Here's my 2 cents on this - for what it's worth (probably less than 2 cents )
There are people who have posted on this thread that they really like their 24-105, others have not been so impressed. I have had 1 copy of the 24-105 since 2018 and generally think it's a pretty good lens - for its age (and I have my fingers crossed for a soon to be upgrade). Mine does show weakness at the long end, but that is pretty typical of zooms, and at the wide end, it's pretty good, but does not measure up to a prime (vs Loxia 25)
When the 20-70 came out, many people, both reviewers and here, gave some pretty high praise to that lens. When a friend got one to evaluate I was able to shoot it side-by-side with my 24-105 one afternoon. I did not shoot a bunch of charts under laboratory controlled conditions, but rather a representative landscape scene. It was an overlook that looked out over a town with mountains in the background. I used a tripod. There was a lot of detail there to look at and compare at common focal lengths of 24, 50 and 70mm.
Back home on my computer (an older i-mac with a 21" retina display), I saw very little difference between the identical images from the 2 lenses at 100%. zoomed in. Certainly, there wasn't the difference I expected given the fanfare accorded to the 20-70.
From this I have concluded:
a). my 24-105 is above average
b). his 20-70 was below average
c). my vision isn't good enough to see the difference
I kept the 24-105 due to its greater reach
In statistics, we call this "an N of 1", so really, no inference can actually be made from this test that is applicable to the population of 24-105 and 20-70 lenses out there.
Here's my 2 cents on this - for what it's worth (probably less than 2 cents )
There are people who have posted on this thread that they really like their 24-105, others have not been so impressed. I have had 1 copy of the 24-105 since 2018 and generally think it's a pretty good lens - for its age (and I have my fingers crossed for a soon to be upgrade). Mine does show weakness at the long end, but that is pretty typical of zooms, and at the wide end, it's pretty good, but does not measure up to a prime (vs Loxia 25)
When the 20-70 came out, many people, both reviewers and here, gave some pretty high praise to that lens. When a friend got one to evaluate I was able to shoot it side-by-side with my 24-105 one afternoon. I did not shoot a bunch of charts under laboratory controlled conditions, but rather a representative landscape scene. It was an overlook that looked out over a town with mountains in the background. I used a tripod. There was a lot of detail there to look at and compare at common focal lengths of 24, 50 and 70mm.
Back home on my computer (an older i-mac with a 21" retina display), I saw very little difference between the identical images from the 2 lenses at 100%. zoomed in. Certainly, there wasn't the difference I expected given the fanfare accorded to the 20-70.
From this I have concluded:
a). my 24-105 is above average
b). his 20-70 was below average
c). my vision isn't good enough to see the difference
In statistics, we call this "an N of 1", so really, no inference can actually be made from this test that is applicable to the population of 24-105 and 20-70 lenses out there.
Here's my 2 cents on this - for what it's worth (probably less than 2 cents )
There are people who have posted on this thread that they really like their 24-105, others have not been so impressed. I have had 1 copy of the 24-105 since 2018 and generally think it's a pretty good lens - for its age (and I have my fingers crossed for a soon to be upgrade). Mine does show weakness at the long end, but that is pretty typical of zooms, and at the wide end, it's pretty good, but does not measure up to a prime (vs Loxia 25)
When the 20-70 came out, many people, both reviewers and here, gave some pretty high praise to that lens. When a friend got one to evaluate I was able to shoot it side-by-side with my 24-105 one afternoon. I did not shoot a bunch of charts under laboratory controlled conditions, but rather a representative landscape scene. It was an overlook that looked out over a town with mountains in the background. There was a lot of detail there to look at and compare at common focal lengths of 24, 50 and 70mm.
Back home on my computer (an older i-mac with a 21" retina display), I saw very little difference between the identical images from the 2 lenses at 100%. zoomed in. Certainly, there wasn't the difference I expected given the fanfare accorded to the 20-70.
From this I have concluded:
a). my 24-105 is above average
b). his 20-70 was below average
c). my vision isn't good enough to see the difference
In statistics, we call this "an N of 1", so really, no inference can actually be made from this test that is applicable to the population of 24-105 and 20-70 lenses out there.
Like I said in the beginning "FWIW".
Happy New year
Doug
Dec 28, 2025 at 05:47 PM
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