A few days ago I tried the Canon RF 24-105mm f4L IS USM lens and I expected it to be great. The man in the shop let me to put the lens on my Canon R6 and I shot off a few frames inside the shop, so the light was mixed. Had the weather outside been better I might have asked to take a shot at least through the open door. But it was very dull and dark and raining so I didn’t.
Well, that and the fact that the man had told me the reason the cameras were behind glass in cases and not on the tables was because of theft. When I say the cameras could have been on the tables, I don’t mean loose on the tables but fastened down with a fixed white grip. Obviously it hadn’t been enough to protect them.
So I photographed one of the men serving in the shop. And when I put the images up on the screen I was shocked (that might be a bit strong of a word) to see that the images looked a bit lifeless. Desperate not to criticise the lens I put it down to the mixed lighting in the shop.
Then earlier today I watched a video of a photographer comparing various Canon RF lenses, and a couple of times he mentioned that the Canon RF 24-105mm f4L IS USM Lens lagged behind the others and that the shots seemed a bit flat and lacking contrast.
On the other hand, everyone says how lovely the Canon RF 28-70mm f2.8 IS STM Lens is.
I am not an impulse buyer when it comes to spending serious money. So I agonised and then agonised again and eventually bought a copy.
The photos that follow are substantial crops, and still you can tell what a good lens it is. This first crop is about one thirteenth of the total area of the frame. I shot the dancer at f/ 3.5, 1/1250 of a second at ISO 1000, and the man standing in the road at fl 2.8, 1/320 of a second atISO 200.
Hey, But
This is where some errant reader among my overwhelmingly intelligent readers thinks that primes are better than zooms so the results can’t be that good. The facts say otherwise.
Modern zoom lenses are not optically inferior to prime lenses, contrary to old beliefs. Primes still have advantages in size and weight, but then to cover the range of focal lengths that the zoom covers you need a bunch of primes. That fact is one of the compelling reason for zooms. The other reason is of course that it does away with having to switch primes all the time.
Maximum aperture, advancements in lens design and materials over the past 50 years have significantly improved zoom lens quality. That applies to primes and to zooms. Beyond a certain point the incremental differences show less and less significant results. The bottom line is that zooms and primes have converged in optical quality to the point that both of them are so good that the differences really don’t dictate one or the other.
Tests and discussions with experienced photographers confirm that, on average, zooms perform as well as primes—sometimes even better. That is not to say that someone might not have a bad copy.
It is an unpalatable fact thatIndividual lens performance varies, and you will only really know by testing to determine whether your lens is superior in quality. What you can do though is to narrow the field and choose a lens manufacturer known for consistent close tolerances.
Fine words, but the Canon RF 24-105mm f4L IS USM Lens disappointed me. Was it the copy I used in the shop? Who knows?
But the Canon RF 28-70mm f2.8 IS STM lens has not disappointed, at least not my copy.
