the Canon is now bringing up the rear. While it's a great lens, the new Sony is, according to him, optically better and lighter.
In some respects, this isn't a huge surprise considering it took Sony ~7 years to respond to the RF 28-70/2, have had the advantage of seeing what worked with the Canon and were able to benefit from current technology to improve on it.
My feeling about the RF 28-70/2 is that it's perhaps an example of pinnacle EF-era design that was transferred to RF mount instead. It has low optical distortion compared to a lot of RF zooms and the VCM primes (on the wide end). It has relatively slow USM focusing compared to the much faster 'Z' zooms, VCMs, etc. And the overall optical 'look' from it is not the insane wide open sharpness of the Z zooms, rather a little more mellow, a little lower in contrast, a little lower in veiling flare resistance. What initially really pulled me in with the 28-70 was precisely this 'look' because it was sharp wide open, but a 'friendly' sharpness for people photos. And for me it was pleasant enough wide open to replace a bunch of fast primes in this range.
Having recently added the 7-year newer 70-200/2.8 Z, I now see that the 28-70/2 indeed has room for technical improvements if one is to use the Z zooms as a benchmark standard. Faster focusing, higher contrast rendering wide open, sharper wide open, better flare resistance.
But I still use the 28-70/2 and did not opt for the 24-105Z...
If a Mark II or 24-70/2 is released, impact on the current 28-70 second hand value will depend a lot on the new lens's MSRP. The current lens hasn't really been discounted much, if at all, since release. If Canon still has ample stock of it, then maybe there will be more attractive discounts while new old stock remains. This in turn might pull down used values somewhat. But if this isn't the case and the new lens arrives at a higher MSRP, you might not see used values drop by much. It may also depend on how much better the new lens is.
rscheffler wrote:
Having recently added the 7-year newer 70-200/2.8 Z, I now see that the 28-70/2 indeed has room for technical improvements if one is to use the Z zooms as a benchmark standard. Faster focusing, higher contrast rendering wide open, sharper wide open, better flare resistance.
Totally agree with you as that was my exact reaction when I rented the 70-200Z (resulting in my buying one). In fact the step up in contrast performance was visible to me with the first 24-105Z too, but after a couple of rentals I realised that for my usage it was better to retain the extra stop over the reach.
However I still think those improvements would be incremental, at least at the current 45MP, and wouldn't merit an upgrade. Personally I would need to see the contrast performance at f/2 leapfrog the Zs at f/2.8 to seriously consider an upgrade (faster AF would be nice but not game changing for me in this range). I wouldn't upgrade if image quality was the same or only matching the Zs at the same apertures, unless Canon somehow manages to pair that with a huge weight saving.
p.1 #10 · RF 28-70mm f2 L ... Your wisdom please !
What I'm gleaning here is that if Sony managed to make similar lenses lighter, Canon's possibly soon to come RF 24-70 or RF 28-70 ii L lenses may also be smaller and lighter. And for so much money, a brief amount of time to pause may be worth the small wait.
p.1 #11 · RF 28-70mm f2 L ... Your wisdom please !
Mario, if you don't need it right now, then you have time to wait and see, perhaps until next year's wedding season picks up again.
When I was recently at a camera store that had the Sony and Canon on display, I compared both and the Sony was indeed noticeably lighter, which was nice. But the physics of making this kind of lens seems to dictate that there's only so much that can be done about size reduction. The Sony was the same length but slightly narrower in diameter.
_Refraction wrote:
Totally agree with you as that was my exact reaction when I rented the 70-200Z (resulting in my buying one). In fact the step up in contrast performance was visible to me with the first 24-105Z too, but after a couple of rentals I realised that for my usage it was better to retain the extra stop over the reach.
However I still think those improvements would be incremental, at least at the current 45MP, and wouldn't merit an upgrade. Personally I would need to see the contrast performance at f/2 leapfrog the Zs at f/2.8 to seriously consider an upgrade (faster AF would be nice but not game changing for me in this range). I wouldn't upgrade if image quality was the same or only matching the Zs at the same apertures, unless Canon somehow manages to pair that with a huge weight saving. ...Show more →
I get what you're saying but I feel a bit differently. I'd prefer the overall look of a Mark II version to be similar to the Z, with respect to contrast. This would be a bigger sell for me because hopefully it would reduce my time currently spent in post getting the two to look the same. There's enough of a difference now for me to notice, though whether the layperson viewer of the images notices, is debatable.
