I finally had a chance to test my 24-105 G against my 24-70 GM. The weather warmed up from single digits and negative wind chill to a balmy 22 degrees. So I went down to my local lake and took some infinity test shots. The light was very blah totally overcast and a bit of light fog/haze from the temperature warming up so dramatically. So I wouldn't look too much at the rendering as much as the sharpness between these two fine zooms. The snow-covered lake bed in the foreground doesn't lend itself to testing the sharpness very well but the opposite shoreline with the homes and trees are the main show and they are at infinity distance.
These are straight out of the camera RAW files with only some light capture sharpening applied in LRCC (40, 0.8, 50, 0). I thought about tweaking the tone curve a bit as the light was changing a bit but decided to just let it go. I shot these on a tripod with cable release and no Steady shot. I selected the est of 3 images manually focused at each aperture. I have to say the manual focusing with the 24-105 G and A7R3 was very good. Much better than any focus-by-wire lens I've ever used.
My goal was to determine if the 24-105 G can hold it's own at 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 70mm at f/4, f/5.6 & f/8. This is what a primarily shoot my landscape images at with the 24-70 GM. I focus stack at f/5.6 and f/8.0 80+ % of the time when doing any serious landscape shooting. I'm happy to give up the f/2.8 and heavier weight for the flexibility of lighter weight and the increased focal length at 105mm.
My overall impression is that the 24-105 G handles very nicely these focal lengths and apertures when compared to the 24-70 GM. I tested my 24-70 GM against some of my primes including a Batis 25, 35 ZA, 50 ZA, and Loxia 50 and it performed very well against these primes. So I'm thrilled with the performance of this 24-105 G.
As Fred has said in his testing the 24-105 G is sharp wide open center to corner. I do see some very slight improvement when stopping down to f/5.6 and f/8. At 24mm and 35mm the GM is very slightly sharper in the extreme corners at f/4 but the G catches up and is comparable at f/5.6 and f/8. At 50mm and 70mm I give the extreme corners and mid-frame to the G over the GM. The centers at 50mm and 70mm are very similar and I would say a draw.
Fred, I'm not sure I'm seeing the same issues you had with the 24mm and 35mm test? I do see some slight improvement when I stop down from f/4 to f/5.6 and f/8.0. I focused all of these at the scene's center and infinity. When I have focus stacked shoots with both lenses the mid-frame and corners do show some improvement. Not sure if that is due to field curvature or just depth of field?
I finally had a chance to test my 24-105 G against my 24-70 GM. The weather warmed up from single digits and negative wind chill to a balmy 22 degrees. So I went down to my local lake and took some infinity test shots. The light was very blah totally overcast and a bit of light fog/haze from the temperature warming up so dramatically. So I wouldn't look too much at the rendering as much as the sharpness between these two fine zooms. The snow-covered lake bed in the foreground doesn't lend itself to testing the sharpness very well but the opposite shoreline with the homes and trees are the main show and they are at infinity distance.
These are straight out of the camera RAW files with only some light capture sharpening applied in LRCC (40, 0.8, 50, 0). I thought about tweaking the tone curve a bit as the light was changing a bit but decided to just let it go. I shot these on a tripod with cable release and no Steady shot. I selected the est of 3 images manually focused at each aperture. I have to say the manual focusing with the 24-105 G and A7R3 was very good. Much better than any focus-by-wire lens I've ever used.
My goal was to determine if the 24-105 G can hold it's own at 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 70mm at f/4, f/5.6 & f/8. This is what a primarily shoot my landscape images at with the 24-70 GM. I focus stack at f/5.6 and f/8.0 80+ % of the time when doing any serious landscape shooting. I'm happy to give up the f/2.8 and heavier weight for the flexibility of lighter weight and the increased focal length at 105mm.
My overall impression is that the 24-105 G handles very nicely these focal lengths and apertures when compared to the 24-70 GM. I tested my 24-70 GM against some of my primes including a Batis 25, 35 ZA, 50 ZA, and Loxia 50 and it performed very well against these primes. So I'm thrilled with the performance of this 24-105 G.
As Fred has said in his testing the 24-105 G is sharp wide open center to corner. I do see some very slight improvement when stopping down to f/5.6 and f/8. At 24mm and 35mm the GM is very slightly sharper in the extreme corners at f/4 but the G catches up and is comparable at f/5.6 and f/8. At 50mm and 70mm I give the extreme corners and mid-frame to the G over the GM. The centers at 50mm and 70mm are very similar and I would say a draw.
Fred, I'm not sure I'm seeing the same issues you had with the 24mm and 35mm test? I do see some slight improvement when I stop down from f/4 to f/5.6 and f/8.0. I focused all of these at the scene's center and infinity. When I have focus stacked shoots with both lenses the mid-frame and corners do show some improvement. Not sure if that is due to field curvature or just depth of field?
Jan 13, 2018 at 04:55 PM
Previous versions of Chuck Coyne's message #14325118 « New FE 24-105 f/4. How good? »
